They say that vacation rentals bring in about 3X more revenue than traditional long term rentals… this attracts many people to host their home on Airbnb, but if you want to make your Airbnb profitable, there’s more to it than just listing your home on Airbnb…
In this blog we’re going to share Airbnb hosting tips that have helped us run profitable vacation rentals and how to avoid common hosting mistakes…
#1 Don’t become an Airbnb host horror story
Most Airbnb guests are good people, but there will be guests that will ruin your Airbnb hosting experience and make you wish you never had started to begin with…
This is not meant to discourage you from hosting, but rather help you prepare for unique situations you may at some point encounter…
Managing over 160 short term rentals has exposed us to different types of guests looking to take advantage of hosts… if you only have one vacation rental, you may not encounter bad guests often, but it’s better to be in the know and be prepared so that you know how to spot them…
Some of the more common things we see include guests trying to throw parties, become squatters, or those who have the intention to stay at your Airbnb for free by finding just about any excuse to get a full refund from Airbnb after staying at your home…
Some red flags we’ve seen is when a guests starts asking if they can receive mail at the house… this is one way they can “claim residency” so watch out…
We’ve seen guests ask to send the invoice to their work or have a story about why they have to use a card that’s not in their name… the best way to avoid fraudulent payments is to trust your gut when you come across a guest with a “unique situation”…
There are guests who will use extortion by threatening to leave you a bad review unless you refund a portion or their full stay… some of them will indeed leave false bad reviews just out of spite saying they found bed bugs or something that damages your reputation… Airbnb is pretty good about siding with hosts when guests use extortion.
Know that some guests will leave bad reviews no matter how good you make their stay, so just be prepared to not take it personally…
Again, the likelihood that you’ll come across these situations is slim, but it’s better to be aware of all the weird things guests will try if you are going to be hosting on Airbnb… I recommend joining some Facebook groups and find what other hosts are dealing with… some situations may surprise you… better to be surprised by reading someone else’s experience than get caught off guard and become an Airbnb hosting horror story…
#2 Use dynamic pricing to increase booking revenue
One of the best airbnb tips for new hosts is to have a pricing strategy…
More importantly, don’t rely on the pricing suggestions given to you by Airbnb…
Why?
… because Airbnb’s pricing is optimizing for occupancy, meaning they want you to be fully booked… while that sounds good at first glance, it doesn’t sound too good when you find out that they are suggesting a low nightly rate for your place…
This is a bit of a conflict of interest. Airbnb does better when owners charge less for their vacation homes… but if you want to be profitable, you have to optimize for average nightly rate.
In other words, it’s better to make more per night even if you are only booked 80%… with less turnover cost and higher rates, you end up making more and working less…
You have to find that sweet spot for your home. To do this, you’ll want to use a pricing tool like AirDNA…
These tools help you find out how much you can charge and also let you know about high demand days when you can charge more. If there is an event in the area that’s driving demand, you can know and adjust your pricing accordingly to double or triple your income… even just one weekend with high demand could be what makes your month.
#3 Ask for reviews!
Reviews can make or break your listing.
The higher your review rating, the higher your listing will rank on Airbnb’s search results…
Having high ratings on your listing is one of the requirements to become a Superhost.
Once you realize how important reviews are so that your Airbnb home earns more revenue, then you’ll start looking for ways to get more 5 star reviews…
The best way is to ask for a review whenever you have an opportunity…
When sending out your check in instructions, you can ask your guests to reach out to you if there’s anything missing that would prevent them from leaving you a 5 star review… think of this as asking for an opportunity to correct any issues…
Sometimes guests don’t message the host to complain about something that’s wrong with their stay until they check out and leave a review…
When sending out your check out instructions, you can remind them to leave you a 5 star review…
If the guest does message you and you have a good conversation with them and know they are happy, you can ask them to please take time to leave you a review… ask!
#4 Have a lower minimum night requirement
There are 2 things to consider when setting a minimum night requirement on Airbnb…
#1 more turnover which increases the cost of cleaning, restocking and time needed for guest support…
#2 one night stays tend to attract “bad actors” looking for a home to throw parties, or other activities that you don’t want happening at your home…
The sweet spot depends on the size of the property and location…
For most properties we work with, we tend to use a 2 night minimum stay… with a 2 night minimum stay we see the highest amount of booking revenue while avoiding bad guests… it keeps not only our weekends booked, but also weekdays…
Although there is more turnover than having say a 5 night minimum stay, the extra booking revenue makes it worth it to manage more frequent turnovers…
For large properties that can sometimes become targets for people looking to throw parties, we do tend to bump up the minimum night stay to 3 nights…
#5 Use the Instant Booking Feature
Turning on instant booking creates a better user experience for the guest and gives your listing more exposure…
The concern with this feature is that you have little time to see if the guests booking are “bad actors”… to avoid these, you’ll want to limit who can book using instant booking to current Airbnb guests who are verified and have good reviews from other hosts.
#6 Free Up Your Time
Running an Airbnb can be time consuming with tasks like cleaning, responding to guest inquiries, accounting, marketing, maintenance, etc.
If you do everything yourself, you’ll find it difficult to grow and scale. Many hosts think they are saving money by doing cleaning themselves, but they are simply creating a job for themselves.
It’s better to have a co-host, a property manager or build your own team to help you with tasks so that you can focus on finding your next property or just enjoy life…
