We have listing in two locations, and either built from the ground up or have done major renovations to our properties. We are able to keep things running pretty smoothly with the support of our property managers supplementing our hosting duties when we are away.
When we are not onsite our property managers either visit daily or stay onsite. Considering the way that we use Airbnb, I would still host again, because of the following conditions.
Our guesthouse in St. Lucia has always been listed on multiple platforms (other OTAs, our own websites and FB page) and Airbnb has never been our primary source for reservations. Instant book is enabled with a strict cancellation policy, because there's limited opportunity to book rooms at short notice. We have not had a guest that was so horrible that I wanted to end their reservation early, and none have committed significant damage, because people cannot easily leave or disappear into obscurity. One additional point for island life.
We have a relatively new listing which is an apartment connected to our house in Atlanta. At the moment it's only listed on Airbnb, because we just started in February, and then had a 3-1/2 month break before re-opening in July. I plan to post it on other platforms in the next few weeks. There have been more issues with guests following the house rules or checkout list, and being respectful of someone else's property (taking USB cable, not wiping up large spills, leaving food in pans, not taking out their trash, etc.), but no significant damages. The cancellation policy used to be strict, but now has a moderate cancellation policy, and we have updated the reservation requirements: Instant book is still enabled and now host recommendation is checked along with profile photo and government ID. Guests who do not meet these requirements can send booking requests. The booking lead time was changed from 1 day to 3 days, because I want an opportunity to communicate with the guest before arrival. The booking window was shortened from 12 months to 3 months as a mitigation measure to prevent the calendar being blocked for several months before the end of the free cancellation period.
I've always recommended that hosts shouldn't put all of their booking eggs in one basket. When running properly, Airbnb provides a well-known platform and simplified method to get paid for reservations. For that convenience, hosts are giving up total control of many important aspects of a reservation: no real damage deposit is collected, no arbitration for guest claims, slow/no response for host claims, and an inability to prevent refunds or deductions from upcoming payouts for non-qualified cancellations. On the platforms where the host processes the payment, most of the aforementioned problems are resolved or never occur, but there more effort has to be put forth. However, I don't think it's any more effort than trying to get a matter resolved through Airbnb.
