New Host Trying to Decide On Policy Re: Children and Extra Guests

[Anya-And-Lukas0]

I am a brand new (future) host as I am currently working on publishing my listing. I am the type who likes to (over)do her homework so I have read countless books, spent hours watching the Airbnb videos and reading so many of your extremely helpful forum posts. I am still unsure about two policy issues and I'd love to get feedback....

We will be renting a private house with 2 bedrooms and 1 additional bed in a downstairs common area. 6 guests max. We are not in a busy city, a moderate size town with some family friendly attractions. There are only about 8 other Airbnb listings in our area so not alot of competition. Of course we want to make money and book often but we are not trying to maximize the amount of money we make, we are more concerned about not having a lot of problems. Based on that: 

1) Should we accept children?

I like children. But we have no children ourselves and our house is certainly not "child proofed". We have stairs, open plugs, unlocked cabinets etc. That being said, I could do all those things. But then I have read about "bed wetters" and children destroying things. So I would lean toward saying "no kids" as a policy but since our area has family attractions perhaps that is cutting out a lot of potential guests??

2) Should we charge extra guest fee? 

We plan to charge $200 a night. 6 people. Or we could charge less and add a per guest fee. Some tips I have read say don't charge per guest fee as it is hard to monitor (we will do self check in) and people are often dishonest anyway.  If you do charge per guest why is that better and how much extra is the right amount that doesn't scare people away?

Again, thank you to all of you who post such helpful info in this forum. If anyone has any answers for me I'd love to hear it.

Regards,

Anya

[Farah1]

I am so impressed to see a passionate future host like you who is doing her homework!

My personal advice based on experience:

1. I currently have an entire place listing where I allow children. However, I have been thinking to change it to not allowing children because of the possible trouble (pee on bad, etc). So far, I have only been hosting a family with infant twice (this unit has been running since Feb this year). So, I think for me personally, I will not really lose potential customer for not allowing kids, but who knows... So, I think it is up to you. It is like picking your battle, what do you want/willing to deal with?

2. I can host the max. of 4 people including children and infants for the entire unit. Based price is different depending on the season. I charge $20/person after 2 people. So far, people often say that the price is good for group of 3 or 4, so they do not really mind paying the extra person fee considering it is probably still cheaper than a hotel anyway.

Good luck and have fun hosting!

[Anya-And-Lukas0]

Thank you Farah! From reading these forums I am not surprised that you are the first to reply. You are very helpful.

-Anya

[Farah1]

You're welcome, Anya! Best wishes for you!

For some reason, the forum does not let me mention your community profile with the *@* , not sure why...

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Farah1 it is because Anja (&Lucas)  have brackets in their names, my advice is to remove them , othervise you will never know when someone mention you in a comment

We did host children at the begining and had bad luck every time! Our first little guests managed to crash the wall mirror and every time we hosted kids they peed in bed (luckely we had waterproof sheets from the first day ) so we do not host kids any more. We have to much glass top tables,mirrors, standing lamps... we don't want to be responsable if a child hurt himself and we have "suitable for children" description. And also, we don't want to spend extra hours on cleaning and loundry for the same money.  It is not worth it.

[Anya-And-Lukas0]

Thank you for suggesting that I edit the user name, very helpful. And the other tips as well

[Robert-And-Nancy0]

Welcome   We are also in MA.  I just want to offer our opinion in your decisions.

1. We started out with welcoming children and after one guests with a young child I realized that cleaning was much more detailed.  I would need to wash walls and furniture as fingerprints were everywhere.  I advertised in my House Rules that our place is not childproof.  I would also take out breakable items and I would go to the store (like Target) and buy some coloring books, crayons, balls, and inexpensive items to try to keep them occupied.    The end of last year we changed the listing to Not Suitable for Children.  I still get requests that ask about children so now I take it on a case to case basis.  In fact right now I have 2 girls (5 & 7) with their mom.  They are the nicest young ladies and I know I will have a bit more cleaning I have also found some adults that I have had to do extra cleaning for too.  You could start by testing the waters allowing children BUT make sure you buy protective waterproof covers for your mattresses.  I would not do IB so you can email the person booking your house and get an idea of how they are and extend to them what is expected with children.  Make sure your deposit is set high if you do allow children.  Since you are in an area where there are family attractions it may work well for you.  After you get established then re-evaluate and see if the experience has worked for you.  You can always change it.

2.  Our place is only for 3 max so I am not an expert on this subject.  But this is also something I change with the seasons.  During our busy time, May to October,  we set one fee for the apartment.  We allow up to 3 people.  When it is slow we lower the nightly rate and add a small fee for an extra person.  Considering the extra person is on a twin mattress on the floor (not air mattress) we just charge $10 extra per night.  Since we do not ask for a cleaning fee it is a way of getting a little more for the laundry and setup.

Hope this helps.  You are very smart to do all your research.  We did the same thing but we started doing this at a time when things seemed to be simplier.  The longer we do it the more challenges we see. 

Best of luck to you.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

REgarding the price... we offer one apartment for 6 and one for 8 people. We set the price for 2 and for 4 and then 10€ for every additional guest. I often get bookings from 2-3-4 guests bc they want to sleep in separate rooms, so I my advice would be to do the same. People usually travel in groups 2-4 people, bigger groups are less common .

[Theresa84]

We are pretty new hosts but decided early on that we would now allow any guests under 21. We have a built in pool as well as older (rescue) dogs. I didn't want the liability/responsibility. Shoot...I never even thought about children peeing the bed. Yikes! Glad I went with an adults-only policy. I had one inquiry asking if I would waive the policy for a 14YO. I did not allow it. I feel I must follow through with the rules I've established. So, I lost that booking. But, I'm plenty busy with bookings so I have no reason to change my policy.

Good discussion! I love reading everyone's ideas.