Nothing about this survey bodes well for hosts, in my opinion. Our state and local occupancy taxes are 15.25%. Maybe I’m just seeing the glass as half empty. I don’t know. I’m normally pretty optimistic, but the “race to the bottom” thing seems to be picking up steam.
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No I’m thinking all the numbers suggested here would be in addition to the 3%!
Why would they send a survey asking us how much more we would like to pay for the things we’re now getting gratis??..
I couldn’t finish it.
Instead I just put my son on creating our own website to begin the process of taking direct bookings.
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They’re actually not a profitable company yet. They’re losing money year over year but are relying a lot on all their investment funding to grow and scale. All these recent changes are likely part of the drive to actually start turning a profit now. We’ve come very far from the original Airbnb!
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Thanks for verifying that.
Sorry realized I kind of lied! They had their first profitable year in 2017 but before that they weren’t profitable.
Crush my dreams, go ahead. I’m so rarely wrong. I don’t know if I can handle this…LOL.
Here’s a little of example of how little we know about much of the new Sharing/peer-to-peer/gig economy. One little data point but still…
“Why is the gig economy getting so much attention? It is probably because many people in Manhattan now use ride-sharing apps and mistakenly think that what they are seeing is representative for the rest of the economy.”
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Airbnbs 100 million profit in 2017 is quite respectable! Thats on top of what they pay themselves of course. They don’t need to screw hosts!
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You mean we have been living off the generosity of venture capitalists all this time?
The books just didn’t look like profit - capital investment etc.!
and … not a living soul finding leads on CL pays those taxes, I’ll wager.
AND the taxes aren’t even DUE if you rent for 30+ days, or whatever constitutes short term vs. long term in your jurisdiction.
40% or more is just a POWERFUL disincentive to switch to direct bookings, Craigslist, word of mouth etc.
And 40% is not that unusual, when you look at hotel rates circa 16-18% in Houston, Indy, NYC, Nashville, San Antonio, + up to 23% to Air.
Footnote: These rates will profoundly depress STRs by legitimate operators.
They will be as nothing though to the investor scammers buying properties with money-laundered cash, fraudulent loans, etc.
That survey? I read it, decided that it didn’t help ME and deleted it.
Airbnb is simply an advertising agency as far as I am concerned.
All the guff about Superhost (I am one) and the advantages of it are simply hot air!!
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This is true which is unusual for these types of companies nowadays. For example, Tesla, Uber and Amazon make little to no profit. The new business models are grow huge first, then make money later. It took Amazon 14 years to start making money.