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+1000000000
we hosted a lot of wwoofers for 2 years, it’s VASTLY different to hosting paying guests. But you’ve got the experience to know there are red flags in the communication, it will be different for guests but you’ll eventually learn what those are (and they are different for us all, depending on our region eg, last minute bookings are not suss for us, neither are locals as they make up 80% of my demo)
If you want to be hands off , then you can employ a local cohost to manage cleaning staff, listing turnovers, guest interactions etc. @Farminfeller
You can pay them through the platform (commission) and set them up as a cohost .
You need someone around in case there are problem guests or problems at your listing such as a boiler breakdown etc.
Have a look at the Airbnb Help websites - it has FAQS on most aspects of using Airbnb to market your listing .
I could let my guests do self-check in (we have a smart lock), but I still like to meet them and show them the apartment when they arrive, because I think that establishing a personal connection does help to ensure warm feelings and thus good reviews, which is important on Airbnb. It only takes a few minutes and I find it quite pleasant to meet my guests who are always really nice! But that does require that I’m flexible around their arrival times, which usually works for me but might not work for a single dad. Another reason I like to meet the guests is to establish that I’m nearby (I’m actually not, I’m a half hour away, but I don’t tell them that) which I like to think discourages them from thinking it’s a suitable party place and prevents people from arriving with pets or babies (which are prohibited by my condo association for short term rentals).
So far my guests haven’t had any emergencies but they’ve had questions about where to find things or how to operate a child-proof outlet, just little things that hadn’t even occurred to me to include in my house manual until someone asked. I haven’t had anyone call me at 2am; so far people have just sent me a text (at reasonable times of the day) and I respond by text and everyone is happy.
I do have something in my manual (not on Airbnb, a thing I printed that resides in the flat) where I provide emergency numbers and then I have a headline, “After-hours urgencies” where I give them instructions for how they can override my do-not-disturb settings for something that’s urgent but doesn’t warrant calling an ambulance. That’s because, before we started letting on Airbnb, we had a long-term tenant who experienced a burst hot water heater which flooded part of the apartment and caused pretty thorough damage to the floors and walls because it was poorly managed by the real estate agency. If the renter had called me promptly, I could have helped with the clean-up and saved a lot of headache and money later. So now I figure I’m willing to risk the possibility that some jerk will call me at 2am because they can’t get Netflix to work, in case someone needs to call me at 2am because something real bad is going down in the apartment.
One piece of advice that I found useful when I was getting set up on Airbnb (just in the past few months, so it’s all still quite fresh for me!) is that getting good reviews is less about what you provide and more about managing expectations. So make sure you signal in several places what you offer and what you don’t – for example, you might have a listing headline along the lines of “Back to nature with an unplugged cabin stay” or “Glamping experience in gorgeous private cabins” or whatever. Then in the description you say that you have electricity but no wifi / TV or whatever, and then they’ll say “Wow, what luxury, it was like camping but with electricity!” instead of “This cabin would have been a lot better if it had TV and Netflix.”
I also copied a great idea from an Airbnb video: some people who offered a cabin experience described initially getting low ratings because they weren’t expecting to rough it, so they added a “manifesto of low expectations” section to their listing description, which was a nice humorous way of letting people know what to expect. I did that with my own listing. And then because, as people here will tell you, people do NOT read much of the listing, I also confirm they understand this stuff at the time that they book, by sending each guest a message (you can program and re-use standard responses on the Airbnb message system) that says, after a nice welcoming line:
“Can I ask that you please confirm you’ve read the house rules (no shoes in house/ quiet apartment building/ no children/ no pets) and are aware that there’s no parking* available and it is 40 steps up to the apartment? We want to make sure that this stay is a good fit for you!”
For you, since you’re keen to not interact with guests, maybe you can make that a highlight of your listing, so include “Private cabin retreat” or something and emphasise that people will have their privacy.
