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Large Br 2-queen beds. Small bedroom 1-queen queen sofa sleeper. LTR is restricted to 2 people per BR. STR is not restricted.
HOA considering implementing max 6 occupancy for STR & finding stronger methods for enforcing 2 car maximum.
If the investment owners /managers cared about the neighborhood, they would conduct business in a more mindful manner. But they don’t so now the HOA must invest time & resources to have more control.
Our first step currently is to contact the owner, notify them of the problems & explain the issues need to be resolved or there will be fines—most don’t respond. If the negative event like pool party is underway, we call the owner real-time. A few care.
Since Chesky’s post about reasonable check out instructions/chores there has been what feels to me a powerful wave of anti-host anti-basic clean up after yourself sentiment postings in FB groups.
Many posts are hostile. It is clear the perception is the haves vs have nots. Those of us working to keep my financial “head above water” are lumped in the the mega investment groups.
Hmmm, will I be changing my review template, which praises guests who leave the suite clean and awards extra points for taking trash to the outside bin and recycling? I also mention good communications. I don’t congratulate guests on following house rules, that’s a baseline expectation.
Maybe it will become, “Joe and Mary were great guests. They did not leave garbage on the floor and even locked the door behind them when they left!”
All very good but AirBnb as a company in 2022 won’t survive on that tiny percentage of a user base.
Like all disrupters, be it Uber or Airbnb, they all eventually turn into the very model they disrupted eventually.
Airbnb has and keeps turning into hotel accommodations-like products and will continue. The old rent a couch or a room in someone’s home to see a concert in San Francisco days are long over with.
In a recent stay in Chang Mai, a search produced for us over 30 listings of all identical places in a single high-rise, the only real difference was what floor you wanted to be on and a slight difference in furnished decor (but not much). The last 5 years have been an explosion of investor driven product on the platform which watersdown the unique stays and will continue to.
I’ve stayed in probably close to 300 different Airbnbs in countries all over the world, but the percentage of Airbnbs to hotel stays for us is now at about 50% due to the parity of pricing between airbnbs and hotels now.
Hosts might not want to accept that, but most travelers aren’t looking or willing to pay a premium in their travel budget just for a unique place to stay, a lot of choices come down to dollars and good enough rather than unique. I don’t see this changing for the better anytime soon and only continuing. Lots of bitterness in the replies. Might be time to get out of hosting.
I suppose I could pay the tax for them as well. My rate is already the lowest in my area and I have not raised it in seven years. But I appreciate the suggestion.
Huh, if this is true then all we’d need to do to boost our listings is ask all our friends and relatives to look at and admire our Airbnb listings and save them. Maybe I’ll try that in winter when bookings are down!
you can do that for a temporary boost, but long term it’s hard to fake it. You have some beautiful photos in your listing, so you might already be benefiting from it. You can also keep track of how many people have added your listing to their wish lists. Views and wishlist additions help and there are FB host groups where you can post and get other people to like their listings.
WFT - “You shouldn’t have to do unreasonable checkout tasks, such as stripping the beds…” Really?? Then guests shouldn’t expect a lower pricing point. So much for treating hosts like independent businesses, who set up their own business structure. I’m really going to have to step away for a while. Maybe if there was an option - “I don’t want to strip the bed, so I agree to pay $25 more toward the cleaning fee” or “I’d like to save $25, so I agree to strip the bed and put the sheets in the washing machine.”
I don’t consider it unreasonable but it does seem unwise. I need to see the sheets flat on the bed spread out under the light so I can sticky roller off any hair and pre treat any stains. And I certainly don’t want them rolling all their mess (if there is one, there usually isn’t) and spreading the stains and hair around to more parts of the sheets, blankets, shams whatever.
I can see asking guests to do something like wash their dishes because letting them sit with food residue invites vermin to come look for food and makes them harder to clean when the residue dries out. But stripping a bed takes mere seconds.
While I agree that Airbnb shouldn’t dictate what guests are asked to do before check-out, it should be clearly stated in the listing so guests can decide whether they want to book under those conditions or not.
And it takes what, all of 3 minutes to strip a bed and throw it in the washing machine? I have a hard time understanding how that is worth $25.
I’m under the impression that this will be in listings in 2023.
I can’t wait for this, because, for me, it means I will get guests who (unfairly or not) think that conditional ‘chores’ are the mark of the devil. Sadly, the entitlement might erupt in other areas of their stay, but for me, it will mean that I will get more guests.
I don’t fear guests who see being asked to strip beds, vacuum, etc. as being over-the-top, as being guests who would be likely to have a sense of entitlement.
Almost all my guests have left their room and bathroom quite clean and tidy, even though I don’t give them any check-out chores.
And I, too, see being asked to strip beds, etc, i.e. household cleaning chores beyond tidying up one’s personal mess, as over-the-top, but I certainly wouldn’t ever leave some mess behind me.
In other words, I don’t think balking at being asked to do cleaning chores when one has already been charged a cleaning fee has anything to do with a sense of entitlement.
That said, I do know that there are certain types of rentals in various areas of the world where guests have traditionally been expected to clean the place when they leave, or even expect to have to clean it when they arrive before they can settle in. These places also may traditionally have guests provide their own linens and towels, and may have only very basic cooking gear, etc. I don’t see anything wrong with this rental model, as long as it is all made quite clear in the listing. These types of places are usually fairly remote, and you are really only paying for a roof over your head in a lovely area by a lake or ocean beach- a fairly inexpensive way for families to have a vacation they might not otherwise be able to afford. No luxury, no squeaky clean, or perks offered nor expected.
I ask guests NOT to strip the beds for this very reason. I don’t ask them to take out the trash. The one thing I do ask them to do besides putting the used bath linens in the laundry hamper or tub is to “ Put any dirty dishes in the dishwasher, wipe off the counters, and leave the kitchen sink clean.”
That’s it besides locking the door.
And my cleaning fee is $95 on a 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath house of over 2500 sq feet. That doesn’t cover what I pay my cleaners or come close covering the cost to restock all the house supplies like coffee, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning supplies, laundry supplies, etc.
LOL - I was just trying to advocate for people to be able to set up their own rules. The dollar amount was just a placeholder. I’ve been reading posts here for years and recognize that there may be reasons why a host would want the place left clean. I don’t charge a cleaning fee. I share my space and expect people to do their part to keep it clean, like you would a good roommate.
