Another host leaving...what could make me return?

[Laura2592]

 After over 200 stays and a consistent 4.96 to 4.98 rating for 3.5 years, I am selling my place and my last stay ends May 10. I can't say I am sad to be leaving Airbnb and know I am not the only seasoned Superhost to wave goodbye in recent months.  I would like to offer some suggestions to @Catherine-Powell and others who look at host experience to consider: perhaps changing some of these would be a means to retain other hosts.  Community, please feel free to chime in on things that you feel would enhance your hosting experience. Not all of these issues have directly affected my listing but I have seen enough of this feedback to allow it to prevent my return to the platform.

1. Total revamp of the rating system. Despite having high ratings I honestly loathe the rating system and find it meaningless. I would immediately jettison host categories of Location (filled with implicit bias and covered by Accuracy) and Value (totally meaningless and prone to revenge scores by bargain hunters.) Again, I have high scores in each so I am not speaking out of disappointment in my own experience. I find these categories silly and Location particularly troublesome as guests CHOOSE THEIR LOCATION. Guest ratings should be reversed-- star scores publicly facing with comments visible only to hosts. So many hosts are afraid to be honest about their guest experiences that flipping a star rating with actual qualitative feedback could really help hosts to avoid poor guest fits.
2. Better (or any) guest vetting. We had a guest with perfect scores from another host shoot animals on our property.  A Google search revealed this guest had other legal/firearm issues yet ABB said the guest was verified and vetted. This was someone who should have NEVER been allowed on ABB. But because he had a good rating from a previous host, he was considered a perfectly reasonable guest. There are stories in this forum every day about guests who are criminals and scammers and hosts feel forced to accept them lest they get penalized. ALL guests on a reservation should at the very least be REQUIRED to be listed on ABB and all have verified government identities. Full stop. Hosts should never be penalized for refusing reservations when it is clear it would not be a good fit.
3. Allow hosts to refuse pets/kids if needed. We are pet friendly and always have been. Part of the reason we chose to allow pets is the number of guests who bring pets no matter what the restriction. It was easier to permit them and set up some basic rules around pets. We can't be infant friendly due to safety issues, yet we still have parents insist and sneak little ones in. ABB will not be there when we are sued because a toddler falls down our steep stairs and obviously some parents don't take safety warnings seriously. There should at the very least be a pop up when someone adds an infant/pet "This host's space is not suitable for infants/pets. Please choose another location for your Airbnb stay!"
4.  Better filters. The new search creates nothing but confusion by showing guests spaces that are not a fit for their stays. Allow guests to actually filter for what they want! Do not show spaces that do not provide the guest with a match. Add filters for special amenities-- one I would humbly suggest is "chef's kitchen" for guest who want advanced cooking/baking amenities (we get people who love to cook and only have the basics in our space. We have never had a desire to add to our kitchen amenities to attract more bakers/cooks. But others have these spaces and could charge more for them.)
5. Visible house rules. This is such a no-brainer. Make house rules visible and fully expanded! Not hidden at the bottom of the page. Make guests click through them before booking. So many problems could be avoided.
6.  Get serious about party prevention. The lip service is not enough. Actively assist hosts who have guests throwing parties. Create a "no questions cancellation" when this is the case. Guests who engage in this behavior are banned from the platform. Start an awareness campaign that ABB does not tolerate parties, period.
7. Stop the shutdowns on camera reports.  If parties don't allow a host to immediately end a reservation, the spurious report of a camera should not shutter a listing for weeks while an "investigation" happens. Understand that the vast majority of hidden camera reports are retaliatory-- engage a bot to determine the relationship between a host complaint against a guest and the guest's report of a hidden camera (easily done!) DO NOT shutter listings were there is a relationship between these 2 things.
8. Get your payouts in order. This is one of the most egregious issues (and I have been through this myself). There is never a reason a host should not be paid due to an ABB glitch or failure to catch a payment issue. As someone who has had to chase a payout for MONTHS I can attest how frustrating and humiliating it is. I was even asked to liaise with my guest to try and get them to remit payment (why??? I did it but really??)
9. Allow hosts to transfer bookings upon selling. This one really makes zero sense to me as I am in the midst of a sale. My buyer doesn't want to do ABB but if they did, my property has more appeal than my individual hosting style as I don't meet guests. Why could I not transfer bookings with appropriate notice to guests? Makes zero sense and leaves ABB money on the table.

