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Has anyone used a company called “FlatBnB” to build and manage their AirBnb listing online? My wife and I are new to the AirBnb listing side (we have stayed in a few AirBnb places over the years) and we are not the most computer or tech savvy. We are planning on using our home in South Florida and a new home in western North Carolina in the coming year to make some money on AirBnb. I spoke with the sales director and they seem like they offer a pretty good opportunity for someone in our shoes who doesn’t have a strong background in this. Just curious if anyone has any experience with them?
Airbnb is not hard to use. I’ve never heard of FlatBnb. And this whole post sounds like little more than a shill for yet another company trying to piggyback off of Airbnb’s success.
I haven’t but the first line on their site makes it seem like a waste to me:
“FlatBnB provides the perfect service for homeowners who wish to remain active in the operation of their rental property but do not want to deal with the headaches of creating and managing Airbnb listings.”
Setting up the listing on Airbnb was the easiest part of my setup. The platform is simple to walk thru and if you aren’t using many platforms, keeping things straight shouldn’t be hard. To me, the day to day management of repairs, cleaning etc has been the tricky part. If you have that taken care of, the setup of the listing should be simple. If you don’t, then I would go thru a full-service management company.
@Debthecat Yeah, and depending what county @silverado6314 is in, WNC isn’t a walk in the park. Buncombe country has tightened up strongly and Haywood country is following with restrictions. @silverado6314 - have you already purchased in WNC?
The hard part is taking good pictures, putting them in the right order, and writing a compelling listing. But there are marketing companies that will do the writing for a one-time flat fee. The interfacing with the platform is not hard.
Who in their right mind would pay five hundred dollars to list with Airbnb, and they probably use an affiliate link on top to get a few extra dollars.
Airbnb is probably one of the easiest platforms to list with and all you get with FlatBnb is them handling messaging, you’re still responsible for changeovers, cleaning etc.
So, anyone doing a google search for Flatbnb, who ends up here, don’t bother.
Good advice above. Believe me, new or potential hosts will learn more at this forum and become experts themselves.
There have been so many companies during the last few years that have tried to capitalise on the success of Airbnb by starting these add on services. Most of us here have never used any of them.
And there’s always someone here to answer questions. We have widely ranging views on several subjects so it’s always worth a good read as well as being the ‘Airbnb university’.
I looked at the flatairbnb site and I would not hand over my listing to them or anyone else. I think @silverado6314 should pull out the smartphone and give it a try before plunking down cash for someone else to do it. Do you have kids/grandkids that can help?
RR
I looked their site and all they are doing is some of the remote management. It really seems like it’s designed for hosts that do their own cleaning and other on-site hospitality tasks. Given that you are also remote and you will still need an onsite co-host, this seems like it could be extra complicated or extra costly for you since that’s not how most co-hosts operate.
It’s interesting that they charge a per-night fee when they are really only doing work on a per-reservation basis. I’m curious how the guest-host messaging works outside of basic reservations request, check-in/check-out instructions, etc. It seems like the host/co-host would need to be on the platform anyway to handle all sorts of things we know will come up.
One thing I think is important to realize is that Flatbnb is doing only the easy stuff and they are extremely likely to automate and cost-reduce it as much as possible, which means it’s going to be bumpy sometimes.
