This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
So, The last thing I have to do on my bathroom renovation is the threshold transition and I plan to compete that today. So I am wondering what people’s thoughts are on replacing the old listings to reflect this. Currently the 3 listings that have this bathroom are as follows:
2BR/1BA - 4.5* 29 reviews
Back BR/1BA - 4.3* 15 reviews
Front BR/1BA - 4.6* 7 reviews
I have a private room listing in my shared home with 4.9* in 46 reviews so the issue is not that I am really a bad host. Mostly since the whole home listings are in a doublewide and I enforced my house rules people retaliated in reviews the first couple years. The past year I have only gotten one 4* and the rest were 5*. The Back BR listing is only so low because I had a 1* in October 2018 from someone who never even stayed. After that, what had been my highest occupancy listing then only had 2 more bookings since then (both 5* luckily). A majority of the reviews are excellent and all of the reviews in the last year.
On one hand I hate to lose those reviews; they also provide potential guests with some good info from a guest’s perspective that I couldn’t just regurgitate in a new listing and be credible. And starting over at no reviews could be seen as more detrimental by some potential guests. Although, I am a SuperHost so maybe SOME of that trepidation could be assuaged. And for some context, the stra ratings in my area seem to average around 4.7-4.8 but with still many in the 4.3 and even a few 3.8s not too far away. My most direct competition is between 4.5 and 5 (leaning much heavier towards the 4.8-5).
On the other hand, having the opportunity to start out with what would more likely be mostly 5* from the get go would be helpful. Perhaps I could screen shot the great reviews from each listing (or at least maybe the top 3, 5, 10, 20 or whatever) and add them as pictures at the end of each listing.
As I indicated, I would be getting rid of the lower star ratings and having the quicker opportunity to get them showing close to 5*. And it would “hide” the bad reviews from people that got called out on not following the House Rules.
There are some of us who think that those “bad” reviews serve as a warning to bad actors to stay away. In other words, your listing can say you don’t put up with any crap but maybe people don’t believe it until they read the reviews.
As a guest I don’t stay with hosts I don’t know with overall averages as low as yours because I don’t have to. There’s always been a 4.8 or higher that meets my needs. I also don’t stay with new hosts. I’m pickier than most but that’s my thinking, fwiw.
I agree Ken H. I would just upload pictures of the removed bathroom. I personally would not want to start over and take a chance that my first review might not be a five star review. It would take a long time to raise the rating if that were to happen plus you would lose the Superhost status on the new listing.
Thanx for tour take. I agree with your first paragraph completely for the reviews that complain about me enforcing the house rules. It doesn’t follow, unfortunately, for the reviews where people also lied and made things up that are not even true.
And because I also agree with your second paragraph I know that it will take much longer to raise the listing star ratings, even if every new review is a perfect 5 stars then to start out fresh. Although the listings would not have reviews I am still a super host so am not a new host (almost 4 years now on AirBnB). Also the other listing I would keep as is I have 4.9 so anyone researching my “newness” will likely see it positively.
I’ve also considered maybe adding the new listings but keeping the old listings up and just seeing how it goes…I would probably use different primary pics.
And of course keep in mind that going forward may be much different than the last 4 years. We don’t even know if Airbnb will continue to exist. Some people take comfort in routine and a desire to “go back to normal,” but just keep it in mind.
I think the chances of getting my first three reviews on new listings being 5 stars (to get a visible 5 star rating) is greater than getting the number required to bring any of these current listings up to a 5 star. It would take about 3000, 3000 and 500 5 star ratings respectively to bring them up (assuming no non 5 star ratings received in that time).
SuperHost status is not lost with new ratings. SH is based on the Host not the listings.
Yes. Not knowing how everything will change after this winds down (and really while we are still going to be in it for quite a long while…) I am just basing these thoughts on the past. It may all be out the window in the “new” world order…
Interestingly I still do have one 5 week booking for my private room shared house listing at my farm that starts in about a month. It has been booked for a couple months now (although it did shift to the right a week and pick up a couple extra (higher priced) days in the process due to military orders changing). Military reservist physical therapist coming for his annual training in conjunction with doing some sort of residency class time at the military hospital here.
Potential guests would probably pay more attention to these than they would to any actual reviews written in the text. However, I do believe that for many guests (and probably for the Airbnb search system) longevity is a factor. Guests like to see that a host and their rentals have been around for a while.
As a guest, I would prefer to see that a host had been offering their accommodation for a long (or longish) time, rather than judge them on the reviews. And really, anything over 4 stars is great in any walk of life other than Airbnb.
This is just a guess, none of us can see into the future, but it seems that we hosts will not be able to rely on Airbnb for sending guests to us - at least, not as much as we’ve seen in recent years. The chances are that we’ll be using several other ways of achieving good occupancy rates (much as I like Airbnb) and therefore Airbnb reviews and star ratings will be pretty irrelevant.
They may cancel this, as you know. Here at Ft. Bliss they are being really secretive about covid19. They aren’t releasing any numbers anymore, on orders from above. It’s funny how secrecy always seems to backfire. That is, if they aren’t releasing numbers then people assume it’s bad. They say it’s for operational security measures, but anyway, nature abhors a vacuum as they say. And all this waiting to decide seems like a bad idea.
Here I think schools should close for the year and have teachers come back July 6 to start prepping for a school year in which most kids are at home. Hopefully our military is more on the ball than it appears from the Crozier/Modly debacle.
Agreed on all. For the AirBnB host side I am able to try to use the date of the alteration to at a minimum get the half of normal long term cancellation policy, should it become necessary.
I had one cancellation within the timeframe (their flight from CA was canceled, they were going to come to check on family here in NC) and I got the full amount of my cancellation policy, we shall see if they go back and take half of it, or all…
