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Is the quality of guests just going down or is it because of the winter? I started off with my Airbnb rental in Fall. I got some wonderful guests but since November I have had nothing but less than average guests.
First one booked my room for a night and then wanted to negotiate and pay in cash for 5 days after that. The last guest I had left the keys in our front door overnight! I discovered it in the morning. Thankfully no one had taken them. They also left a big black stain on the carpet in the guest room (possibly mascara?) which was really hard to remove. They didn’t tell me about the stain. And get this - this guy has had 10 positive reviews - or at least seem to be since Airbnb doesn’t show us their stars.
Depends on where you are. I am in NY and will give an idea of how it has played out for me so far and what I expect (based off of last year)
Sept & Oct : Amazing! Both were record months for me
Nov: A lot tougher. I commanded a high-ish price, but demand isn’t as strong and had several changes/cancellations
December: Very strong month; slightly due to luck but December can have pleasant holiday travelers
Jan & Feb: Very bad months. Demand weak, price must fall to catch any guests. Depending on harshness of winter, many guests’ arrival plans will be delayed/cancelled when flights are. I’ve noticed a striking pattern, where as the price of booking falls, so do the quality of the guests. My two worst guests were in Feb last year, and they paid the lowest rates ever.
March: Once March rolls around you can start getting more demand. Prices recover a little and demand gets much better. Last March I got lucky and had many couples (who I charge more) and ended up having a great month. But I can easily see it going not as well
April onward: High demand and high prices. Here you should more than make up for the winter lull
I am on the east coast and we have cold winters too. I had yet another experience today when I started getting all the towels together to throw in the washer and discovered a hand towel covered with blood. ugh…don’t know where these people come from. And my towels are all white.
The lower-quality guests question is always something people debate about. I’ve had midweek, low-priced guests that have been amazing, as well as high-priced weekenders that completely disrespected the space.
I think hosts want to categorize people in anyway they can so they can feel that they can avoid “THE OTHERS”. Wouldn’t that be nice?
I’ve had well-reviewed guests that I couldn’t wait to shove out the door and many, many new users who I wished would stay a bit longer. I’ve had groups of 5 from China that I hardly knew were there and groups of 5 from China that were a mess. I’ve had young undergrad-aged kids that were beautiful and wrote me a thank-you note, and others of that age that left a huge stack of beer bottles in the room, make-up on the towels and who-knows-what in the toilet.
