@Amanda960 How do you rate these "mediocre" properties after your stay?
If comments on here are any indication, just about every host seems to react to anything other than five stars as a grave act of emotional violence. Some of them even feel the need to "educate" their guests about it, which just feels icky from a hospitality standpoint. As a guest, I've found myself leaving plenty of 5-star Overall ratings for mediocre hosts just because they didn't do something so terribly wrong that I wanted to hurt them. A 3 or a 4 is usually a more accurate reflection of the experience, but why bother? Once that dumb little badge goes to a host's head, there's no persuading them that there's any room for improvement - all they take away from a disappointing rating is that you're a bad guest.
So I always take the ratings with a grain of salt, unless they're alarmingly bad, and keep my expectations for Airbnb stays substantially lower than those for hotels or selective platforms.