@Emilie – your response here is much appreciated, thank you.
I've thought a lot about exactly the question you ask before I even posted -- how could the SH program be fairer to Long-Term hosts, or a mix of Short/Long?
The only think I can think of is -- if a Hosts' stays are all over a certain number of nights (perhaps 14 or 28 or whatever) -- there could be a slightly different set of SH criteria (or an additional criteria) for these hosts making it more likely they will achieve SH status in the same way as Short Term Hosts.
While I have your ear, the other thing that would be very useful to Long Term Hosts is the ability to communicate more easily during the planning and negotiating stage, before the reservation is made. I totally understand why Airbnb restricts the exchange of contact information before a booking is made, it's to stop people going "off platform" and probably other liability reasons too. But when discussing a 6-month stay, Guests and Hosts need to have a phone call or two, it's a fairly big commitment especially when Guests aren't local and haven't even had a viewing in person.
I've heard both from Airbnb in marketing emails, and read in news articles -- that the percentage of Hosts offering Long Stays instead of tenancy contracts (or some kind of "hybrid" setup) -- has increased hugely since March 2020. Personally speaking, we much prefer finding our Long Stay guests through Airbnb, because the guests have almost always been great – really nice, thoughtful, friendly, cool folks. Plus we can like being able to have "house rules" instead of a tenancy agreement.
Sometimes we do the first 1-3 months through Airbnb, and the rest of the time on a "fixed term" contract. Other times we do the whole stay through Airbnb. It depends on the guest, and this is another reason it's great to be able to have a call.
I think if Airbnb was set up better for Long Stay Hosts, we would prefer to always do the whole stay through Airbnb where possible, it's just so much easier than writing up contracts. So if Long Term Hosts could 1) be better included in SH Criteria, 2) be able to have phone calls before booking, and 3) there was some kind of fee discount for doing the entire stay through Airbnb -- now that would be perfect 🙂
Thanks again,
Katie