Selling my airbnb

[Stephen341]

Does anyone have any advice on what to do if I sell my property but still have rentals pending?

[Lorina14]

@Stephen341 

It depends on what your objectives are. Do you plan to keep all these reservations? Do you need to cancel them for prepping the house for showings or an open house? When are you planning to list your home - how many months out? 

 If you cancel the reservations without good cause, you will get penalized by Airbnb on your next payout and the dates will be blocked for future bookings.

If you let Airbnb know you are planning to sell they could advise you on what is best and how to move forward without penalty and potentially cancel your reservations penalty free (I would message the guests to let them know that this is going to happen).

If you let the guests know that unfortunately you have decided to sell your home and would encourage them to find another accommodation and apologize for the inconvenience I think most guests would understand and cancel themselves.

If you plan on keeping the reservations, then I would message them letting them know that you are planning on putting the listing up for sale but this should not impact their stay. They will see a sign for sale in the yard but no one will be touring the property during their stay. If you have good communication with guests and keep them in the loop you shouldn’t have an issue. You also allow them the possibility to find another space if they desire.

Let us know what you decide or find out from speaking with customer service.

[Stephen341]

I should of been a little more direct. I would like to honor my rentals and let the buyer take over. Just wondering what airbnb's views of this are?

[Lorina14]

@Stephen341 
You can honor the rentals and let the buyer take over but they would have to have a completely new listing unless you were willing to let them cohost with you on your listing till the honored rentals were processed.

Technically Airbnb does not allow transfer of listings as while the property looks the same, the host and their hospitality can be very different. I only knew of one property that a host transferred as when I look back at the stay it shows a new host but the old review from the old host. There are a few posts from people who were disappointed as they purchased a working Airbnb property and had to create a new listing and essentially lost all the reviews from the past host. When talking with Airbnb customer service they were told the same thing that the old reviews stay with the old host and the new host needed to create a new listing. 

[Helen3]

When I knew I was selling my property I only opened my calendar for three months at a time to ensure I only took bookings I knew I could honour @Stephen341 

If you have accepted bookings you can't now honour - you need to cancel and pay the cancellation fee .

[Alex]

Hello @Stephen341, 

Hope you are having a great week so far. 

I saw you already got two suggestions from Helen and Lorina regarding your question about selling your Airbnb. Did you have the time to check them? 👀

Let us know if it helped you to get more clarity. 

Best, 

Alex

[Stephen341]

Ty