Why You Should Only List On Airbnb

Daniel-Rusteen0
Level 10
California, United States

Why You Should Only List On Airbnb

(Click here for original credit of this piece.)

 

I am about to blow your mind. You may disagree and I would love to know why in the comments. But, I hope at the end you will understand my points to be valid related to vacation rental platforms.

 

“We publish your listing on the top 50 platforms!”

 

“Vacation rental management…across hundreds of sites.”

 

“Maximize your revenue! We create your listing on the leading 6+ platforms.”

 

Have you seen these before? You are at least familiar with the marketing jargon. It has turned into a commonplace that to be a successful vacation rental host, you need to be listed on as many platforms as possible. The more the merrier! I have an alternate perspective for you.

 

 

Here’s why, if at all possible, you do NOT want to list on multiple vacation rental platforms:

  1. You distribute all your reviews to many platforms instead of focusing them on one.
  2. You create mediocre listings on many platforms instead of one optimized listing.

 

Obviously, reviews are tremendously important to your search rank. I will assume if you are reading this blog post, you are also getting mostly 5-star reviews. The more reviews you have, the higher you rank. Plain and simple (see below for direct evidence). When you list on multiple platforms, you are distributing your hard earns reviews instead of focusing them onto one. While this may be a good short-term strategy (explained below), it is a bad long-term strategy (also explained below).

 

 

Scenario A – You list on the top 10 platforms and have 60 reviews after the first year. Let’s say 15 reviews are on Airbnb, 10 reviews are on the next leading platform, 5 on the next few, all the way down to 1 or 2 reviews on websites like FlipKey and Roomorama.

 

Scenario B – You list on Airbnb.com and have 55 reviews after your first year.

 

But, I got more reservations in Scenario A!?! Yes. That is true for the first year. Listing on multiple vacation rental platforms is a good short-term strategy where you will surely fill in otherwise unbooked gaps. But this advantage quickly disappears as time goes on when having more reviews associated to your listing disproportionality affects your search rank. In other words, after the first year Scenario A may be ranked on the 2nd page (on average) while Scenario B may be ranked on the 1st page (on average). This difference more than makes up for the 5 reservations passed on in the first year.

 

 

In early 2017 some research was done on Airbnb search and posted to Reddit. It shows that both guest satisfaction (#1) and number of reviews (#9) are highly correlated with search ranking. Reach the full report on hacking Airbnb’s search rank algorithm.

 

Reddit - Airbnb's Search Rank Algorithm

 

Pro Tip: If you use multiple vacation rental platforms, only allow secondary platforms to make reservations in the next 30 days.

 

 

The above pro tip is the only reason I can argue for in favor of listing on multiple vacation rental platforms. That is, to use additional platforms to fill in available days within the next 2 weeks to one month. The average Airbnb guest books 30 days in advance making the likelihood of getting a reservation within 30 days less and less likely as the unbooked days approach. As we all know, these last minute bookings also pose the greatest risk. Scammers and thieves are not planning ahead 30 days in advance. Learn how to identify problem Airbnb guests based on their profile.

 

Additionally, you may have started with an optimized listing on those 10 websites, but after a year they are all now poorly optimized because you have not kept up with the constant changes and updates these platforms make on a monthly basis. Get you Airbnb search engine optimized!

 

One final thought…

 

Have you heard of the Pareto principle? Or the 80/20 rule? It says that 20% of your efforts result in 80% of your outcomes. For Airbnb property managers, 20% of your Airbnb listings result in 80% of your income.

 

This is true in society: 80% of land is owned by 20% of the population.

 

Also true in nature: 20% of a crop creates 80% of the yield.

 

In my experience, Airbnb generates ~70-80% of booking revenue in most markets. A good host with an optimized listing can get this number up to 90%+.

 

If you are saying to yourself you want that extra 10-20%, I would ask: Is the extra 20% worth the extra 80% of your time? Time is your only asset you will never get back. Money comes and goes. For me, I would rather focus my attention on the most popular website, Airbnb.com, and use the rest of my time with family or friends or on hobbies or (ready for it!) to create an additional stream of revenue than chasing the last bit of income from the 14th most popular vacation rental platform.

 

It may make sense to list on multiple platforms if for some reason Airbnb is not the market leader in your area. Areas of China immediately come to mind or areas with a very specific clientele who already have a process for booking their vacation rentals. If you think you live in an area like this, please let me know in the comments and I will do some free research on your behalf.

 

I hope you have a different opinion than me. Share it in the comments so we both can learn and grow.

45 Replies 45
David126
Level 10
Como, CO

OK

 

AirBnb is not suited for long term rentals, usually over 30 days in most jurisdictions.

 

AirBnB is not suited where you really need a Security Deposit.

 

AirBnb is not suited where you need a confirmed booking with no cancellation refund.

