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Thank you Muddy and everyone else who responded. Helping out with 4 grandkids under age 4 doesn’t give me much time or energy to think of much more than that!
Of all the replies, Muddy I believe yours gave me the most to think about. Our airbnb listing is, in fact, under the name of the PM, and not ours so yes, that is why they feel they can do as they wish.That is something I would like to change but somehow don’t believe the PMs will go for it.
I know many hosts advertise their airbnb property on their private fb site.To my knowledge there is nothing wrong with this. I am assuming these hosts lure guests in via their private site and make the bookings via airbnb. I presume they do this for more exposure in the one hand, yet the protection of airbnb on the other. Am I correct?
but what if the PM proposes to advertise the airbnb property on their personal fb site to “save the guest money.” I am sure it is done all the time but I am not comfortable with it. Airbnb coverage would be invalidated, right?, so who would pay for theft or damage?Also, my gut is telling me I could get screwed financially but I am not sure how. Thought?
As you say, you are not familiar with having a property in Mexico. Dealing with cultural differences adds enormously to the stress of managing a property.
My husband and I are not interested in managing our own property as a rental any longer when we are there and certainly not from afar. Too old. We finally want to retire.
Many hosts advertise on other sites and also have their own direct booking sites.
You are under a misconception about Airbnb coverage or protection. There are zero guarantees of Airbnb coming to your rescue or compensating you for damages, theft, or anything else. They like to make it sound like that, but it is not at all the case. Nor do they vet guests in any way that would protect hosts.
Hosts who do their own direct bookings or use platforms where they can charge a real damage deposit, who have their own short term rental insurance, and can ask guests for references or anything else they want to, are far more protected than anything you could count on from Airbnb.
From the sounds of it , and correct me if I am wrong, you are not dealing with a property Management company, but rather two individuals who work directly for you. This is not the same as signing a contract with a company who rents out your home and hires others to clean and maintain it…
As Muddy said, our was allowing the PMs to put the airbnb in their name. I hope to rectify that. So they are running the show. Because of certain unprofessional biases they have which I will not go into, they prefer to downplay our property. So, for example, they give us every excuse in the book why they will not put in the listing any features that make our home Mobility Accessible. Ironic in that I use a Mobility Scooter.
My husband and I have had long discussions about our property. We love spending time there and it was our permanent home for several years. for many reasons selling is not an option.
We have decided that all in all things appear to be going well. Our motive in having it occupied so it would not be so appealing to thieves seems it part to be working. Fingers crossed.
Though we will try to “not sweat the small stuff” I want to be ontop of things and understand at the very least what is or could go on.
Thanks
I have never personally had a guest cause any damage or cause a problem.
But I have been reading hosting forums for years and I know hosts have had thousands of dollars worth of damages done by guests that Airbnb refused to cover.
I’m glad you haven’t had that experience. I have heard they are more forthcoming with small claims than large ones, and it also seems to depend on what rep you have the fortune or misfortune to deal with.
Thank you for your replies. our property is completely surrounded by a high fence. Guests resent the use of security cameras, so we have been told, because they feel spied upon. We live in a Mexican neighbourhood. the owners of the homes only come during Semana Santa and July and August. Other times during the year the owners completely clear out their places of anything that could be stolen. I know many who remove everything right down to sheets, towels and cutlery.
I don’t, because I live in the quiet countryside, but I’d say most of the larger vacation rental homes here on the beach, or in the areas that are not Mexican neighborhoods, that get hit by thieves a lot, do have outside security cameras.
Where do the homeowners put all their stuff when they leave? They get a storage locker or something? A lot of the homeowners I know here do pack away things like sheets and towels, kitchen gear, and even have their own sets of cushion covers they pack away, since guests are so hard on things and things go missing. It usually gets locked up in a bodega or storeroom on the property.
One small place I looked after for the owners (I lived there for 3 years before building my own place, which is how I got asked to manage it), that got rented out long term, to folks who would stay for 9 months to a year, had pretty much all the flatwear disappear over time. The owners came down and said there was one fork and two spoons left. I don’t know what renters manage do with that stuff. In any case, that’s when the owners started packing their own gear away.
Agreed but not the right time for the family to sell. for now we will just not sweat the small stuff but keep an eye in the PMs.
