Should I change my maximum room occupancy from two guests to one?

[Huma0]

Hello, I've been hosting in my own home, where I have three guest bedrooms, for a few years. At first, I hosted both short and long term guests and now I focus on long term, so my normal minimum stay is 28 nights. Occasionally, if I have a large gap in between bookings, e.g. three weeks, I might do a rule set to open up those dates to slightly shorter stays, e.g. two or three weeks.

As all the rooms are large enough to accommodate two guests for short stays, each has a maximum occupancy of two. However, I never intended to have two guests per room for longer stays and it was never a problem as long term guests are usually solo travellers. If they did occasionally have a partner, friend or family member visit for a few days, I would send them a separate request for the guest fee - not ideal I know, but there doesn't seem to be any way to change the number of guests for only part of a stay.

My dilemma is this, I have recently noticed more and more couples and pairs wanting to book my rooms for fairly long stays and I'm not very keen. Even if I have a couple in one of the rooms and solos in the other two, the house starts to feel too crowded,  especially as all the bathrooms are technically shared. It becomes difficult to keep the kitchen clean and tidy, the fridge and cupboards start overflowing and people sometimes get irritated when the laundry facilities aren't immediately available. I find three guests manageable, but four guests a lot to keep on top of and, with my current settings, I could potentially end up with six guests simultaneously! 

Should I change the settings to one guest max per room? I think this could A. put off potential guests who might want a friend to visit for a few days (happens quite often) and B. undersell the rooms, indicating that they are smaller than they are.

I never had this issue in the past, but I can see it becoming more common. Today, I had one couple (very nice people) move out after 3.5 months and immediately got a IB for another couple.

[Lorna170]

@Huma0   It may be best to list for one guest and then have a note in your description that you may accept 2 guests for shorter (or longer) periods.  Then when you get an inquiry or request you can judge whether or not to accept based on the rental periods of the other rooms.

[Huma0]

@Lorna170 

Thank you! I had thought about doing that and it is likely the way I'll go as I don't see many other options. However, they are not going to see that in the search results, or on an initial glance (how many read that much when first perusing?) so it could mean that people don't click on my listing.

For example, a guest booking the room for one person for two months, but wanting a friend to visit for one week of that, might search for rooms that accommodate two people, just to be sure that's an option.

I don't know. I guess I'll just have to try and see what happens.

[Mark116]

@Huma0  That's a tough call, in a perfect world you would be able to have a different guest threshold for short v. long term bookings.  You could try doing everything for 1 guest and then if your bookings and views drop dramatically  you can re-instate the 2 people per room.  Your alternative, which is a pain and will also affect your search placement, would be to decline requests for 2 people when the house is already 'full'.  So, I don't really have much helpful to recommend:) unfortunately.

[Huma0]

@Mark116 

Thanks for your suggestions. Yes, that would be perfect if that option was available. Guess I'm not in that common a position though.

Your second idea is basically the way I've been approaching it so far. A few weeks ago, there were a pair of friends who wanted to book one of the rooms for a long stay and I turned them away. They really tried to convince me but I stuck to my guns. Luckily that was just an enquiry.

Then I got a 3.5 month booking from a guy who asked if his girlfriend could visit occasionally. She would only stay a couple of days each time. However, her circumstances changed and she ended up here for almost the entire stay. It was hard to say no, having already met her and them both being lovely people. I  am pretty sure they would have cancelled altogether if I had said no, as they don't want to be apart.

Lovely as they were, they were home most of the time and the house felt very crowded. I really noticed the extra cleaning involved and it was hard to stay on top of, so I am sure the other guests noticed as well.

During this time, I got a booking from a lovely girl who asked if her boyfriend could stay over regularly (she was happy to pay extra). It would maybe be two or three nights a week most weeks. I was wary, but willing to consider it. In the end, she decided it was too expensive, which is lucky because now I realise that would have been really too much.

So, I decided better to turn away pairs and couples from now on. And then today I got an instant booking from a couple... Seeing as the room is advertised as for two people, I didn't really have a valid reason to cancel penalty free.

Sure, I could then change the occupancy rate for the other rooms down to one, but that's still too many people. The only way then to stick to a maximum of three guests (would also prefer this due to COVID) would be to block one of the bedrooms, which would be a bit loss of income over a long stay. The extra person fee for the couple would certainly not cover it.

[Lorna170]

@Huma0   It is going to be tricky to figure out how it best works.  However, if your singleton guests are always asking if a girlfriend or boyfriend can stay over from time to time, you may want to let them know that they have to book their entire stay as two people, not just pay an extra guest fee for the days they tell you that the other person is also staying.  The extra money in your pocket may help you tolerate the crowding.  Another option would be to have two of your rooms for 1 guest only, and only one room available for 2 guests.  