 

Finally having all your eggs in one basket where the income is primary is not a good idea.

David

This post is about vacation rentals, not long-term 30+ night rentals. If it was, I would agree with you that Airbnb is not best suited for this 🙂

 

Re security and cancellation points, what are your alternatives?

I showed some people around yesterday who have a vacation rental nearby and use AirBnB and VRBO, they were telling me about a recent booking, had a party, more people than allowed, place was a mess fortunately they had booked through VRBO so at least they had the $500 security deposit.

 

I assume the people who had booked assumed they would forfeit the deposit.

David

@David126

 

What would you recommend for monthly rentals? In m experience, Airbnb is synonymous with short term rentals. However, in the last year or so, I have seen a lot of guests, looking for monthly rentals reach out. But they bargain a lot, making the process very time consuming.

Daniel-Rusteen0
Level 10
California, United States

@Dev4 Instead of write another long blog post, I'll simply try and get you thinking. Do you live by a hospital, university, language school, church, a military facility where long-term guests are regularly coming in? If so, have you approached them to be put on their long-term housing list?

@Daniel-Rusteen0

That is a very good insight. Yes, my listing is close to university, church, language school and hospitals. I think it will be some work to get in touch with them initially, but will pay-off in the long run. 

Thank you,

Dev

ive had the same experience.  I only book long term rentals and the ones that make it through to messaging me ask me about my rate. i tell them the price is as listed and no other discounts offered. keep in mind im only charging $800 for a month regardless of season and local run down motels are charging $1300. I focus on industry websites and have had a lot of success in booking long term and price isnt really an issue with them as they get a stipend. 

Lee144
Level 2
Davenport, FL

As an individual that rents a three bedroom home full time, and has been successful at doing it I believe that staying with one company is not the best marketing.  If you go into a grocery store, a retail market, or one of the big box home improvement stores you'll find that they have more than one brand in the store.

 

Therefore, currently I use two of the main vacation rental companies, one being Airbnb and one being what I'll call brand X.  I've been with brand X longer than Airbnb, but not significantly longer.  But with brand X I get these items:

 

  1. Brand X, most importantly gives me a phone number to contact them that is easy to find and has knowledgeable Customer Reps that I can ask a question of 24 hours a day.
  2. Brand X, has automatic email that asks past guests to provide a review and emails me with a note saying a review was requested.  I have seen one from Airbnb.
  3. One other reason, I'm currently getting three bookings from Brand X to one booking from Airbnb.  This is ultimately the most important to me.
  4. I cannot find any way to add PDF files to Airbnb messages to communicate with my guests.

Therefore, even though Airbnb is good, it has room to grow for us the hosts.  And one more thing, if I look at my reviews from both Airbnb and brand X, I'm at the 5.0 level at my home and hope to only make it better.

I was talking to somebody yesterday who uses VRBO and AirbNB, they also rent out a three bedroom home full time.

 

So there was a party, place trashed, more guests than allowed but it was through VRBO so at least they kept the $500 Security Deposit.

David

I agree that Airbnb makes is tremendously difficult to collect anything extra with regards to extra guests. But, I've heard from VRBO hosts that chargebacks are a major issue (ie a prior guest contesting the charge to get it refunded) and the host has to submit paperwork, etc., but 99% of the time gets denied. That would be beyond frustrating for me.

Not the first people I have spoken to who can get the SD through other systems. Sounded like it was not the first time they had to.

David
Daniel-Rusteen0
Level 10
California, United States

I think two options is a good idea where one is used to fill in the gaps within a month when your chance of being booked drops drastically.

 

Airbnb does send follow review reminders.

 

You should move your PDFs to systems like Coral or Hostfully, I'm speaking from a guest perspective here, we'd all appreciate it.

"I think two options is a good idea..."

 

Didn't YOU start this thread arguing why should ONLY list with ABB?

Confused.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Lee0

 

  • You can also call Airbnb 24 hours a day (numbers vary depending on country) and it has never taken me more than a couple of minutes to get through. How knowledgeable the reps are varies though, but I have called often and found the majority of them very good, with the occasional useless one.
  • Airbnb also automatically emails the guest to leave a review and emails the host when the guest has done so. I get these notifications every time, both via email and on my phone via the App. Maybe check your settings.
  • Brand X sounds like it's bringing you lots of business. Personally, I get all the bookings I can handle already via Airbnb so I have no incentive to sign up to another site. Perhaps I could charge higher prices, but they would have to be a lot higher to compensate for the host fees the other sites charge. Airbnb takes a lot from the guest, but not much from the host.
  • I have never needed to do this, but I believe once a guest has booked, you get an Airbnb email address for them that you can send attachments to. The messages will go to their actual email address, you just don't see it for privacy reasons.