What 2 things do you wish you knew before you started hosting?

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Re: guests who want an early checkin

The reason they do it is: as a guest, you are only thinking of what suits you. You have in mind that AirBnB is not a rigid hotel, it’s flexible. So why shouldn’t you ask? You don’t ask, you don’t get, right?

I am a self-check-in property - something I do not tell guests until one week before arrival (very important - I am heading off the “unobserved party venue” crowd and also the “I can invite clients into the property for an hour of horizontal mambo” crowd so they need to be of the assumption I’ll be nearby, at the time they make the booking).

I deal with early requests quite strictly in one of two ways. If they simply state, unprovoked, that they will be arriving at 11am (etc), I just note that check-in is from 3pm or later, but that the very close-by locker service is great for storing luggage and has worked well for previous guests.

If I am actually asking their arrival time because they haven’t supplied it, and they try the 11am thing, I’ll just state that in that case, sorry, check-in will need to be 3pm as I have to schedule the cleaning around my work and family commitments that day. Then the locker info, etc.

I have never had a guest argue the point or complain in reply to these.

And also this. Go through and take out anything you can. If it doesn’t need to be in the listing, take it out. If you can say it in fewer words, do so. Actively see if you can make it shorter without losing the important parts. And if it is a general non-difficult house rule (like no shoes inside, or, take out the garbage as you leave) it shouldn’t be in your main listing at all. These are not hardships for a guest to suddenly discover once they book and read your house rules.

Communicate as much as you can with the photographs. This includes your dogs, your stairs, the bed combinations, the fact you have a bathtub, a picture of the bus stop nearby, the local tourist attractions, anything which can save you a few words in the listing.

People are reading on mobile phones and even 3-4 paragraphs becomes a huge wall of text that they simply won’t read.

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I don’t understand why you’re criticizing me about early check in. I permit early check in.

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Not at all! :slight_smile: If it suits you, it’s very kind to guests. I apologise, I thought you were having problems with guests always asking this contrary to your listing information.

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Ah! See? I had no idea! I really don’t know everything! If I was shopping in the LA area I wouldn’t even know to ask about that.

I just made everything a little bit more organized, bullet-points in lieu of paragraphs. That has helped me so much. I was always asked ‘do you have parking’ and ‘how close are you to metro’ though it was spelled out in my listing. I don’t get those questions anymore. In fact I get very few questions - thank God!

@EllenN if you’d like you can paste here what I sent to you.

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No, I don’t mind early check in. My problem is that guests don’t tell me what time they will arrive.

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Ah that’s harder… it forces us to ask, and when I was doing meet & greet I used to make out that if I didn’t know their arrival time then nobody would be there to let them in. Seemed to work fairly well when used in a friendly way.

Just a pity they never bother to tell you in the first place… but then, again with the “only thinking of what suits them” thing. It never occurs to guests at hosts have a life.

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Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work for us to not be home when a guest arrived. Our dogs would bark nonstop.

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Of course - I am not suggesting you not be home - only that your guests be under the illusion that you might not be there if they’re early/late or don’t tell you when they’re arriving. It seems to make people arrive on time.

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I don’t understand how that would work. Currently, I ask guests several times to tell me what time they will arrive so that I can be home to greet them. What are you suggesting I do other than this?

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How I did it was:
Please tell me your arrival time, as I will need to make sure someone is there to let you in. etc. You can word it however suits. There is no need for them to know that you might be home all day regardless. Your schedule is private. :slight_smile:

It tends to focus the mind when they of the illusion that you might not be there unless they give you an answer. Calling it an “appointment” also seemed to help them not be late in my case. Something psychological about the word and that it can’t be missed in order to wander off and go for dinner on the way, and so on.

I suppose if you are asking multiple times and they aren’t answering, it becomes more difficult :frowning:

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This is one of our house rules:

Please let us know about what time you will arrive so we can greet you.
We are flexible about the check in/check out times if there is no conflict between arriving and departing guests.

This is our pre-booking message:

Please let us know what time you will arrive so we can let you into our house ~ thanks!

Our problem is not that we are not explicit enough about our requirement that guests tell us when they will arrive. Our problem is that guests believe that their circumstances grant them an exception. We had a couple who ignored our repeated requests for them to tell us their arrival time. When they arrived one of them told us that, “It’s not that kind of trip. It’s the kind of trip where we wake up when we want to and then plan the day.” Another couple told us that they couldn’t tell us their arrival time because they were in a wedding party and would arrive after the rehearsal the end time of which they couldn’t predict.

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Yes, it’s very difficult to prevent rude guests unless we are blunt. But you are right it’s a catch-22 in that we want to be polite to our guests up front.

I guess all we can say to the “special snowflakes” who mumble about some time in the afternoon is, “Ok, well I have some errands to run, so if you’re not sure, let’s make it 6pm then.” ? I have to wonder whether they’d suddenly deign to give you a time if they hear that they’ll have to wait that long :laughing:

Otherwise I’m out of ideas. It’s not nice for guests to take advantage of you, EllenN.

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My check in is firm at 4 but I tell guests to please send a text with an ETA if it will be much later than 4. Have not had a guest disrespect that in a really long time.

I know Ellen likes to be flexible, but her guests might interpret that as laissezfaire, and that her flexibility means they can show up whenever they please despite her clear house rule.

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Just had my first experience with this. A guest sent message after message asking questions that could be easily answered by referencing the listing. Finally had to tell them it wouldn’t work out. I’m very thankful they did not instant book in the course of the messaging.

