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I think one way the algorithm measures quality is by how often people click on your listing and how much time they spend on it.
A listing that is added to wish lists & shared with many others is also ranked higher. It makes some sense, links to attractive rentals are shared with spouses/family members before deciding on the final one.
It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work in reality. It just needs to sound good for the press, wall street analysts, and potential guests.
@Annet3176 I’m in an area close to you and felt the same way about being invisible. Even searching incognito sometimes I couldn’t find my listing when I zoomed in right on my street. However, my son and several friends said whenever they searched I came up almost at the top. I was booked solid all summer as well in spite of not being able to find my own listing. Lol. I’ve given up trying to figure it out.
Article in WaPo about Airbnb and the changes. Lots of comments after the article. I’d say about 90% were negative regarding the fees, cleaning and hosts misrepresenting their rentals. People saying they’d gone back to hotels, too many rules with Air.
These comments don’t bode well for Airbnb.
singles and couples maybe, and sure, when we travel as a couple, and just need an overnight stay, we choose a budget motel with no fuss. But for families and people seeking unique and offbeat experiences, ABB is gold. Chesky is not understanding the market (sure, he’s unmarried, childless and rich). but for families or groups of friends looking for a comfortable place to have a catch up, or for earnest tourists wanting to “live like a local” you can’t beat ABB. Even just recommending local places to visit, that you have personally vetted, is already better than most hotels.
All of those negative commenters should have booked a hotel. and frankly, why there’s been a surge in one room condos (esp on those arbitrage youtube channel reccos) is a mystery, cos those places are competing with hotels. What I offer you can’t get with a hotel.
Yep. That’s the thing. Sometimes that’s important, sometimes not. In my area I still see the hotels as almost always more expensive (except for one day stays). I offer much more at a lower cost, but sometimes the ‘much more’ I offer is not needed or wanted.
On Chesky being clueless, I’m not so quick to dismiss him. It does look like his initiative to increase the supply of hosts is not good for us hosts, and the interests of Airbnb and Hosts are different. So far that doesn’t make him clueless as much as just pursuing his own interests.
BUT I also think that if the oversupply of Hosts continues, the race to the bottom on pricing is bad for both Airbnb and Hosts (guests too) because there are real costs to what we provide. Some of these costs can be deferred; they’re not all annual costs, but episodic as things wear out or need to be freshened. If Hosts don’t or can’t undertake these expenditures quality, maybe safety, will eventually suffer. [Maybe ‘eventually’ is the operative word. When/if that materializes there can be a new initiative for that!]
IF, however, Airbnb’s intelligence is that demand is going to soon ROAR up then all his actions might be good for Airbnb, Hosts and Guests. I guess we’ll see but it looks a little daunting in the short term for Hosts until that roaring demand materializes, especially as it appears that much of the world is about to go into a recession.
So his timing is very curious. Yet the guy is not an idiot. He must know, or thinks he knows, something that we don’t.
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Let’s assume for the moment that Chesky is intelligent, very much so. Let’s also assume that he is exceptionally well informed (maybe he doesn’t have our perspective on everything, but, hey, he must as informed as any human could be on market forces in this marketplace).
Assume that he, too, is concerned about the Airbnb ‘investors’ buying up 10, 20, 50 properties and making them into STRs. He’s concerned about what kind of quality such investors and their ‘managers’ could offer in the long run (can they match the consistency and quality of a Marriott??) and he’s concerned about governmental regulation of such commercial Airbnbs.
Given all that, as well as foreseeing a pent-up demand for travel that will survive the current and next economic slowdowns, suppose his strategy is:
first for more price transparency (we’ve written about this in the forum and most if not all of us are in favor of that), for better regulating the checkout experience (we’re in favor of that too, I think) and
he wants not so much as to increase the overall supply of Airbnbs to create a race-to-the-bottom price competition but he wants to change the MIX of Airbnb providers to create more Home share hosts and Hosts with that one future retirement property that:
Will create a better experience for guests and
Likely will be more price competitive with non-STRs because such Home Hosts:
a) want to maintain their homes/second homes anyway,
b) own as much or more to defray costs as to make a current profit and
c) maintain properties as labor of love and way they conduct themselves in life.
