Selling my property; how best to handle the Airbnb transfer?

New owner/host sets up new listings.

You cancel all reservations that occur after the sale and have those guests re-book with the new owner/host’s listings.

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Thank you! That makes sense. It’s a little cumbersome as the tenants are foreign workers under contract for a seed company that’s headquartered in their home country. The booking was made on their behalf by the HR department of the company. I do believe they’ll be willing to do that, and I know the new owner would be fine keeping the same price structure for this booking.

This will be dealt with in your closing documents because of the length of stay. Depending on where you are located it will be dealt with as if they are tenants. The buyers will likely want you to pay them upfront for the “rents” for the 3 months but you could ask for it to be part of the contract that you keep them. It all depends on who has the power in the situation. But I would ask this question of your realtor and seller’s lawyer.

Usually, you would pass on the security deposits and leases to the buyer but it’s complicated because it’s through airbnb and it cannot be transferred through them. It’ll need to be dealt with as part of the sale through the contract.

There is no AirBnb transfer. I would wait until escrow closes and cancel the upcoming bookings.

If you trust the buyer and he trusts you, I think you could do it as you posited, rather than inconvenience the already booked guests by cancelling them and having them rebook.

However, the risk you run is that he is not as good a host as you have been, but the reviews will appear on your profile and may not be good.

That’s an excellent point as well as the fact that you (the current owner) would also be in the middle of what may happen in between, before the review…and the renters and new owner won’t be using Airbnb’s messaging to communicate either, so nothing is “on the record.” I personally wouldn’t want to be dealing with someone else’s business after I’ve sold? The harder route is the best route in my opinion…once the sale goes through, delete the listing and let them take over with a new booking.

If I had great reviews and was selling an airbnb property I would let the new host take over, I would just charge a huge extra for that. New host just needs to change the name on airbnb profile, and can write in the profile description if he wants that there is new management of the property.

That is not possible. Your account as a host is linked to the person, not the property.

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This is true. My airbnb history travels with me. I have great reviews as a host and as a guest, and I will maintain my own account (without any listed properties until if/when I buy another one).

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No, I’m not letting anyone take over my Airbnb account. He will have his own, once we decide how to handle this last tenant who booked it with me before I sold it, but will not be moving in until after the new owner acquires it.

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I think this is what we will likely do. Also, one of the sales agreements was that I be around to assist him as he takes over the property and I’m very happy to do that. I’d even be willing to help him manage the Airbnb apartments at times (for a fee of course) as a back up. The guests coming for this last booking are actually foreign ag workers, young men who spend several months a year working for a large soybean seed company. A few years ago I had another bunch (different guys, same situation) in the apartment and they’re the least fussy tenants in the world. They’re also not the cleanest (single guys in their early 20s), but are overall nice people. They’re being managed by the company, who did an inspection of the apartment to make sure it would work, and will be following up at the end of the rental to make sure the guys leave it in good shape.

I just realized that their tenancy starts after and not before the new owner.

It’s not ideal for you to cancel because you will have to pay a large fee to do so now, the new policy started a couple of days ago. I think these are your options in order of preference:

  1. It’s worth calling airbnb and trying to get this done with them. There are hosts that have reported being able to do it that way, where airbnb transfers the reservation or at least doesn’t count it as a cancelation for the host or guests. It’s not official policy but worth a try.
  2. Have the guest cancel and refund them in full. Have them rebook with the new owner.
  3. You cancel the guest and then they deal with rebooking with the new owner (or not).

It all depends on how much you want to involve the guest in the process and whether or not they’re agreeable. It’s fair to present it to them that you cannot keep the reservation but want to help them still have a place to stay with the new owner.

But I think you have to have this resolved before closing. The length of stay will make it a problem if it’s not resolved.

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This post might help. It was someone who sold with a calendar full of reservations on both Airbnb and VRBO. They both assisted in transferring the reservations, she describes the process.

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I just want to add that I’ve really loved reading this forum. It’s been educational and entertaining too, at times. I’m fortunate that I haven’t had to deal with any local regulatory problems as the only change I made in renting the apartments was turning long-term into STRs. The caliber of guests I’ve had is a huge step up from the caliber of guests I typically had when it was a long term rental. It’s been fun to meet people from all over the world, and I can say I’ve only had a couple mildly unpleasant experiences with guests. I appreciate all of you and look forward to finding another property that I can Airbnb again.

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"1. Have the guest cancel and refund them in full. Have them rebook with the new owner.”

Having the guest cancel is fine. However, the currently owner has nothing to refund—hasn’t yet been paid for the stay.

Sounds like a situation where there should be a quick weekly cleaning by a good cleaner as part of the deal to keep the mess at bay so you don’t have to spend days trying to scrape the grease off the stovetop.

Yes. But after a guest cancels you get an email that says, would you like to refund your guest in full? And you click on a button. Then it’s just wiped out, like it never happened, it won’t even show on the transaction history. But you have to go through that email to have it work like that. Doing it through the email prevents having a deduction that is to be taken out of a future reservation.

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Good to know. Thanks.

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This is the best advice. However, be sure to advise the new owner not to have IB on or someone could book that dates that your current guests are planning on. Once they book, of course, they could turn it back on if desired. You want the risk, reviews and responsibility off you plate.

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Here is how we finally did it. I listed the new owner as a co-host, and he took care of all correspondence, follow ups, check ins, etc. I would communicate to him if I had anything to offer, but he did an amazing job. I didn’t cancel anyone who’d booked when I owned the property, but the minute airbnb paid me for the tenant, I sent a check to the new owner. In the meantime, he listed the apartments on VRBO and when people inquired, he sent them there. When my last tenant was done and paid and refunded to the new owner, I de-listed the property. I can tell you that the new owner is doing an AMAZING job of taking care of tenants. He also made me a co-host, which so far hasn’t required me to do anything, but as I told him, if I can help him in any way, I’m very happy to do so. He’s already made some nice improvements to the apartments, including a terrific Direct TV package and a lock-box for keys. It won’t be long before he and his wife are Super Hosts.

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