Hello Airbnb Community Members. My husband and I are long time Airbnb hosts and up until recently have loved every asspect of what we do. For those of you who will be inclined to click on our profile to take a look at our listings, I have been here in the community searching for answers about things we have recently started dealing with for a couple of months. That time here has given me a pretty good indication of how many of you feel about those of us who hosts multiple properties.
Let me start with this, My husband and I do represent a large number of Airbnb Homes. We do personally live in 4 of these locations throughout different times of the year, each of our 4 children have homes that we host that they either currently live in, or will live in during the off season of school.
The additional homes that we help host belong to Military members who have been deployed out of Country for a period of more than 3 years. This started with one of our very close friends homes and word of mouth spread to others that were in a similar situation, so we took those too. In order for us to take on a Military home there has to be an extenuating circumstance (risk of foreclosure, inability to sell ect.) That however is a post for another day all together.
If you read through our reviews you will see that it is my husband and myself that take care of all of our homes. When you check in, it is us that you meet. When you message us, it is us that answers. When the home needs to be reset...You guessed it, it is us that takes care of that. We tried contracting help through multiple services last year for cleaning and it was a disaster. Our goal is to always provide a great experience for guests, a goal that we have discovered is not on the radar (or even in the same orbit) of many cleaning people.
This is where we are as hosts currently and I am wondering if I may get some feedback from others that are well experienced here as well.
My husband and I have played a large roll in the recent advocation of keeping Airbnb a legal option here in OKC. We have appeared before the City Council multiple times in both Oklahoma and Texas to speak on the benefits and positive aspects this particular platform offers. Our opinions and voices have been heard because of the positive role we play in both of those markets.
We are also host to one of the largest Airbnb Meet Up groups in Oklahoma City and have partnered in the last 3 years alone with helping 50+ hosts get their Airbnb started. MANY of the people we help would fall into the category of Elderly/Disabled, single income with either space in their personal home or an attached property to let. These are folks that are dependant on the income with very few income earning opportunities available. My husband and I help to restore, furnish, create profiles and help them navigate guests. We help them work with what they have so they can provide what they need.
Our passion is not the income this industry brings, it is the relationships we are able to build along the way. I have told many people I would do this for free if I could and in reality many months, probably have.
We have gone above and beyond to protect ourselves as hosts and as of this morning are watching Airbnb refund a Guest AGAIN who came into our home, broke the rules that are clearly defined THREE times in our listing and are then again sent to guests within an hour of their booking and then AGAIN when they are checking in. While the customer Service representative who's name is Luke, was kind and gracious in helping me, he also let me know that regardless of all I had done, the guest would still be refunded OR I could keep the reservation, let them stay and hope the damage wasn't too bad (he had 5 more days on his stay) by the time he checked out if I needed the money. The even better part, this guest will within minutes be able to book another hosts home and do the same to them.
Essentially I feel like right now I just made a decision to make my problem, another hosts instead....Sickening.
Last week we had a Guest do damage in excess of 12k. When discovered, we immediately contacted our attorneys and Airbnb. All videos, photos, estimates and other documentation have been submitted to Airbnb, but guess what? Not a single call to us. A video of the guests literally allowing their children to rip our personal property apart and throw the discarded pieces into our pool AFTER they tore our sliding Glass doors from their STEAL tracking during a wrestling match was provided....crickets.
But don't worry, 18 solid hours of cleanup with 6 people and a few makeshift repairs and we had the property ready for the next guest 24 hours later...So Airbnb lost exactly ZERO dollars. Why should they care...Right??
I wonder what impact it would have for Airbnb if I took my voice to The City Council and were open and honest about how Airbnb actually treats hosts and what their booking process currently is? I wonder what impact it would have, if in the most attended City Council Subject meetings a Host that everyone in this city knows with over 1,000 documented trips and reviews where to provide the recorded phone calls and emails of Airbnb simply allowing these substandard guests to continue booking properties while hosts are left holding the bag for damages incurred. I wonder what the impact would be city wide for HOAs to have their hands on information that would confirm the fears that most of them have.
I wonder what impact it would have if my husband and I finally accepted an invitation from another booking platform to provide feedback on how hosts could be better supported, accepted their training, let them take on all of our properties as premier properties and then took to our personal Social Media Following of over 25k ST/Vacation rental owners to educate them on what the TOS for Airbnb really mean for those of us willing to put our personal properties up to be leveraged by a Billion Dollar company that literally owns zero of the Real Estate that is the backbone of their business model?
I wonder what would happen if one of the trusted and valued voices didn't just take all of their properties and left, what if they helped an entire city do the same? What if they became the voice that was heard at many City council meetings?
Dear Airbnb, for a company that owns ZERO of the Brick and Mortar it depends on to bring in these Guests you clearly value so much, you may want to start valuing the voice of the hosts that actually house and take care of them for you. If you go away Airbnb, we as hosts move to another platform.
If all of your hosts go away, you have nothing to provide Guests and no need to have a platform to attract them.
Now tell me, who really feeds who here?
You have THOUSANDS of Hosts that are working their tails off to help continue the evolution of your Company...just support them with the guarantees YOU promise them when signing up. It really is that simple.