Thanks for responding.
Letting go of the micromanagement was certainly our goal and still is. However, it is several of the fundamentals of our rental vision, for lack of a better word, that I disagree with the P.M. about. For example, I am partially handicapped so our home has several features which would appeal to those with mobility issues. This is an attractive feature for potential guests. However, the PMs refuse to even mention this in the listing, let alone show photos of the features. They supply us with excuses which are not valid. I believe I am aware of the actual reason behind the refusal and I don’t like it since it shows a bias for other clients. Will I push it at the moment? No. I don’t need the added frustration.Is it childish in their part? Yes since we are bringing them in good money regardless.
For now, I am looking at the big picture. We have a reasonable number of bookings and I have a neighbour who is watching from afar. When our contract ends with these people we will need to re-evaluate the situation. Perhaps we will continue with them, perhaps we won’t.
We pack all our personal effects in our bodegas. That is a given. We have several rental units all with their own kitchen/bedroom/ bathroom items. We run a business. We don’t share our personal effects with tenants.
Regarding security cameras. Are you aware that tenants will cover cameras with socks or unscrew bulbs…anything not to be watched. Yet when they are robbed they stamp their feet in anger. Not my fault.
Yes, I’m very aware of guests covering or disabling security cameras. Also in my town, thieves look for the security cameras and will climb up and disconnect or destroy them.
I used to live in a little rental house before I had my own place here. There was a huge ficus tree in the yard next door that was a big problem. Not only did the roots eat into the underground plumbing pipes, and buckle the walkways, its branches extended over my balcony terrace and in fig season, the birds and bats that ate the figs would poop all over my terrace. The stuff was like glue, it was even quite difficult to powerwash off.
So I once asked a Mexican friend of mine to cut the branches that hung over the terrace. (I was friendly with the neighbors and they were fine with entering their yard to do this, although they weren’t in town at the time).
My friend and his helper buddy started to climb over the neighbor’s wall and I said, “Oh, just go around the side, they leave the gate unlocked”. My friend, who is an honest person and not a thief at all, looked at me and said, “Hey, we’re Mexican, we can get in anywhere”.
@FiZ I know this is an old “conversation” but I’m wondering if you have considered booking the property for longer stays. With so many people working remotely, I’m sure you can find guests who’d love to stay a month at a time.
As for changing the booking of the property to your name, I cannot imagine why you haven’t done so yet. The way it is, you have limited visibility of what’s going on.
I’m also wondering if you have cameras so that you can see what’s going on, it will help you monitor the comings and goings of guests and the property managers and their staff.
I will never own another vacation rental more than 1 hour from my home… it is all a matter of what you are willing to deal with, I couldn’t deal with the lack of oversight and my inability to change others to do things “my way”. So we sold our home that was 1300 miles away. We had fantastic help there, but when something went wrong, it just went very wrong, and we couldn’t do a thing about it…
When I started living down in Mexico, I still owned my house in Canada where I had lived and raised my girls for 20 years. I couldn’t afford to own a home in 2 places, so I was ready to sell it, but it took several years to convince my youngest daughter, which I understood, as she had been born in that house and grown up there and was quite attached to it, although she was living elsewhere.
So I rented it out on a year’s lease for several years in a row, which covered the mortgage. But every year when I came back, and there was a change of renters, I found the place in poor condition. One guy drilled holes in 100 year old cedar wall planks, that were beautifully finished, to hang up hooks for his clothes. (There were already plenty of hooks and closet space) Another woman never mowed the grass, which was a part of the rental agreement for her to do and found the lawn a foot and a half high, all flopped over,and of course had reseeded grass into all my flower beds. When I asked her why she didn’t fulfill that part of the lease agreement, she said, “I like it long”.
So no, I would never want to own a house I didn’t live a short drive from, because, as you say, no one looks after it like the owner.
Some people could. I’d love to live on the road and go place to place for 6-12 months renting. The place would be in better shape when I left. My longtime friend (“best friend” seems juvenile) who has lived in New Zealand since 2008 has taken a job in San Marcos, TX and will be looking for a place to rent and she would also leave a place in excellent condition. What we need is an app to connect great tenants and great hosts.
