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I am 1 road away from the beach and I received 1 star for location once with a statement that the house should be moved 200 meters to benefit from beach front!
Also, as my house has 5 listings within it, my dashboard where they compare the stars guests leave against other local hosts in the area, is bonkers. as there are no other hosts nearby they compare my 5 listings against each other. How can a room next to another get 3 starts for location when the other gets 5!
They tell me excellent work on 1 room and on the same day state room for improvement on another, compared against myself! how can I be both?
I feedback, the looney of this method, noting how they always state Airbnb runs on trust, however, their rating system couldnât be more un trustworthy.
Yes I recently got four stars on location. Now I am honest about my location and you can see where I am on the map. Now if you choose to say at an airbnb that is further away from the airport and cheaper than a Holiday Inn that is your decision but donât mark me down because of it.
My location is the only thing letting my ratings down. My description is accurate and combined with the guide book you can figure out exactly where the place is.
Being in an industrial city,and an urban location. I do wonder what the guest is expecting when they come here.
I do get the feeling that possibly having seen Scottish Tourism ads which mainly focus on Edinburgh castle & the mountains, guests get to Glasgow and think where is the scenery?
Has there been any development on this issue? Any clarifications from Air on exactly what this particular rating means? It seems too vague to be meaningful.
Iâve been getting dinged in location the most, and thatâs the category where I frequently get that âcautionâ, âroom for improvementâ blah blah blah. I even have it emphasized in my listing that I am in a suburb with nothing in walking distance and no public transportation available, and that guests must have their own car (guests still state this in my public reviews, which is obvious they didnât read the listing) I also have a couple of photos of my neighborhood, up and down the street, to guests know what to expect. It still doesnât help much. I also state how far I am from the nearest major city, and nearby attractions.
It is the guestâs responsibility to read the listing and look at photos, and to determine if the location is appropriate by looking at that blue dot on the map when viewing the listing.
The problem is that the metric for location is undefined. What are they rating? Proximity to X? Neighborhood quality? Placement in the house of the rental or location of the private house/apt.?
The category is âlocationâ, not " accuracy of the neighborhood description".
The question Airbnb asks guests is: âhow appealing is the neighborhood (safety, convenience, desirability)?â.
No matter how accurately you describe your location, truth is that not every single neighborhood is awesome. I have been lucky that all my guests gave me 5 stars but if I had to honestly rate my neighborhood I would give it a 4.
I just had a guest, who raved about everything about her stay and she gave me all 5 stars⌠except for location. Before she booked, I asked her what she was coming to town for, and she explained that she was doing a scuba dive about 30 minutes away (now if she booked in that town, the cost would have been double, so clearly she was being cheap). She said that distance was fine.
I have this written in my listings in the âgetting aroundâ section: Please check the map before booking to make sure our location is where you want to be. We are CLOSE to the beach, not on the beach, but only about a 10 minute drive away. We would like our guests to leave us all 5 stars and our location is just exactly where it is and not something we can control, so please make sure we are located where you want to be rather than giving us a lower location rating. And also know that the neighborhood is very eclectic, no homeowners association, and there are some very beautiful mansions and also some not so pretty little houses as well.
It looks like Airbnb tries to hide exactly WHO gives the what ratings, but if you check your ratings after each guest checks out, itâs not hard to tell who gave the lower rating.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to avoid these location ratings? Maybe I should mention this somewhere else in the listing as well? Thanks!
We get them tooâŚand for the life of me I can not figure out why! All of our properties and smack dab in the middle of the cityâŚthe only thing I have been able to come up with is that people think âlocationâ may mean the location of our flat within the complex? or how our complex is laid out?
The category is âlocationâ, not " accuracy of the neighborhood description".
The question Airbnb asks guests is: âhow appealing is the neighborhood (safety, convenience, desirability)?â
Which STINKS - my neighborhood is VERY eclectic and I explain that in my listing - itâs not Beverly Hills and I canât imagine what these people expect for the low prices I am charging!
If they want a fancy neighborhood - then they should pay the higher fees these upper class neighborhoods are charging!
I would doubt many quests actually read the prompts regarding the rating categories, and just go off what they âthinkâ each category means.
All of our properties are in arguably the best locations in their respective cities, but we still get dinged. We have a lot of issues for the value rating too, as people want a great deal but want to be in the fancy neighborhood. We had one host stay with us in Barcelona, and gave me a scathing review of how he would never charge this much, and the value and location were rubbish, etc. At this point I just pour myself another glass of wine and let it go.
After being a host for as long as we have beenâŚsometime you just have to let things go, and come to the realization you will never know what guests are thinking when they do âX,Y,Zâ. Its the vicious Air Bnb life cycle
Hereâs what Iâve found guysâŚpeople donât read the descriptions, thatâs become obvious to me. We use to host in NYC and now in Atlanta, and people would ask a zillion questions when we were in New York about subways, etc. if they took the time to read the listing that we spend a ton of time on making it extremely informative and detailed, with about 100 pics of the neighborhood, the apt, local shops, restaurants, etc. People still drilled me with questions, questions that the answers to where right there In their face. My theory is people donât take the time to read your descriptions. Also a lot of people arenât going to give all 5 stars ever no matter what because they feel âthere is always room for improvementâ even if they arenât sure exactly how that can take place. We got dinged a few times on location because we âwerenât in Times Squareâ even though I told people itâs only 10 min by subway or you can walk in 15. Why people want to be in Times Square anyway is beyond me. Now back in Atlanta we are just outside the city with a Subway stop in our backyard. Very easy to get to and from airport/downtown if you choose not to have a car. Still sometimes get dinged and our neighborhood is great and you can walk to tons of stuff. We donât let it bother us anymore. Some people just Arenât going to be happy no matter what.
Itâs not just location rating. I have five star reviews saying things like home away from home, great mattress and fantastic nights sleep, have already booked again so all positives yet I got 3 stars for overall experience. WTF? I do not get it. Why give rave reviews if you are then going to give three stars for overall experience??
Send them a message and ask why. If they are indeed coming back, you will want to know. Also, if they are coming back, you might wish to advise them of how Air views anything below 5 stars.
I have no idea who gave the three stars otherwise I would be. Just one of those things but a bit odd. I have had about five reviews this week and only checked them today so cannot figure out who wrote it.
