It is probable that my husband and I will both have access to and take a COVID vaccine by the end of March. I’ve worked in healthcare and realize that none of the vaccines are 100% effective, but believe that those who get the vaccine wll at least have milder cases. We rent out rooms right within our home and have even done our own bedroom in the past. We have been closed since March, but have opened bookings as of next July. We based this on the assumption that a good chunk of the population will have been vaccinated or had COVID by then. May is another high demand month here and we are debating moving our opening date up to then. I am curious about how the vaccine roll out is driving other host’s decision making on opening.
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I am over 65 and expect vaccination prob February - I have been closed since March as well.
I have rooms in the second house of my 2 family. Once I get part 1 of the vac I will open the schedule (mine has always, in the past, been very short 2-5 day stays for business travelers) for the month afterwards.
One of the bathrooms is shared, so I am considering only 1 guest room of the 2 that share the bathroom opening; the other has a private so no worries. Also, I am wondering what I might expect from travelers as well? Will they be concerned that someone else is in the house too? Should I open only 1 room of the 3?
Because my space is separate but connected to my house, I’ve been open sporadically leaving 24+ hours between guests. I’m already looking at reopening fully but still only a short time ahead. I don’t want to have a booking for spring break and end up having to cancel or be inconvenienced. I still think things are too uncertain to just complete free up my calendar.
So I’ve got some open days between now and late January. I opened the calendar three days ago and got two one night bookings for the coming week. By summer I expect wide distribution of the vaccine to be underway and to no longer feel that covid is significantly impacting my business.
If I I had a tourism based summer business I’d probably open my calendar after the first of the year with higher prices than pre pandemic and lower them if and only if I didn’t get booked as the time got closer. I expect a lot of pent up demand.
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That is actually one of our options too. Perhaps we will start with one room.
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I hear you. There is a complicated range of things to consider. I can easily get wrapped up in analysis paralysis. I decided to think about what I would want as a guest and open that way.
Just do the best you can and roll on. There is no way to make everyone happy.
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I look forward to the discussion here.
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No-one knows as yet how many vaccines will be available and when and therefore when we will have a situation where enough of the population will be vaccinated to ensure herd immunity, particularly as there are multiple versions of the disease.
For example in the UK we have four million vaccines, but only have 800,000 in the first tranche. This will not give us enough for our highest priority groups ; frontline health and care staff and those over 80.
Even/when we have access to the vaccination many of our younger guests from around the world may not so there will be a need to have special Covid cleaning etc because of the risk of guests infections.
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Good point about the international guests, but I don’t expect those numbers to be as high as past years as travel restrictions may not be totally relaxed. . We’ve had guests from dozens of countries which was half the fun.
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At 94 percent, this vaccine is impressive. I would not sweat it at all if you get both doses. Like the shingles vaccine, it’s a 2 part shot and has the same efficacy. The 2 part aspect is its greatest limitation. The Covid is 3 weeks apart while shingles is 2 to 6 months between shots. The shingles vaccine was always on back order and people scrambled to find the second shot in time. Hopefully we will not have the same issues with covid vaccine. As long as we have no vaccine shortfalls, I would expect short term rentals smoking again by late spring.
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I was one of the most pessimistic posters in this group in Mar-Apr. Now I feel quite optimistic for late summer and fall. What I’ve seen based on my home based dog boarding and Airbnb is that demand was steady even though it shouldn’t have been. Now with the vaccine on top of people who already doing what they want anyway I anticipate a booming second half of 2021. That doesn’t mean there won’t be issues with vaccine roll out. It doesn’t mean that all the people who should get one will. And if you depend on guests from other nations it’s harder to predict. But also keep in mind people will want to travel but not be willing to deal with the issues/restrictions overseas. So domestic US travelers may flock to HI, AK, VI, PR.
Hosts who are close to beaches, lakes, and other outdoor activities will have an advantage over those who have depended on indoor activities like indoor concerts, conventions, sporting events, museums. Places with good weather will do better.