Or you could hire a manager. That’s what I did at first: she handled everything about our place (cleaning, interacting with guests, problem-solving, etc.) and took 20% of the cut plus a linens fee. You might find someone in your area who does this sort of thing.
those are some really great suggestions, thank you all! To blanket respond to a few of them, I was a great wwoof host just because of my thorough description of expectations, I think that will crossover well, as well as being very up front about what is and what is not allowed, as i’m sure you’re all very aware, people are drastically different and some of the things they consider acceptable or normal are just completely out of the question for others. This is obviously about making money, as it is with anyone doing this kind of thing, but right now it’s about establishing a presence and getting a start. I’m still undecided if airbnb is a good fit and I need to get some more input from VRBO folks to see if they still do the same expectations of “meet and greet”… I’d say for 3/4 of the time, I’ll be around and able to fuss with them, but, what I learned from wwoofing, the guests arrive when they arrive and that usually meant I spent the better part of the day just waiting on them to get there maybe doing some mild yard work so I could hear the phone. I’m likely going to try it and see how it works, if they don’t appreciate my hands off approach then I’ll just pursue another venue…. I still hold that I don’t feel there’s anything I can do if something like a hot water heater bursts that is going to change the situation, I can replace it, but not in a timely manner nor in a non-intrusive manner, so if something breaks that would affect their stay all I could do with them is say (yes, this broke and affected your stay, go to a hotel, I apologize).
After reading some other posts on here, the one about the “fine” if you want to cancel early but can’t provide proper documentation, it really makes me think more and more that just hiring a co-host is the best option for me. Such as was suggested earlier, water heater breaks and floods the house…. I’ll have to cancel the next guests most likely to get the damage sorted out, but I build houses top to bottom so I wouldn’t be hiring anyone other than maybe a helper, so…. I would need someone there to take pictures of problems as quickly as possible.
This has been a very helpful thread, thank you all so much. I wouldn’t have thought about hiring a co-host until now.
something that came to mind…. I’m an introvert, I know I’m not alone…. maybe have some kind of “introvert paradise” kind of leading phrase lol. Of course word it nicely but the idea being “you don’t want to meet me, I don’t want to meet you, it’ll be great” hahahha
I love AirBnB and have had nothing but good experiences with them after almost 1 year of hosting.
I don’t use VRBO because it is definitely more expensive for me, and would add to my workload or expense in managing multiple source bookings. I’m booked solid year around so I have to block dates just so I don’t burn out. I think AirBnB’s fee to hosts is very modest.
Taxes: My city assesses sales and occupancy taxes on short term rentals (STRs), 17% total. AirBnB collects those taxes directly from my guests and pays taxes directly to my city. I don’t have to do anything. This is wonderful! All I owe is income tax paid as any small business pays. You do not want to violate tax law, it’s not worth it, I hope you ignore any tax-dodging neighbors.
Breakfast and other amenities: I provide cereal, instant oats, milk, pastries, pancake mix using water, maple syrup, butter, orange juice, lots of coffee and tea varieties, so I tick the box on the AirBnB website saying I provide breakfast. Most of my guests touch nothing except the pastries. In fact I used to provide eggs, cheese and fresh fruit too, but since guests never ate it I’ve stopped.
This is the most surprising thing I learned as a host so far–guests don’t eat what I provide but they love seeing it there.
Consider providing cooking oil for sure!, sugar, creamer, coffee, tea, salt and pepper, and some kind of snack foods as a minimum. For a cabin if you don’t have these things I believe guests will complain in their reviews. But that’s not much and trust me, you will not be replacing it all often.
I provide a full pantry shelf, including local spices, fancy latte mixes, fancy loose tea, honey, hot cocoa, condiments, salad vinegars, olive oil, baking soda and baking powder, chopsticks, soy sauce, cinnamon, chocolate bars. All used lightly but people comment about this stuff in my reviews.
Insurance from AirBnB: As a guest I received a small sum to compensate for the host claiming amenities the property did not have. As a host I have received full reimbursement via AirBnB from damage to linens ($300+) caused by the guest that the guest admitted to.
I would strongly recommend STR specific insurance even if your municipality does not require it. I am covered, for example, for wrongful eviction lawsuits–not something ordinary property insurance covers.
You can spin off your STR buildings from any buildings used for other purposes and insure them separately. The insurance broker I used is Steadily Insurance which obtained a strong Travelers policy for me at an excellent price. Travelers has a great reputation, but Steadily has relationships with multiple insurers depending on what you need.