[Shery182]

it’s all brand new. Everything. Please check it out. Anyway this is the second time I’m writing this as there was “an error” in the first letter and it disappeared! ,I of course right out of the bag, got the guest from hell!!!!! In three days she’s turned the place into a dirty smelly trash all over place mess. I offer free weekly maid service. Me being the maid of course, and I kid you not after 3 days of her being in the lil house it took me flat out almost 7 hours to clean the place. She had left for 5 days of training. She had used the new bbq left the cover in a corner not cleaned it and I had ants everywhere. I could go on and on about stuff dripping down cupboards greasy microwave oven cooktop and greasy sink, wet washers and showers, and trust me there’s more! AND she just left it like that! Remember only been here 3 days!?  I thought for a min shery are you being to sensitive about the new place but the lady helping me clean said absolutely not and could NOT understand the 5 stars!  Now this person is moving to the area and not what I would call a pleasant person so any comment will leave me extremely vulnerable as Airbnb PUBLISHES them. Oh and get this she’s a 5 star!!!! Really!?!? Thanks hosts. Course I can kind of understand. I’m left wondering what she’s gonna do TO ME?  My question or actually plea is what should I do?!  How or should I attempt to talk to her. What should I say!?!?  Any help would be great. 

[Jennifer3333]

That’s tough, how does one approach this I’m hoping others will chime in.  I had a guy that was highly rated and was a disaster.  Used every single towel in the house then when finally doing laundry never empties the lint vent on the dryer, could have burnt the house down.  Nothing was drying…..wonder why!!  The house when I dusted was covered in dryer dust, like blue denim dust.  The a/c filter OMG.  It took me like 3 day to clean the place after he left, I literally had to touch every single thing in the house as every single thing had this blue dust on it.  I seriously wanted to cry.    He left every light on always and the a/c set super low always.  I considered selling the house after this one!

[Ann72]

@Shery182 @Jennifer3333  You both have lovely places and you might want to read around this forum for discussions on price - you'll find there's a consensus that too low a price attracts sub-par guests.  Shery your place is $65 a night (with free weekly maid service) and Jennifer your place is $75 a night (for 5 guests).  I don't know why super-cheap places attract people who don't know how to care for their surroundings, but it seems to be a theme.  Since no host can really expect to fill every night of the month, think about your monthly costs and calculate what you would need to cover them if you only had 10 or 15 days a month booked on average.  

One of you mentioned traveling nurses, and I don't know if you've found it, but there is a site called Furnished Finder that is targeted to travel nurses.  If that's your target market, you might want to give that a try.

[Shery182]

Thank you so very much Ann. I absolutely wanted to charge more but the area (Ridgecrest Ca) doesn’t usually see higher prices than this. Ridgecrest is here because of China lake naval warfare center. Very unique area. Heck my newer home on 2 1/2 acres pool manicured lawn guest house etc would only sale for 650 ish. Anywhere else it would more than likely be way over a mil. BUT having said that I will revisit it for sure. Being a long term rental is scary on the squatters front to. I’m calling AAA to see about that type of insurance as I understand Airbnb is wholly inadequate with it. Oh and ya know her bio was odd to. Slightly different name and from a different city. Very odd. But like, I’m finding out, the newbie i am I looked at the star rating. Ann I do want to thank you for the nurse suggestion. The reason I built this place is during the pandemic these brave strong nurses were sometimes sleeping in their rental cars and so were the drs. I just hated that. I will look into that site asap. Thank you for all your help. 

[Tammi50]

Shery182  I had a similar situation. I had 1 woman book for 3 months, but when I went into the property after the 6 weeks (with her permission) I found there were 7 people staying and the place was a PIG STY!! I called ABB and they said since she lied about how many people were staying there, I could ask her to leave. Which I did. She left with 3 days notice because she thought I was going to refund her the rest of her money (for the other 1.5 months) after I inspected the property.  But by the time I inspected, cleaned, replaced stained linens, replaced burned pans in the kitchen, etc., I decided not to giver her back any money. She complained to ABB and they sided with me! Surprise, surprise!! They told her since she violated the house rules by having more guests than was on the reservation, I was within my right to keep the additional 2 months rent. 

Now, had she been staying there with the correct amount of people on the reservation, I may not have been so lucky. So, if a guests violates the rules, you can ask them to leave.