[Huma0]

@Lorna170 

Yes, it's starting to get complicated when it never really was before.

I think part of the issue is that I host mostly UK based guests since COVID. Before, long term guests would sometimes have an additional guest stay over for a short visit, i.e. usually only a few nights, or at the most two weeks. It absolutely didn't make sense for them to book for two people and I was happy just to apply an additional person fee for those two nights.

Recently though, due to hosting more local guests, I have been getting many, many requests for people to have boyfriends/girlfriends stay over regularly. However, they are not willing to book the room for two people. They don't want to pay that if the person isn't going to be there every night (can add up over a long stay).

Also, although the extra money could help me to tolerate the crowding, I am not sure it would help the other guests tolerate it and I can see my reviews and ratings slipping. And, to be honest, I don't think I would be able to tolerate having the additional guests here on an ongoing or regular basis. It's just too many people and too much work.

I think I will seriously consider reducing my maximum occupancy to one person per room and adding a note on the listing like you suggested, to explain that paying visitors can be accommodated for short stays. I just need to figure out the right wording.

Then, if I notice a decline in bookings (hard to judge these days with things so up and down), I can always change it.

[Huma0]

Something like:

"My listings are ideal for long term stays and solo travellers. Each room is available for one person only, but can can accommodate two during the occasional short visit by a friend, family member or partner, if agreed and paid for in advance (an extra person fee will apply). Please enquire about this before you book. Regular overnight visitors are not permitted."

[Kia272]

@Huma0  Couldn't you change capacity based on your longest-term stay? In other words, if you receive a long-term booking for two people in one of your rooms, could you not then lower the capacity of the other rooms to 1, or snooze one of the other listings for the duration of the long-term stay? 

You may have a bridge period in which you have a bit of over capacity-overlap and until you figure out how to tweak your calendar, capacity,  and availability, but I think overall this makes sense. 

Ideally you would have consistent and steady long-term bookings in at least one of the rooms, and make the other rooms work around that. 

It could be a bit of a juggling act initially, but I think you could make it work. 

My two cents. Good luck! Kia

[Huma0]

Thanks @Kia272 

That is certainly something to consider and I have thought about that but I am not sure it works out in terms of the return for the amount of effort. The problem is that snoozing one listing (or just blocking those dates) is going to lose me money, while I have to host the same number of guests.

Sure, I might save slightly on time cleaning the rooms/laundering bed linens, and maybe even heating one of the bedrooms during winter with one room empty but, otherwise, the two guests in one room are going to take almost as much time/effort/expenses than two separate guests in two separate rooms, but pay far less. Maybe some hosts charge the same as for two separate rooms, but I think that would be very rare and few guests would be willing to pay it.

So, say I get, just as a rough example, £45 per night per room with one guest staying and £15 for a second guest in the same room, then that works out to:

3 x single occupancy guests = £135 per night

OR

1 x single occupancy + 1 x double occupancy + 1 room empty = £105 per night

Doesn't seem like a huge difference, but it is the same number of guests in the house, all using shared facilities such as bathrooms and the kitchen and more.

Imagine that £30 loss multiplied over those long term stays, i.e. at least a month (around £900) or two months (£1,800) for almost the same amount of work/expenses.

Also, maybe it's just my personal experience and, of course, there are exceptions to the rule, I find that couples/pairs are not as good as cleaning up after themselves as solo travellers generally tend to be. Maybe they just expect the other person in the couple to do this or that and don't notice when it's not done. I have frequently had to ask, "Sorry, are these your dirty dishes? They've been sitting in the sink for a while..." and the response is often, "Erm, I am not sure. Maybe?"

[Huma0]

Also, @Kia272 

I am not dismissing your suggestions. I appreciate your input and it does make sense if I am thinking about getting the maximum bookings possible. If it was just that, I'd go for it, but I guess I am feeling overwhelmed by the idea of having two many guests in my house (especially these days) and it doesn't make sense to host the same number of guests for less money.

The vast majority of my long term guests have been solo. I've just seen quite an unusual rise in couples/pairs of friends wanting to book lately. I don't know why that is. The only reason I can think of is that COVID has meant that more people can work remotely and therefore couples who might have previously been less mobile than singles are suddenly able to work from anywhere. Or maybe it's because there are more people in flux due to COVID (changing jobs, changing careers, changing cities, returning to study or just moving home and needing somewhere temporary in the meantime) than before, and long term stays often attract people in those situations. It's just more likely now that both people in the couple are in that position rather than settled in a permanent home.

Then again, maybe it has nothing to do with COVID at all!