Best wishes for a successful STR business!
This is what we do too. But be sure to put this fact in your description up high. I’ve only had one guest complain at check in but she forgot all about it and gave me one of the strongest reviews ever.
This reminds me—I have certainly learned how to screen guests in the past year.
AirBnB pressures you to use Instant Book. It’s controversial on this forum. I use IB but I tick off every requirement available. If the prospective guests has 0 reviews or bad reviews, I reject them.
Early on I accepted 30+ day rentals via AirBnB but I stopped. Those folks are messy and break things. Consider limiting stays to 14 days tops in the beginning. I think there may be landlord rejects who look for newbie AirBnBs .
And also, I would not accept folks with 0 reviews at this early stage. Every time I do this the people are not as good as experienced AirBnB guests. Some hosts love to do this but at this early stage, why not make things easy on yourself?
Now I do allow 30+ days but as a practical matter there is no space in the calendar for them anymore.
It isn’t an expectation- Airbnb actually pushes self-check-in. The meet and greet is more something a lot of hosts have found leads to more respectful guest behavior- it’s more for the host’s benefit than the guest’s. It’s psychologically more difficult for guests to behave badly when they have met the host or co-host face-to-face, then when it’s just a faceless rental. It implants the idea that there is someone who personally cares about the place, that it’s not just some uncaring “investor” who is only in it for the money.
Your experience hosting Wwoofers is quite valuable as far as dealing with all sorts of people and their sometimes odd notions and myriad ways of doing things, and in setting expections and limits and your own personal boundaries they can’t cross.
But paying guests have different, and often understandable expectations. Like if the electricity goes out,or the hot water tank goes on the blink, a wwoofer just has to take it in stride- a str guest may expect a full refund, even if they were only inconvenienced for a few hours.
And then of course, you will also have to deal with the platforms themselves, who handle your money and sometimes have frustrating glitches or bad customer service.
thanks, that’s great info, and yes, I wouldn’t have any problem giving a full refund due to unexpected issues…. a power outage during a storm for example, I would draw the line at that, but I do have generators I had already planned on staging so if it does happen and I’m around, I can definitely fire them up. I’m very much leaning towards trying it out with a good description and seeing how it goes, if I don’t like how it works out, I’ll do a private platform, I’m lucky in that my location will be viable for my own web based platform and that it’s not likely to draw a “party” minded crowd. With wwoof, communication was key and I never had a bad experience until I tried one time just letting whoever asked come…. instant regret lol, first and last time I did that lol, it was my fear a bunch of broke drugged out hippies showed up with a broken car, I had to fix their car (I run a mechanic shop at home) for free, but they had also had a fight amongst themselves and had to pay for two of them to get a greyhound ticket home as well as drive them an hour and a half to the bus station lol…… It was absurd, but the alternative would have been to have the sheriff’s office remove them and nothing would have stopped them from coming back after they were taken away. Anyhow, I had a great description and interview process, I made my place “exclusive” just because of the process and I think it would work just fine to take that approach from any platform. I plan to give it a try, this is my first time dipping my toe in the water of paid rental (not that wwoofers don’t pay with their time/energy) and within a few years I want to retire from my normal job and just manage these rentals and keep up the farm.
No, VRBO does not expect you to “meet and greet” guests. That’s actually not common.
The man I bought my property from, who had subdivided my lot off his acreage, and lived here, was an artist who had a vision of creating an artist’s colony on his property. So he sort of just naively put it out in the local community that people involved in artistic endeavors could come live there, in exchange for helping out around the property.
He ended up getting a bunch of peoole who came with all sorts of great sounding plans- “I’m going to build a communal bread oven”, “I’m going to put in a vegetable garden to feed everyone”, etc.,etc.
What he actually got was a bunch of young people who set up their campsites, or moved into one of the little rustic structures, did nothing, just using it as a free place to live, and when asked to leave, left piles of their junk behind they didn’t want.
There was only one couple who shared the vision, planting a big veggie garden, which entailed creating the garden space from scratch and fencing it off from the wildlife, keeping the paths swept, making nice seating areas enhanced with potted flowering plants, and participating with the owner in organizing their art open houses.
