Alternatives to Airbnb for in home hosts

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Following on from the “Culling” topic, I got thinking about alternatives for in home hosts, a sector of the market (in its current form) pretty much created by Airbnb. Whole home listings have more choices than you could wave a stained towel at, so this topic is aimed at those who list a room, within their principal property.

The first that came to mind is BDC. They don’t appear to be marketing their homestay category very much, but if there are substantial numbers of hosts being blocked by Airbnb, that may change.

The above is actually a link to their Homestay page.

The usual disadvantages, IB only and problematic if you need to cancel. That said, I’ve no idea if Homestays have slightly T&Cs, might be worthwhile investigating.

I only came across this one recently and it appears to tick a lot of boxes in home hosts might look for.

There’s been a couple of topics discussing GoLightly before, but no harm in mentioning it again here I reckon. They do both whole house and private room listings.

Again, misterbnb has been discussed before, comments were pretty mixed.

I’d forgotten they did private rooms, but TripAdvisor ticks the boxes in respect of not being forced into IB and will also process payments for you.

One for UK hosts from @Helsi , geared towards long term guests, but stays can be as short as one month.

The following sites are targeted toward folks over 40 or 50 years of age, thanks @Christine_Shirtcliff for suggesting.

UK only

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/our-impact/programmes/homeshare/

This is UK based and the following link is the US equivalent, I think.

https://homeshare.org/programmes-worldwide/usa/

No idea about suitability in respect of the last few links, but it’s a starting point for a host looking for an alternative listing site.

I’d completely forgotten about this one, thank you @marcchataigner .

By creating this particular market sector for guests, Airbnb also created a new host type. This means that for many, there will only be Airbnb for them, and none of the above will be a good fit.

None of the above have the market penetration in this sector that Airbnb has right now, but the more hosts who leave/look for alternative to Airbnb may shift things a bit.

Any others?

JF

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As someone who has to have periodic colonoscopies , I just can’t get past GoLightly as the name.

I have nothing against women having their own booking agency.

However, Golightly is the name of the pre-colonoscopy solution you drink to purge your system before the procedure!!! :crazy_face: :scream_cat: :hot_face: :pleading_face:

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I think it depends which country you live in. Here in the UK you can do STRs on spareroom and advertise in your local to trust board.

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It was a surname first. Some say it’s named after the main character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Anyway, they could have probably done better.

It reminds me of the unfortunate choices of the the guy to started Houfy. First it was called Roofy and found out that was a rape drug. Then he picked something that no one knows how to pronounce.

I’ve been a member for the last year and haven’t gotten any bookings but I was also closed much of the last year. I reopen on April 2 so we will see. Over the years I’ve been so busy on Airbnb I didn’t need to give much thought to other platforms.

@JohnF thanks for putting this together. We periodically get folks who are looking for something like this and it hasn’t been updated for awhile. Helping hosts with their research is a better use of time than helping students with theirs.

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Was meaning from an STR perspective, spareroom is aimed towards longer stays.

You’ve successfully developed a niche in your market over the years which puts you in a strong position, you’re probably in the bottom percentile of hosts who may get bumped.

Don’t get me started… :wink:

When I get the time and inclination coinciding, I’ll do one for whole house listings, over the years I reckon I’ve cast an eye over most of the mainstream OTAs. Outside the biggies, most are pretty shit, but may be of use to someone.

JF

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Actually you can use spare.room for a few weeks or a month or so - so works well for STR home share hosts who like that length of stay.

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Fair comment, although their search filter is one month minimum.

I’ll add it to the OP when I’m off my phone and using a screen I can actually read from!

JF

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I won’t use any platform that requires the use of IB, so BDC is out. And a platform that doesn’t understand that IB isn’t a great thing for home share hosts isn’t a platform that’s a good fit for me.

It also seems to attract the lowest quality of guests in my country, as experienced by a couple other hosts I know here.

Golightly looked interesting, but it seemed geared towards millennial-aged corporate-type gals, the digital nomad types, which I can’t accomodate because of no high speed, unlimited internet.

I’ve mentioned before that the new platform I’d like to see wouldn’t be exclusively for home-share hosts, but for all on-site hosts, whatever form that took- private rooms, private suite attached to host’s home, outbuilding/ granny apt., tiny or even large separate house, glamping, etc.

That would broaden the host/guest base of the platform, rather than it just being private rooms within a host’s home, but all those situations have far more in common with each other, as far as the type of guest issues they face, than they do with any type of listings of off-site hosts.

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You guys in the U.S have the option of tapping into the travelling nurse industry, I looked into it here in the UK, but it doesn’t seem to be nearly as much of a thing. Language schools are common here - at least in normal times, so that’s one option I’m considering going forward. Stays on average would likely be slightly longer than my Air bookings

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There’s not a lot of money in language school bookings and you need to provide meals

We don’t have a travelling nurse industry here because we are a much smaller country and we have our magnificent NHS so we don’t have people travelling between private sector health bodies to find work.

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This is great!!! Thank you for posting. Have you tried any of these?

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Thanks for the info. There is a group for people over 50 who want to host in their home and have guest interaction. Sadly I’ve forgotten the name and hoped that someone on this forum might know it. Alas COVID may have eliminated that option in many places.

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Thanks for that. I’ve found two five sites that may fit the bill.

Added now.

JF

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Just remembered - its’ the Freebird Club.

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BDC is absolute trash

I’d advise all hosts to avoid it if you can

BCD doesn’t allow hosts to review guests. So a guest could come to your property, trash the place and you’d have no means of warning other hosts about the guest

BDC expects you to collect the security deposit.

And on BDC you cannot screen or vet guests. You have to accept anyone that books your property

They also make their bias very clear to you in favor of guests

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What about Fairbnb? https://fairbnb.coop

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There’s always one… :roll_eyes:

Thank you for that stunningly insightful and objective comment.

Good catch, I guess we’re all fortunate that Airbnb aren’t guest centric :rofl:

JF

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Lmao @ you still harbouring sour grape from the other thread… That’s hysterical!

I would say that I’m surprised, however you are incredibly petty.

Don’t forget to ‘raise your standards’ and have a good day lol

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Only grapes here are lovely sweet palomino fino and moscatel…

:roll_eyes:

JF

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I’ve had lots of inquiries from travel nurses but frankly I found that they tried to throw their weight around and they always try to beat me up on the price so I’ve always turned them down.

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