Because of that experience,  I no longer allow stays for more than 30-days. If they want to stay longer, they now have to book for 28 days, move out for a day while the place is cleaned and, then come back.  Because in California if you rent for more than 30-days, the guest is considered a long-term renter and if they decide to squat, I would have to hire an attorney to file an unlawful detainer action to get them out, which takes MONTHS!  If they stay for 28 days or less and refuse to leave when their reservation is up, I can call the police and have them forcefully removed.  

[Robin4]

@Laura2592 

It goes without saying, we will be sad to see you go Laura! You have brought a lot of wisdom to the CC over the past couple of years and your input here will be sorely missed.

The points you have raised in your post are all relevant and genuine.....we can all relate to each of them so, these are not 'one off' peculiarities that only you have struck, we have all had to deal with the same situations. I suggest the Host Advisory Board would have dealt with every one of these points of yours over the past year and made recommendations. It is to be hoped that someone in decision making will actually do something to make effective change. But personally Laura, I can't see it happening!

Since the days of @Dave-and-Deb0  from Edmonton back in 2016 to @Ute42 with her wonderful Guantanamo post in July 2018.......https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Circle/Guantanamo/m-p/754779#M6666 guest reviews have been the subject of many posts here and despite numerous complaints over the years,  please illustrate to me one thing that has made the review system fairer for the hosting community? Revenge and blackmail reviews are still rampant every time the guest doesn't get their way. Allocating a 3-4 star overall when all the categories were given a 5 star rating.....it is still precisely like it was 6 years ago! 

I came across one example just a couple hours ago where this 'Guest' is attempting to stay at multiple Airbnb listings and when the stay has concluded report the host to local authorities for running a hotel business in a residential zoned area, and then do a credit card chargeback citing fraud! These people are potentially getting away with this stuff because.....they are guests and to be protected!  In this instance I defended Airbnb by saying in the highly unlikely event the guest got away with it once, the first time a host reported it and Airbnb saw a pattern of behaviour, the guest's account would be closed immediately.

Guest vetting has actually got worse over the years, each year we are informed of even tighter restrictions on guest verifications and declines all under that almighty umbrella of 'discrimination'!! You can't refuse a pet or an infant any more without some sort of repercussion.

One thing I have found disturbing which I reported in another post a few fays ago. On 4 occasions guests who are searching for listings in Mt Barker in Western Australia have inadvertently ended up with my listing as their reservation.......1,700 Kms away in Mt Barker in South Australia.

In a listing search it should be the 'area' that is targeted, not priority by location name! 

Another of my beefs is how the booking program is each year become less user friendly.

Have a look at how the message stream was displayed when an enquiry or a booking came in a few years ago.......

Along with the message stream, the relevant month calendar with other bookings and free days was displayed along with the guests past history....it was all there on the one page, you didn't have to continually flick from one screen to another. All you had to do was click the small '?' to see which dates belonged to which guests message stream, it was simple, effective and it worked.....programming changes should make the program easier to use, not harder!

I am sorry the platform is losing you Laura, good hosts like you are what made it great to start with, maybe we will meet again in another forum some day!

Cheers.......Rob

[Laura2592]

@Robin4 I do hope the Host Advisory Board takes some of these suggestions on board. I'm sure all hosts would love to see some transparency around what they are working on that directly affects the issues most of us have.  From what I've seen addressed thus far I am not clear that their goals are aligned with pragmatic action items to make hosting safer or less frustrating. 

[Robin4]

@Laura2592 

Laura, I am sure the Host Advisory Board have taken those suggestions on board, after all, they are all hosts and have been through these scenarios themselves, and have put their hands up to be currently on this board to try and bring about improvement. They are not putting aside their time and going to the effort simply to be company 'yes men'! But, their hands are tied they can't change policy they can only advise. The company needs to make money for itself, and hosts also need to make money for themselves and the path to that outcome is not the same for both. We have seen years of 'drink the Koolaid' stuff but all the years have done is make us more cynical I am afraid.

I am not watching this space for change!

Cheers.......Rob

NB: I quoted an excellent post by @Ute42  regarding Airbnb's punishment system. Ute incorporated a link to a French host named Gregory who was treated particularly harshly by Airbnb. I wanted to refresh myself with Gregory's issue so I tried to once again access that link! Obviously it must have trod on some toes because the link is no longer active! The explanation...."You do not have sufficient privileges to access this page"!