Well, you might if the guests have been there for a week, availing themselves of all the amenities, running up your utility bills, creating piles of dirty laundry, and then demanding a full refund for the entire stay because the hot water tank went on the blitz on their last day, leaving a filthy mess behind them. Which is something that does happen.
That said, the type of accommodation you seem to have, and the type of guests it will tend to attract if you market it in the right way, may mean you never run into this sort of scammy, entitled behavior. I have never had any issues with my guests that couldn’t be resolved amiably in the moment, no refund scammers, no revenge reviews. My guests have almost all been lovely people who I would certainly welcome back.
nice, fingers crossed…. I’m not sure if this will be the right platform for me, but with all the help I’ve gotten from you folks I’m going to give it a try with a detailed description. I’m not quite sure how the thing works with abb, but, what I did in wwoof was ask some numbered questions in my correspondence that I had prepared. Pretty much all anyone had to do was answer the questions, smart alek answers were welcomed, just to show someone had a little reading comprehension and actually read through all my mumbo-jumbo before coming. I’m not going to be running a “normal” vacation rental kind of deal, at least not at first, so, maybe being a little abnormal in the process will weed the folks out that I don’t want… that coupled with location of being VERY desirable for folks attending the neighboring art school or outdoorsy types will hopefully alleviate any concerns. Even if I don’t agree with some of the answers I’ve gotten, you have all been VERY helpful and I appreciate any and all feedback. I’ve got the same sort of butterflies as when I started WWOOF and it turned out to be an absolutely fantastic experience that while I may not repeat, I will cherish. For anyone interested, my quitting wwoof was only because I enjoyed interacting with everyone and it was almost like travelling while getting to stay at home, but you are required to do a lot more interpersonal exchange than I’m willing to commit to being a single father of a small child. When the kiddo gets a little more independent and I can trust strangers a little closer to our home, I may get back into it again…. I met lifelong friends hosting.
Thank you. I work hard on my responses and it’s gratifying to be recognized even when I’m not directly in the thread,
We totally get it. [A sorry bunch, to be sure, those ones. (No doubt from Westside)]
ALL: Another attempt at humor. {I have no idea where Westside is, but guessing it’s down under.}
bwaahahahaha. I read the first few on that thread, then gave up. It’s nice when folks are helpful, it’s hard to not feel like you’re being “talked down to” when folks are giving what seems like very basic advice, however, being on this internet thing we have to be mindful that those people don’t know us or our experience level in various aspects of life. To be sure, everyone “knows what they’re doing” whether they do or not 
Seriously though, this has been very informative and has already helped to shape my approach, not sure where it will lead, but with wwoof I had about 1 in 10 applications returned. Of those, maybe half would actually book and show up, but we stayed as booked as we wanted to. My end goal here is to have a 3 season “food forest” here for people to come and be able to roam freely and forage whatever they see. Being a single father I had to abandon my “farm” business but I think this is going to eventually be a way to get to work the farm and have it provide us with an income even if it’s not what I had originally intended (wholesale fruit).
I have a guest house just behind our house that we live in. We do self check in. And have zero issues. I work. We live on the property so it tends to keep things quiet.
We are in bed close Proximity to our rental but rarely see our guests. When we do see them some are extremely friendly and others seem very uncomfortable. I used VRBO also but got very few guest from that. Airbnb has worked out great for me.
This sounds amazing and like my husband’s dream place to stay! Once you get your listing up on Airbnb, please share here! 
thank you, that’s the kind of experience I was looking for here. The rental is a couple hundred yards from our home and not within “sight” due to a tree barrier, but, still close enough to see if things are going screwy.
Here on Maui, there was a crackdown on illegal rentals. Airbnb and the local governments here got together and put together an ID system in which an owner not only has to provide tax numbers for claiming income, but a TKS number to identify the exact property. Properties that are not permitted to STR or that don’t have a TKS number have been taken off the Airbnb platform.
So far, I think the count is that Airbnb has removed about 3000 illegal STRs, but there are thousands more out there on other platforms.