Relisted my rental unit after taking an 8 month break

I just put my rental back up and am already getting bookings for late spring early summer 2021. 2021 May turnout tone a good year after all. How did you guys do last eight months? I live in the Bay Area and everything in my neighborhood pretty much shutdown. I hope some restaurants will open back up by spring.

Good Luck with the reopening.

I think location and type of listing are the variables that would see differing results from hosts.

Recent Covid CA spikes and further restrictions might limit your immediate opportunity. I know first hand because I recently cancelled plans for Thanksgiving in San Diego and Palm Springs (next week) because of the uptick.

I may be the anomaly; overall I had about 15% increase in revenue, despite the big shortfall in March and April.

I saw a lot of people getting away from CA and NY, as well as people looking for alternatives to hotels. My guest house seems to fit that niche.

The major differences between 2019 and 2020 were the cancellations during high season (March / April) and then the increased revenue during summer; Typically summer has been dead and I use the downtime to do some painting, upgrades, and my own traveling. Since the pandemic canceled my own traveling this year, and since there was surprising demand, I kept the listing open.

NOTES:
-Because the graphs are not proportioned the same, the Redline provides a correlational equivalent to compare the two years

-December could have been larger but I have a week blocked out for painting, and another week where I’m allowing neighbors’ relatives stay for the holiday.

-Blue box is nonAirBNB revenue

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We have not relisted awaiting more definitive information on how a vaccine will be approved and rolled out. We have allowed one guest in an isolated area of our home since February. He tests before coming and only interacts with us outdoor. I also offer a workshop experience but will open that to bookings in April or May when we can meet on my porch. Numbers were so low here in western Massachusetts that we were starting to venture out cautiously a little more. They are spiking again like most of the country. No end in sight. Much of our business comes from 5 colleges and a massive antique show three times a year. Most such enterprises are no longer drawing visitors.

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An interesting time to choose to re-open, particularly with Covid levels being so high in the US @Taconation.

How are you managing to accept bookings when your area is under lockdown?

It does appear that people in the US still seem much more open to travelling, whereas in Europe it appears, there is much less travel because people in the main abiding by local lockdowns and travel restrictions

Arizona too is spiking and I have no listings past this weekend. Even in our small town the numbers are slowly climbing. I think everyone and everything is in limbo and people are just waiting on any travel plans. Time to go in and touch up paint I guess…

Because in many European countries the restrictions are actually enforced. If we even attempt to leave the city, we get fined.

Same if caught out during curfew hours, unless you have a valid reason.

JF

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I opened it up starting April 1st 2021 and will see how it goes. My rental is a single family home so I won’t be staying there.

I was actually thinking of selling my hose in the next 5-7 years when I decide to retire and move to western Mass. I would like to find a property with two houses on it. Is there much of a market for airbnb there? I was thinking like you with the colleges I could get guest throughout the year. I think we have another year of all this covid mess and hope students return full time and at least half the workforce goes back to offices. I work in public transportation and don’t see our ridership going up to what it was before. I am thinking we will be at 60% of what our ridership was once at in the next 2 years and that being the new normal.

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If people don’t go to offices it won’t “go back to normal.” But on the other hand, climate change issues are going to be friendly to public transportation. Bottom line is that there are lots of moving parts which make the prediction business very unstable.

Maybe one of the things that happens is that college in person enrollment dramatically drops and there goes you plan of year round college rentals.

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I never said anything would go back to normal. 60% of ridership is far from normal. There are people going back to their workplace, I see more people on the trains. Not everyone but people will go back to working outside the home.

Apparently you misunderstood my post.

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Ah you didn’t stay that in your initial post - you just said you had opened up again @Taconation.

I’ll probably have a property with two houses on it in Western Mass for sale by then! We started with one room but found that we could frequently rent a second that shares our bathroom. The house is big enough to create som ensuites, but we’ve never bothered. Eventually we started renting our own bedroom during prime time. The main house also has a LTR apartment and the second house is a LTR. There is definitely a market when COVID isn’t around. There were many months between May and October when we had 50 nights booked a month. We’ve been doing it since 2012.

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That’s great, my partner grew up south of Boston and we have a bunch of friends who have retired and moved to western Mass. I love it there. We plan on selling one or both of our houses in the Bay Area and moving out there when we retire in the next 5-7 years.

Ever been to Belchertown?

No I haven’t. I will look it up. We were suppose to go out in July for a week and do a few days checking out a bunch of towns and houses in western Mass. We are planning it again for next June or July depended on covid.

Sounds like a good time frame. I’ll probably open up my calendar in July. My husband and I have some risk issues that might get us vaccines in the second quarter if we are fortunate.

good luck to you and your husband, thanks for getting back to me about western Mass

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