[Jane3586]

So many good points here, I especially agree with the rating business and the inability to be honest when leaving a guest review. I am guilty of leaving good reviews when there are sub par issues.  Following house rules is my biggest issue, they often don’t read them even though they are on my booking and written in a House Info booklet on the property. I am seriously thinking of writing it up and requiring a signature!

Hopefully ABB will take notice of Laura2592 excellently written submission and strongly consider.

[Kay1367]

I’ve just relisted my property on Airbnb after my first attempt didn’t lead to many bookings. I have been a premier host on Vrbo for many years but last week took my first new bookings with Airbnb. My heart sank when I read your post. I hope they take heed of these complaints and improve! 

[John5097]

@Laura2592 

You raise a lot of important issues. The only thing I think is totally useless and hurts everyone is the value rating. It changes the entire review process into an negotiation between the guest and Airbnb, guest to nit pick any little thing, and tons of calls to ABB for them to explain that such and such is clearly noted in the listing, but guest can always leave a review. 

The overall problem that Airbnb faces are the problem guest. They are allowing and even cutivating guest with bad behavior. Its the information age and some guest are disrupting neighborhoods and getting away with it, while host don't want to risk getting shut down by false accusations from bad guest. In turn restrictions are sweeping cities and neighborhoods nation wide. Instead of addressing the issue and weeding out these bad guest, Airbnb puts all their effort into influencing the local zoning laws. This may hurt them as now there is a finite number of good listings available and may no longer be a continuous stream of new and better listings, so now will need to compete with other listing sites to better accomodate the better listings.  

Like everything else, I'm not sure what will change. Host have to just be realistic. If they offer an oven there will be more issues depending on the location. In location I mean culture, as  its really astonishing how much grease a few hamburgers can create, for example. 

I try to stay ahead of things and update my listing with changes to policy or guest expectations. I also have my own strategy based on reality so I attract better guest. But at the end of the day still need to remain positive as I need to host for a while longer. 

I think the number one concern for host is getting a bad guest. Vast majority do the best we can to provide a nice opportunity for people to enjoy something unique and different than a stay at a hotel, but new host are like turtles making a dash for it to the ocean after they hatch and all the sea gulls and crabs are swooping down on them, and only a handful make it. 

Although I think you were an outstanding host, both for your guest and neighbors, and don't recall any major issues, as you stayed on top of things, and also seemed very positive that hosting on Airbnb had exceeded your expectations.  

[Veronica-Of-Excel-Proper0]

"The overall problem that Airbnb faces are the problem guest. They are allowing and even cutivating guest with bad behavior. "

@John5097 , from your reply to @Laura2592 , the sentences above caught my attention, especially the part I've bolded.

Late in 2021, I had one such experience when the person who booked was not the person who stayed. The person who stayed was in fact a booking that had been refused because a quick search online showed the booking was from a person listed on 'adult sites' online.

Because the person who booked was a frequent customer of Airbnb, despite prior negative reviews from other hosts, Airbnb penalised us for the guest's bad behaviour (the one who booked and the one who stayed). So much so that it took numerous messages over several months before Airbnb conceded that a life threatening statement made by the guest on Airbnb's platform was against their own rules, and therefore should be removed. 

"They are allowing and even cutivating guest with bad behavior. " is a statement that resonates with me.

[Laura2592]

@Veronica-Of-Excel-Proper0 I did not even get into my number one hosting pet peeve....guests who misrepresent the number of people staying.  Though this bothers me a ton as a host, it's small potatoes compared to other points I've listed.  But that behavior, as well as many others cited, falls into the "bad guests" category. And I agree with @John5097 that ABB increasingly encourages poor guest behavior. As a host its just not worth the risk to me. I'll invest my time and money more wisely elsewhere. 

[Veronica-Of-Excel-Proper0]

Indeed @Laura2592, misrepresentation of numbers is another matter.  Often, this is only found out after guests checkout or if there is a during stay visit for cleaning.

The one I was referring to is when bookings are made on behalf of others. Because we ask for name(s) as part of our process, then we stumble on the 'hidden agendas'.

Like many other hosts, I can relate to the issues you've highlighted. Thank you for writing and sharing in the host community. 
 
Best wishes with your new venture(s) for wise investment of time and money!