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Oh, and if you are into right wing conspiracies, QAnon rumors and the deep dark reaches of the radical right in the US, there’s about to be a civil war so that might be bad for business.
Also I just read that Dr. Fauci says Americans with no pre-existing conditions should expect vaccines in late March-early April. He’s also on record saying that attendance at NFL football games next fall seems feasible.
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I’m also an in-home host and have been closed since March. I’ve recently raised my rates for next year and edited my listing to state the rates are high due to cleaning per CV-10 instructions (which I always did anyway, plus some) and leaving 3 days between guests. I’m 62 and will get the vaccine probably next Spring, after the essential workers in Florida get it. I got Covid late July/early August and it was awful.
Agreed.
Starting in October, I used to get back-to-back one night guests or 2 nights because the snow birds were coming down to their second homes. It’s only recently that we’re seeing more out-of-state license plates and I’m seeing more views on my listing.
I’m hoping that January on picks up like it did this year. We’ll see.
And Florida. Disney is doing an amazing job of cleaning and keeping to restrictions. I foresee more folks coming and a good Spring Break.
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I want to feel good about the vaccine & return to normal for our rentals; but I don’t. By end of summer things hopefully will be almost back to normal. I’m concerned my area will have new challenges not Covid related.
Condo & home sales have been crazy good for the past 5 months.
A real estate broker friend tells me the majority of the sales have been to people from NY, NJ, & other high Covid areas so they can escape it.
The new owners intend to do summer seasonal rentals because as we all know it’s easy money. 🥸🤪
That means my high season will likely have an over abundance of fresh new rentals, with fresh new hosts.
We shall see…
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Here outside of Tampa, FL, as well, even with all the new home/new community builds. The house across the canal from mine was listed for $486K and fell out of contract only to be snapped up for $512K in a week. And it needs work.
Lmaoooo
I suspect many of them will do it for a month, figure it’s too difficult, do the math and you’ll be back to your regular rentals because you have lots of excellent reviews.
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So we should expect to see them on this forum come summer, bemoaning how the guests trashed their place, brought 3 dogs, had a rager party, etc, because they assumed that Airbnb does excellent vetting and that the host guarantee covered them for everything. 
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Not with my medical history! Once I get vaccinated, I might open as long as I can restrict bookings to folks who can prove vaccination. IMHO health authorities in EVERY country should be issuing dated certificates to everyone who is vaccinated.
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Never… 
Don’t we just…
Problem with this is that there is already a growing trade in fake Covid test certificates, and I’m sure these low life’s will simply switch tack once a more lucrative market opens up. Incidentally, the UK is issuing a “Covid card” to folks who’ve been vaccinated, however they do say it doesn’t have any legal standing.
The vaccine wont make any difference to us in respect of being open or not, but then again we are not in home hosts. If we were, it would be significant.
What I’m hoping is that the vaccine may affect whether certain events go ahead, e.g. holy week celebrations (Semana Santa) and our horse fair (Feria de Caballo) in the late Spring. Financially, the horse fair is one of the most important times of the year for us.
In a broader sense, I’m hoping that we will international guests arriving again, while we had a good summer with domestic Spanish guests, that was atypical. Our main market is France, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK, with US and Canadian guests usually around autumn time.
The tourism association here has suggested that around 40% of tourist apartments have been turned over to LTR, a figure I think is a little bit on the high side, but not far away. Availability on BDC would tend to corroborate this, but on Airbnb is looks like there are more places around than last year. Fortunately, BDC are our main OTA so maybe we’ll have a bumper one, once folks start travelling again!
Here’s hoping WE ALL have bumper ones this coming year 
JF
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I anticipate a lot of forgeries if these documents become required in many places.
My early 30’s neighbor shared she was frustrated by some of her friends who had decided to not get the vaccine. They are in low risk group and felt as long as others had been vaccinated, things would be safe enough. Covid19 will not go away.
These same people are upset that bars & restaurants are now required to do 9 pm last call and close by 10:00.
Sigh— SMH.
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Well, they would have a hard time duplicating RFID cards like current US driver licenses, which include other anti-counterfitting features.