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@lou I offer flexible checkin and checkout. I have setup a small storage just for this, so people can drop off their luggage before the early checkin or after the checkout. After all, guests really are not interested in spending the whole day in the apartment so much. They just need a place to drop off the luggage and they are very grateful (reviews!). For this to work, I have double set of keys which they can find in the key box. No work for me. A lot of greateful guests. Just my two cents.

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hi mark, I’m actually fairly flexible & if they arrange in advance I’ll let them in at 11am to drop bags off & give keys but let them know they can’t use apartment until 3pm as I need to deep clean it. The problem is I work 2 jobs along with running my apartment so need to arrange early check in well in advance as I don’t want to mess my own work clients about. I also don’t know what state previous guests have left it in until I open the door & if I have the new guests with me I’m praying it doesn’t look a tip & telling them it won’t look like this in a few hours (sometimes hard with a language barrier).

The storage locker is a great idea however the nearest storage place to my place is over a mile away & in London that can actually be a bit of a trek. In fact I can foresee the phone calls from guests lost on dodgy industrial estates!

My flat is in a block so can’t do a key box due to security. I also want to make sure whoever booked is who turns up! If I was air bnb’ing my house I would for sure just have a key box so much easier :slight_smile:

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@Abraham_Linkedin

  1. Don’t try to over-help. My biggest weakness and it never ends well, even if you get a glowing review. Allow guests to figure things out and help only if asked.

  2. Make reading the House Manual a house rule. There is a lot they cannot come back at you on if you’ve mentioned every little thing from the fact CR has showers with live wires sticking out, etc… Helped us avoid a scam refund request.

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  1. Have at least two to three extra sheet sets on hand. They should either have a print or be white because then you can use bleach. Personally I prefer a neutral print because then if there is some sort of Mark on them the guests are less likely to notice in fact it’s almost invisible. My favorite sources of sheets are Ikea and Target. The target sheets are really great at staying on the bed and fitting the bed really well but the Ikea sheets are great because they have the pillows that have a cover to the end of the pillow sewn right in.

  2. Have a checklist of things you go over when the guest gets there

  3. Put up labels in the kitchen if they’re going to be using the kitchen. This way they can find anything they want and not only that but they get the impression that you thought of everything.

  4. Make sure that the house and the space are even cleaner than you think they should be. Cleanliness is one of the trickiest things about Air B&B. You never know who’s going to be the neatnik and you won’t know until they give you a bad rating

  5. Always make sure that the TV they can use it in their room. Don’t be too nice about them coming out to watch TV with you you really don’t want to get too close to them in my opinion. I think it’s just too easy to make a faux pas and then it’s also too easy to develop some kind of overly friendly situation where they think they can take more Liberties than they would if they thought of you as just a host.

  6. Have plenty of towels on hand and they should be white because again you can bleach them.

  7. Don’t be afraid to go to IKEA. There are sheet sets and duvets as well as their blankets and pillows and their towels are both inexpensive and very good. It takes a while for any of these items to actually show any wear. I also like Target performance sheets. But my hands-down favorite for towels is Ikea.

  8. Unless you don’t have a stay that night don’t offer late check out. Cleaning takes more time than you think

  9. Don’t offer weekly or monthly booking discounts. In my opinion there’s no reason to do that because the quality and the value of their stay do not change just because they’re staying longer. On top of that they’re already saving money over a hotel. In fact in order to stay a whole month somewhere and get a good discount or be charged an appropriate amount of money is to stay at a Value Place or Extended Stay America or something like that and I’m sure that your place is nicer than those places.

  10. Avoid being pet friendly or child-friendly unless the kid is under 2 years old and they pretty much have to be watched by their parents all the time no matter what because people will indeed shirk that duty if they have any wiggle room.

  11. If you’re going to be pet friendly make sure that the guests know that they have to pick up their animals poop. If you have a huge yard and it doesn’t really matter if that’s cool but if your yard is small then this is something you’ll have to let them know right away

  12. Get one of those lock systems that is electronic and they have to use a code for both for their room and the front door.

  13. People may indeed like welcome gifts but just remember that you don’t have to provide them and honestly you won’t get better ratings because of them as far as I know anyway. That’s just my experience. Many people on the board will tell you that they do get better ratings because of it. And that absolutely can be true.

  14. Have an attitude of live and learn and don’t get too petty when guests make little mistakes because the only person that’s going to stress out is you.

  15. And finally keep it as simple as you can.

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@Colorado, we had a different experience. As a new listing, we started a little higher than our immediate area and got booked through most of the summer. Getting booked so far ahead was a sign that our price was too low. What we soon realized is that we were not in competition with other listing in our area, but with the hotels. So, anytime we had a gap in bookings, we raised our rates dramatically, . . . and got booked! I would suggest checking a site like Beyond Pricing that will give you a free demo of their pricing algorhithm. We ended up charging and booking at 20-25% more a day.

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Hi Lou, certainly. It depends from situation to situation. Just a quick comment about the key box. My flat is located in an apartment building (40 flats or so). I have mounted a key box right in front of my doors (the apartment doors, not the building). The building itself has an intercom. I tweaked the receiving end of the intercom in my apartment so when someone uses the buzzer from outside the building, the doors of the building will open automatically. This is fairly simple to do, any reasonably good electrician can make it work. For example, I give my guests the instruction to press the button on the intercom five times within approx 5 seconds. This ensures that only my guests who know this can enter the building, others can’t.

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