Suppose THAT is the strategy. Aren’t his stated actions consistent with that? And is that not in the interest of most of the Hosts here?
I think the answer is ‘yes’ and I think our quarrel, if any, is on execution. Not to minimize the need for good execution. Otherwise, it’s ‘Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, How did you enjoy the play?’
And of course Airbnb’s interests will always to some degree differ from the interests of its Hosts, however much overlap there also will always be.
I can’t speak for Chesky but I’m concerned about the mega investors.
In my small neighborhood of 180 condominiums (20 building 9 units each) the number of short term rentals has dramatically increased.
I am on the HOA board. It’s a very reasonable group.
I’m finding many of the new rentals present as online as “hosted by Bob” but are owned by investment groups & managed by professional companies or co-hosts who are not local.
They are not transparent of who/what the guest is booking from. They don’t care who is renting-only that the unit is rented . They are embracing “more heads in beds” so advertising a 2b/2b 950sq ft condo as sleeping 8! there is a maximum of 2 cars per unit. 8 people bring more than 2 cars . When there is a problem, contacting the property manager is problematic.
I’m all for owner operated STRs. I support using a local property management company.
I’m deeply concerned to deal with the new abundance of Investment Group owned, remotely managed by people impossible to contact rental model will cause local government to implement regulation that will basically cause rentals allowed by local owners or by local property managers only (then I’m out)
I’d say that’s a false assumption. As evidenced by the fact that neighbors have reported Airbnbs that cause an ongoing disturbance and nothing is done about it. As evidenced by the fact that the platform is full of corporate managed listings of investor hosts.
Well, you might be right.
But if the new initiative is designed to attract many. more Home share hosts that might be new evidence that this is how Airbnb is going about discouraging such commercial Hosts. I guess we’ll wait and see if that is the effect.
I don’t know how you get the idea that it is designed to attract homeshare hosts. If Airbnb was interested in attracting homeshare hosts, they would not have been turning a deaf ear for years to the suggestions from homeshare hosts to create a separate search for on-site host properties instead of burying our listings under hundreds of “entire place” listings.
Well, it’s just an assumption in a thought experiment.
I’m just going off the idea that the new initiative is somehow going to make it easier for people to Airbnb their home.
Let’s see what the new initiative is next week, and then we’ll have a better idea.
I get it, and if I were in government that’s the direction I would be thinking but with an exception for ONE property. My rationale would be that there are owners who are not local but also very committed to keeping up the property and abiding by the rules because it is their second home or their intended retirement home.
If regulators were to take that approach (AND if they could implement such an approach since with LLCs the owners are often anonymous), how would you feel about that?
As an aside I am surprised that the HOA permits rentals shorter than 30 days as many if not most CCCRs I thought had that as standard boilerplate.
Consider making a rule in your HOA. 1 bedroom (with sleeper couch in the living room) - only 4 guests
, 2 bedroom (with sleeper couch in the living room) - only 6 guests. (Does not include infants).
That’s one of the rules for STRs in Hawaii.
Easier how? There has never been anything difficult about putting up a listing.
I know. That’s the question on many of our minds.
Wow – four guests for a one bedroom. That seems like a lot to me. Does that rule (law?) work well in Hawaii? Is there also a restriction on the number of vehicles?
But I’m guessing that if there are already many STRs in @Annet3176 's HOA that it might be difficult to get such a rule passed.
It’s 1 bedroom unit with a sleeper couch (in the living room), so that makes for 2 queen size beds. And yeah, it works - that’s how a majority of people stay. But there are always some that would like to pack more people in.
We have one parking spot designated per unit. You’d have to find parking somewhere else if you have more than one car unless there are plenty of spaces still available in the parking lot.
In my area, most condos allow STR. It’s a location thing.
The condo I live in which is not a resort area doesn’t allow rentals less than 90 days
This is confusing to me.
You say ‘in my area’ most condos allow STRs.
Then you say that that condo in which you live (which would seem to be in your area) don’t allow rental less than 90 days.