non chalant I am NOT! Ha. Irate is more precise.
I’m really not sure about that. We know that contacting Airbnb is a crap shoot, depending on whether you are lucky enough to get a savvy rep or a clueless one and I don’t know if there’s a written policy on that. Seems like Airbnb is always cagey when it comes to giving any definitive info when it comes to the money they might retain. They are loathe to let go of any of it.
(Years ago I had a guest who comes to my area frequently, who told me that the previous year, Airbnb had charged her a bogus currency conversion fee. This American guest had paid in US dollars with her US dollar credit card, the American host got paid into her US bank account in US dollars. Airbnb claimed that they had to charge the conversion fee because the rental is in Mexico, which is total BS- no money was ever converted. Both the guest and the host, who I know, fought Airbnb over it, but they wouldn’t back down.)
While I would certainly apprise guests ASAP of the situation, I’d be cautious as a host about asking the guest to cancel in the OP’s situation, because if the guest tells Airbnb they need to rebook because the host can no longer accommodate them, but the host hasn’t yet had Airbnb accept their need to cancel bookings without penalties, CS would likely log it as a host-cancelled booking with penalties.
I was talking about myself. I said I can be rather nonchalant. The only thing we share is not being dependent on the income, just hosting because we enjoy it.
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Same here. I enjoy hosting and also the extra income, but not dependent on it. I can’t imagine strs being banned here, as the entire town runs on tourism, and the govt. likes the taxes it generates. If strs were banned, I’d be disappointed, and miss hosting, but not angry. My guest room would just go back to being a room for family and friends when they came to visit, like it was for years before I started to Airbnb it.
Instead of banning all STRs, why can’t they just limit the number of STRs each host can have? I can understand how STR takes away housing available but the blame should be directed to people who owns many STRs. They should start with limiting only one STR per host. Hosts that own too many STRs are the problem.
How is your reply relevant in this case? I don’t understand people who reply to threads they didn’t read. At least you didn’t say “I didn’t read all the posts but here’s my answer anyway.” LOL
I’m in a tourist area too and feel the same way. Strs are necessary to bring tourists (and their money) into the area.
Previously I have rented our apartments long term and the financial aspects are much the same. The rent is slightly lower but there are fewer overheads.
In the unlikely event of STRs being banned here, I’d simply rent long term. Financially, it works out.
There seems to be a big difference between the guy with 14 AirBnb’s and basically running a hotel with the person who wants to rent out their vacation home or primary home to help cover some of the costs or even a guest suite or apt in the house they live in. Virtually all towns that ban STR’s seem to exempt resident owners . But if they banned STR’s where I am I would sell my home as it just wouldn’t make sense to have a home so far from where I live year round that I only use a few months out of the year. And we pay a lot in hospitality taxes which our state needs.
But there is another benefit to STR’s that people forget. The people who rent our home invariably thank us for sharing it with them. They get to experience something that they could never if not for AirBnB. I have gotten letters from the children of guests saying how much they loved our house and what do they have to do to live in a house like ours? Ours isn’t taking any local affordable housing off the market. It is a semi luxury home on the water. So I think these towns should consider if they are doing it to increase affordable housing that it is aimed at affordable housing
I respond that they have to stay in school, work as hard as they can and save their money and help their parents do the same. Lists of grateful parents wrote back.
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That is so cool that your child guests wrote to you. Never heard of such a thing before. And your advice was right on. While I see so many young people these days struggling to make ends meet, feeling they will never be able to afford their own home, even though they are hard workers and not frivolous spenders (my youngest daughter, who is 41, is in that camp), there are definitely a lot who waste their money on expensive coffees at Starbucks and take-out food, $1000 iphones, and $200 designer jeans. Fine if they want that stuff, but then don’t whine about your financial situation.
You should be mad. Airbnb renters are being scapegoated by gov’t for poor planning- they blame lack of housing on you. When there are many corporations buying up places, red tape stopping new construction, foreign criminals buy housing to money launder, bad landlord laws putting landlords at risk for non paying tenants/squatters - etc etc. Not to mention tourism agencies, demanding licensing and regulation fees as money grabs. Stand up and fight.
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