[Linda108]

Previously I had two private rooms available but only for the same party and only for short term.  So I would end up with 4 guests, especially if they were attending a large music festival in my area.  I liked the extra income, but felt so outnumbered by guests that it was stressful for me.  Recently I have removed the second room option and now only singles and couples stay with me.  SO much easier and less stressful.  However, that being said, I am not dependent on the income so I can make that choice.  

I wonder about the financial benefit of long term guests versus short term ones.  Long term rates can be 40% lower than the nightly rate for short term and, yes, you do not have the turn over cleaning chores, but have you compared the wear and tear on your home and your nerves to have so many roommates?  Perhaps a financial analysis of the combination of long and term in your three rooms along with the impact of having fewer people day in and day out would help you find the perfect balance.  Just  a thought.

[Sarah977]

@Mark116  "in a perfect world you would be able to have a different guest threshold for short v. long term booking"

She could do that by having 2 listings for each room, or one room, with one listing having a short term booking window and a max of two guests, and the other available long term with a 1 gues max.

@Huma0  I can totally relate to your dilemma. Although I only rent to solo guests, and the room is only suitable for one, having a single size bed, when I first started hosting, I was planning to list also my bedroom, which is larger and has a queen bed, for couples. My idea was that I would link the listings, so if one got booked, the other would become unavailable, and I would just stay in whichever room wasn't booked.

I'm a minimalist, so I could easily move my personal stuff from one room to the other in about 15 minutes and clean the room that was booked. And the bathroom is in between the 2 bedrooms, with a door at each end to each bedrooom, so it can become an ensuite for either room, just locking off the door to whichever room I'm in. (I use the downstairs bathroom when I have guests)

But at that point, I didn't know how to link listings, and was given contradictory and confusing advice about it, so I just started with the single room for one. 

After hosting solo guests for awhile, I realized I really liked that. They do have their own private bathroom, but share my kitchen. I just found solo travelers to be easy to deal with, self-sufficient, most of them easy-goingly sociable, and I didn't end up feeling outnumbered by strangers in my own home, which I would be if I hosted couples. 

As you expand on your experiences here, it seems like hosting single guests is really what works best for you, so it's just a matter of whether you'll get enough bookings to make it worthwhile. We don't have to be open to couples simply because a lot of them are looking for places to book.

To me, it seems like if you were going to host couples, it would actually be better to do it for long-term bookings than the short ones. A long term guest is a known factor, you can work things out with them for household compatibility (no, dear guest, it's not okay to assume your partner will wash the dishes and feign innocence when they haven't). 

If you opened up short term bookings to couples, you would still have the problem of too many guests in the house, but it would be more of a problem, it would seem, because they aren't staying long enough to establish a household understanding re cleaning up after themselves, etc. Also couples tend to not be as sociable in a home share setting, because they have each other to relate to, which can feel a bit strange in a house shared with singles and a single host.

If I were a single guest staying in a home share, I think I'd find it more comfortable to be sharing with other singles, rather than a couple. So there's that factor, as well.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

I hadn't thought about that. That could work because I only very rarely open up the calendar for shorter stays (two-three weeks). It's just to fill longish gaps in between the long term bookings. I don't bother anymore if it's only going to be less than a couple of weeks as I don't want a stream of people in and out these days.

So, I could have separate listings where all the dates are blocked bar those occasional short gaps. Of course, that means that the new listings would start off with zero reviews.

To be honest though, I am starting to think I should avoid stays of even two-three weeks. I recently opened up a couple of my listings for those as I have gaps coming up (long term guests don't often tend to stay over the holiday period, so I usually have guests leaving some time before Christmas and the next ones not coming until some point in January).  The quality of enquiries/requests is really troubling. I've had to turn pretty much everyone away and cancel the two instant bookings I got. The one booking I already had for that period was cancelled by the guest.

Firstly, people do not seem to understand that they cannot quarantine at my listings. This should be pretty obvious given that it's a shared house, but I also have it written very clearly on my listing. People just ignore that. I feel like those required to self-isolate, i.e. people coming from abroad, are not planning to follow the regulations at all. Why they would assume that I am willing to put myself/my other guests at risk and break the law is beyond me. I guess some hosts will do exactly that because they need the money, but I would rather not.

[Huma0]

@Sarah977 

And yes, solo guests suit me much better. Having three guest rooms, I am usually outnumbered by strangers in my own home anyway, but you are right in that solos are generally easier to deal with for the reasons you've given. 

I have hosted some lovely, lovely couples for short term stays and that didn't stress me out. My least favourite guests of all time were a couple, but they were very much the exception, not the rule. Couples staying short term usually tend to be very sociable because it's only a short trip.

In general though, you are right that it's s different dynamic and that single guests. The couple who recently stayed were very sociable with me and we had many enjoyable chats, but they barely socialised with the other guests (although they were perfectly polite to them and friendly enough if they met in passing), whereas long term solo travellers staying at the same time often become friends.