Having second thoughts about being a host

[Terri292]

I have read so many comments from very unhappy hosts here that I am seriously considering pulling my listing, which I can do right? I may go with another company. Do any of you have suggestions on who it is better to host through? VRBO? Home away? I’m sad this isn’t going to work out as I just listed for the first time last night and was excited, but airbnb sounds like a nightmare! Is there anything I need to do with the one reservation I got today if I’m removing my listing?

[Mark116]

@Katrina79  Thanks!  Yes, we get a lot of compliments on the front garden in the Spring and Summer, right now it looks great, full of purple coneflowers and bee balm.  I'm open to any and all suggestions, we had planned to hire our own photographer to redo all the photos because we can't seem to get the lighting right ourselves when COVID hit.

[Mark116]

@Ann72  Yes, its very disheartening, and we did all of those things throughout last year, changing captions, going into the calendar, we also changed the listing title 2x, and we still throughout 2019 were between 70-98% below the median in search results, despite, again, being almost at capacity and having until last October a 100% response rate, at which time we were camping and missed one request to book.  

We will list with VRBO in September, when, hopefully by then NYC will be somewhat open and see what happens. 

[Ann72]

@Mark116  Sounds smart.  Do you think that one missed request is what tanked you?  That's unconscionable.

Just to clarify, changing captions doesn't update the listing.  I'm not joking about changing one word a day.  It made a difference to my rankings.

[Mark116]

@Ann72  I don't think so, because we were already far far below the median, and when I called airbnb to find out WTF because we had dropped to 98% below median we still had 100% response rating, and I kept saying to the guy: superhost, 100% response, 97% acceptance, 4.9 how is it possible to be this far down.....airbnb said they could find no problem, shortly after the call we bounced back up to about 30-50% below median for a couple of months. But, in all the previous years by Dec/Jan we would have most of the Spring/Summer already booked and even before COVID we had only a handful of bookings.

It's very strange, but your post did motivate me to go in and change the title, change the captions, I also found that if you edit the photo, as in crop it or change the brightness that seems to read as an update, so I did that also...thanks for motivating me!  

[Ann72]

@Mark116  That is just crazy!

Go for the changes!  Make one every day - you never know.

[Mark116]

@Ann72  Yeah, really bewildering, but thanks to you I changed the brightness/cropped every single photo, so they all read 'changed today' and also changed all captions and deleted and reordered some of the photos as well as changing the title.  We'll see.  I added a 1 week promotion for late July also.

The only other thing that may be related is we had a lot more guests last year who didn't leave reviews and we also stopped reviewing every guest, so that could have caused us to fall, seriously, at one point we were the last listing on the last page!  Insane.  

[Ann72]

@Mark116 Insane!  Sometimes I wonder if a lot of guests would leave a review if I didn’t leave one first.  Certainly found that one-nighters hardly ever bothered so I switched to a 2-night minimum.

[Robbie54]

@Mark116 I learned a long time ago to only leave a review  after I have received one. Some guests can be so unreasonable and picky I'd rather not give them an opportunity to write a review.  Sad, but true. 

[Ann72]

@Mark116 PS:  All those changes sound great!

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Mark116 

On the subject of photos, there is a liking for large images. If you have larger versions of images you have already loaded, then larger ones may help too. 

[Colleen253]

@Ann72 

re "Changing the photos and even rewriting every single caption does not update your listing! "

I knew listing updates make a difference, but that you discovered particular updates don't is interesting and useful to know. Where does it show "last modified a few seconds ago"? When I make changes, I can't see that confirmation anywhere. It would be good to know when changes are recognized or not.

[Ann72]

@Colleen253 It shows on your listing page.  Scroll over to the right.

[Optimal0]

Hi @Mark116 sorry to hear about that happening! Did you try to follow any algorithm optimization strategies or adjustments? Honestly the biggest and best one (most simple too) is to spend about 10mins a day on the app making minor adjustments to your description, calendar and prices. This causes a major temporary boost to listing search visibility and can get you some quick bookings! Give it a go and dont give up! All the best

[Russell49]

Exactly. Undercutting is a horrible business model to sustain in the long term as it runs down the industry making profits limited. Likewise, if you want to have low prices, then expect it to be accessible by all sorts-including those new and naive to AirBnB as well as the bottom feeders of society. I myself prefer to have prices more affordable than a hotel but not so cheap that I will regret it when they leave a mess for me to clean up.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Terri292 

Some points which @Helen3 brought up would be worthwhile considering:

Issues in the main relate to how you run your listing, not which company you use.

Running an STR business is like running any other business you need to put system in place to minimise risk - in the case of CCTV, strict house rules, vetting guests effectively to ensure a good fit, using a local co-host if you list remotely etc.

Most risks across platforms will be the same, except on Airbnb the risk is greater as here you do not hold security deposits and here those security deposits are not held as refundable cash.  Here too, no address details are provided for guests, so are basically anonymous as far as a host is concerned.

Should there be a mishap with a guest, or group of guests who would pose the greatest risk, it is a battle here to secure a damage payment because you first need to negotiate the CS intervention, their guest centric bias and then, obtain payment (i.e. the non-acquired damage deposit) from the guest. By that time, you will have received a retaliatory review and most likely will have lost your SuperHost status if you had it.

With other platforms, you would not have your cancellation policy interfered with and you would be at liberty to decide actions as you would prefer.

The risk here, therefore, in those circumstances is quite high. Minimising risk, would not be a reason to choose Airbnb over any other platform IMO.