The Monthly Stay Places filter

[Susan990]

Hello Fellow Hosts and Guests,

   Have you all noticed that the much needed Monthly Stay product platform has disappeared?  I  have been informed

of this change via my customer service person since I placed at ticket order to  'fix' the ever glitching new platform

with issues since its launch.

   Airbnb could have posted a notice to all users, like myself, that this platform was removed altogether. Instead leaving

me hanging out with no information while my  two monthly stay exclusively guest houses hang in limbo waiting for bookings. 

' As a long tenured super host since 2013 I think I deserved notice of this major event. And an explanation as to why this very

popular new filter has been eliminated. I consider the monthly stay market a great money maker for Airbnb and Host. 

  People do not travel casually for entertainment anymore.  They travel with purpose and life and work needs.  The lodging

market needs to serve their needs.  Airbnb products stand ready to serve that need~~~but the platform failed at launch and now

has been deleted. Airbnb needs better coders and smarter leadership at the top.

[Ann72]

@Susan990  This is especially galling when the rest of us find this suggestion on our dashboard:

When you click through, you get this:

Clicking through two more times brings you to the help article about setting up long term stays, https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2729/how-do-i-get-started-with-longer-stays

Are you saying that there used to be a specific long-term-stay filter?  These recent notices seem to suggest guests can filter for long term stays.

[Susan990]

So they have not removed the rest of the Monthly Stay Places platform. I worked through all that when it launched and has my 2 guest houses posted as monthly stay exclusively.  Mine are truly monthly stay minimum, no short terms. That market is dead for my area so the monthly stay platform was a godsend.

Now it is removed as a stand alone product offering.

A great loss for Airbnb.   Because the public was just catching onto the idea of searching for long term places to stay which delightfully were not actual leases or rental agreeements, so you can customize your

reservation perfectly and enjoy exemption from vacation rental taxation. Taxes come to about the same as or more than the rate Airbnb charges the guest.  In my area it is 10%. So now using Airbnb to find 

a rental is very competitive pricewise for fees.   A win / win all around.

  The platform when launched was so defective, it crashed all the time, just fell off the screen, that I think

they gave up on fixing it and just ripped it out.

[Susan990]

Yes, that is what I am saying.  And your information suggests they only launched it in target market test areas and not all around.  My area is Bend, Oregon which is our hottest market in Oregon.

What it looked like was that on top of the front page of  Switch to Traveling you saw 4 products

to click box.

Places to Stay    Monthly Stay Places     Experiences   On-line Experiences

That is the full expression on my desk top.  On my Iphone it presents in a compresed format:

asking just where do you want to go, then drop down of  Places to Stay and Monthly Stays- separating the two products.  Now that is gone too.

[Susan990]

You are so right about the prompts and encouragement to sign up for 28+ day stays, following the agreement terms about cancellations, etc. which apply and then seeing your Listing get posted on

the Monthly Stay Places platform and then without notice or explanation they rip it out all together.

It would have been some consolation to simply add a (filter) option which reads -monthly stay places-

as an option to search. You know its not always about a pre-determined date /time. Half the time you just want to see what properties are out there of a specific type and then later save them for future travel..

the word Places suggests just such a shopping for something you want to buy, but not today.

[Anonymous]

Maybe there's something I'm missing here - if you put a period of multiple months into the date field of your search, are the results not "monthly stays" by default? 

[Susan990]

I am not talking about date fields to search.  For a short period of time the front page top banner

read like this:    Places to Stay   Monthly Stay Places   On-Line Experiences    Experiences

In other words there were 4 products offered . Now the Monthly Stay Places is removed and we

are back to 3 products posted.

[Anonymous]

@Susan990  The interface probably varies by region as well as by whether you're using app or desktop. For me, if I go directly to the splash page most of the screen is taken up by "Go Near," foregrounding listings within my region. "Monthly Stays" appears as the first of the sub-categories beneath that, alongside "Work or learn from anywhere," "Pet-friendly homes," and "National parks and stays near nature."

Most of the listings that display under this banner are also available for short-term stays, but they tend to have monthly discounts.

[Susan990]

That is news to me. I understand the differences presented to desk top vs  app., but for me

there is nowhere to be found Monthly Stay Places. My splash screen does start with the Go Near

and the rest you mention as well. So it must be a regional thing they are experimenting with?

