Hi Xena, why don’t you mix it up a bit - keep some periods as a 2 day minimum, some 4-5 nights … you can look at the pattern of past stays to see if there’s a pattern of longer vs shorter stays during week/weekend to guide you. To take some of the pressure off, consider getting an experienced cleaner to do some of the cleans so you’re not paying out for all of them. You can often “guess” which may be the bigger cleans, and do those yourself to save some $s on extra cleaning or vice versa? You could also get someone less experienced to help you & you do it together … so you can supervise, maybe a student wanting to earn some extra $s & you pay by the hour a lower rate than a professional cleaner -they can do the bits you don’t like doing and you halve the cleaning time! Hope these ideas are helpful … I’ve tried all these because I have felt the way you do, as if I was on a treadmill!!
Hi Xena, further to my earlier mssg … so sorry to read about your Dad, I didn’t read the whole thread until now; hope things improve for you as this Airbnb gig is pretty demanding if you do it all yourself, yet there’s not much profit left if you outsource everything. It sounds as if you might be best to take a break & do LTR for a period.
We have been hosting in our personal home since 2012 doing all our own cleaning, meeting each guest, etc. I have had several periods of burn-out, but certainly can’t afford to give up the income. Blocking a few nights each month really helps me to recharge. I stayed with a host in Ireland who closes for her least busy month each year for repairs, an extra deep clean, etc. She found it refreshing. Our rooms are on two different floors so I created housekeeping carts for each floor and got a few extra tools like dust mops so that I wasn’t running up and down so much. Best of all, we trained our 15 year old granddaughter to do the cleaning and she gets to help when her schedule allows.
This is what we intend to do for January.
After the Three Kings celebration (Spanish Christmas almost) on the 6th, our daughters go back to the UK and we have blocked off the rest of the month to guests. Hoping to do a catch up with friends trip to Beirut and Cairo for a week or so, then spend the rest of the time doing maintenance, which on a 250yr old house is never ending!
JF
I do this somewhat naturally. I don’t drop my rates in the slow season enough to be very well booked. I get a few reservations a month. Nice, to not have to manage so many guests.
I block a date here and there that is amenable to me. We are on a family holiday for a week and blocked it out 1.5 months ago, also we have an old friend coming from Munich in Sept for three weeks, so he is occupying the trailer hideaway. If he is more comfortable inside the house we will open up some dates. Oct, we hope will be the usual 3+ nights of guests per week, but we are not sure if that will happen after being blocked so much. After only 7 months of hosting I am very happy for this change of pace!
Don’t actually block everything, just use a rule set to make it unbookable.
JF
I’m not very good with rule sets. JF do mean to answer my comment?
I block day before/after check in, and I’ve raised my rates slightly above average so I’m not booked constantly. This works in my area, as guests tell me there are periods when there is not a reasonably priced hotel room to be had.
On a related topic, do any of you use the super high price tactic to “block” dates instead of actually blocking them? The theory being that Air will not then ding you on search ranking for having blocked dates. I don’t do it, because it seems unfair to guests who might click on my place then think “WTF” when they see the (fake) price, and disadvantageous to me in that I will not get a future booking from them even when I am available.
Not super high but yes I’ve tacked on 20% to discourage booking and it works most the time.
Just a few days ago it didn’t. A repeat guest booked and they probably didn’t even notice the price. I gave them a small cash “rebate” of $5 and explained why. The today’s guest left a $5 tip, the first cash tip I’ve had in about 3 years. On top of that she was one of those granola-ish types who was telling me she’s an empath and how she felt before the shootings two weeks ago and other stuff that’s not usually my jam. But I’d also been prompted by unseen forces to give her a bracelet I had from Cambodia that was “blessed” by Buddhist monks because the night before she said she was on her way to Mt Shasta for “healing.” This was before I knew she left $5.
So it’s getting strange up in here.
I have started using that this summer and have currently no bookings (the high nights end tonight) but it is still working out for me as most of my bookings are same day or within the week so it won’t effect once I am back home.