It has been removed from all my devices at this point.

[Susan990]

My apologies Andrew, I had not clicked on the Go Near and what you describe does appear below but I still think it is a mistake and negative to maximizing earnings to have removed it from the top bar for products offered. The whole marketing benefits of having Monthly Stay Places next to Places to Stay

creates a whole new reason to visit the site plus an expansion of awareness of all that the Airbnb platform

has to offer. More is better.

[Anonymous]

@Susan990  It would be interesting to have data showing us which filters guests use to reach our listings. I notice a lot of hosts fret about how their listings place in an unfiltered general search of a whole city, which from the guest end seems like an awfully weird way to find a property. Seems logical to me that the more fields you use to refine your search, the more suitable your results will be. 

But admittedly I can't put myself in the position of someone using Airbnb for long-term stays, because I really don't think highly of this as a platform for anything over a month. And I especially don't identify with someone who thinks "I'd like to rent someone else's home for several months, but I don't know where or when."

[Susan990]

You bring up a good point and the answer is that both hosts and guests are figuring out that there are huge advantages to using Airbnb for a long term place to live and work over conventional rental housing. It's not just the ability to reserve just the exact amount of time you want - it's the fact that you are still selling time and not real estate. And  when the time is run out the guest must depart at check-out.  This is a great benefit to me personally because my guests never acquire renter's rights. For the guest they come to realize that they are protected by Airbnb with a separation of the owner/landlord from their money.

And all the rest that Airbnb does for its customers. I wondered if the Property Management industry was catching onto this new 'market' Airbnb had created and like the Hotel industry pushing back against this competition in some areas. And it fits with the tradition Airbnb started with redefining travel lodging in creative new ways to meet the needs of a changing world.

[Huma0]

@Susan990 

I have been hosting long-term guests for a few years now and have always found there is a demand. You are probably right though that demand now might be increasing.

While I would not consider having a long-term tenant situation with an Airbnb guest, i.e. someone who plans to stay indefinitely and just keeps extending and extending, for some of the reasons you mention, I find that I much prefer long-term Airbnb guests to the lodgers I had before. In my experience, the former normally behaves like they are guests in your home, not like they own the place.

A long-term stay via Airbnb is ideal for many guests who are not in a position to take out a full rental agreement for one year, or even six months, and therefore happy to pay more for it. My long-term guests typically fall into these categories:

- People relocating to London who need a bit of time to find a LTR as it's not an easy task to do this in London and you need to be here for viewings. They are sometimes also looking for a job (e.g. a recent graduate) but more often they are starting a new job.

- Locals who are in the process of buying a property, but need somewhere to stay until completion.

- Foreign students (usually postgrad rather than undergrad).

- People coming here for internships, courses or short-term work contracts. These can range from university professors to professional dancers.

So many hosts say that Airbnb is not set up for long-term stays, but in my experience, it works very well. You just have to be selective about whom you host and very aware of local laws regarding tenants' rights etc.

[Anonymous]

@Susan990  I don't know how it is in your location, but in most US jurisdictions it would would be dead wrong to say that monthly Airbnb guests never acquire renter's rights.  

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/805/ :

In most states and localities in the United States, guests who stay in a home or apartment for one month or longer—the exact number of days depends on jurisdiction—may establish rights as a tenant. Generally, this means that local tenancy laws could protect them, and you may not be able to remove them from your property without proceeding through required eviction processes in court.

For example, in California, Illinois, and New York, a residential tenancy may be created after 30 consecutive days of occupancy. Someone who stays with you for fewer than 30 days generally does not have the rights of a tenant unless there is a written agreement to the contrary, but every state is different.

Local laws may differ from state laws regarding residential tenancies. We encourage you to review your local rules and regulations before accepting a long-term reservation.

[Huma0]

I had no idea this platform even exists. Is this for listings that allow stays of a month or more, or listings that have a minimum stay of a month or more? Does one have to sign up to it or is it automatically applied to those listings? @Susan990  did you find it got you more bookings?

I host long-term guests only now, but have a 21 day minimum on my listings. I would consider increasing this to 28 days if there was some tangible benefit in doing so.