Use Instant Book or host fees will increase from 3% to 5%!? 😱

[J_Wang]

@Sarah_Warren

certain price you’ve naturally screened out the lousy tenants because they can’t afford it

This doesn’t always work I’m afraid. Better educated people with higher incomes can STILL behave like pigs. I always do a background/credit check. Just by telling them this I get rid of lots of people. Then I ask for phone numbers and addresses of bosses and former landlords; that really thins out the crowd :)))) And I do get crowds, especially since I’m a rarity in this area: I don’t have a property manager so people think they can get away with not having a less than pristine rental history.

I can just handle my little sofa for rent in my bedroom by myself without too much stress. Having a whole house or apartment on Air would be too much work.

[Sarah_Warren]

@J_Wang

I can just handle my little sofa for rent in my bedroom by myself without too much stress. Having a whole house or apartment on Air would be too much work.

Oh I totally agree. I was able to talk my husband out of turning our rental house into a STR and I was like “NO!”. Even if I made twice as much it would be 10 times the work as our little apartment above the garage because I’d have to drive there and cart the kids and spend hours away from the house, etc.

Thankfully we found a retired military guy who babysits his grandson. Even with a not-so-great credit check (divorce screwed up his credit), it was explainable and fit and the other screenings came out well. So I send him an edible arrangement every year on our anniversary and hope he stays forever!

[Mearns]

@J_Wang

This doesn’t always work I’m afraid. Better educated people with higher incomes can STILL behave like pigs…

True, but there is a big difference between ‘can’ happen and ‘tends’ to happen. People that have nice things, tend to know how to treat nice things, because they tend to have them and place value on them. Ignorant uneducated nouveau riche however, are a whole separate species…

[superhostnyc]

I got the survey. The main theme was “would you use instant book if we gave you $100” and the answer was (although I use IB anyhow) - NO - Instant Book is not for everyone. Here’s the last page of it and what I wrote:

[superhostnyc]

Believe it. Airbnb is changing their ways, and fast. It is no longer anything resembling what it was years ago. That’s fine with me, I’ve moved along with the Airbnb growth and I’ve gone from sharing my home and flipping pancakes for Toufiq and Dieter (and sleeping on an air mattress in the basement for two years), to now owning three properties and growing a legit business. I lost my romantic notion of Airbnb a few years ago, now it’s just an advertising platform for me, the preferred (but not only) platform on which I advertise.

I get a survey almost every week. I’m not sure how they distribute the surveys but the last few that I’ve received have been followed, within days, with the action that the survey was asking about. The timing always seems a bit suspect - I don’t really think the results of the survey matter, I think it’s an empty gesture but I don’t know what end it furthers. Maybe I’m wrong and the majority of the people replied “yes, I can’t wait to use IB, I’d love the $100 incentive, sign me up”.

[konacoconutz]

What is it? You are keeping us in suspense!

[EllenN]

I guess you haven’t heard about famous musicians and actors proclivities for trashing residences and hotels.

[Mearns]

@superhostnyc

I get a survey almost every week.

Same, every few weeks I get some questionnaire, asking about something, that it appears they are implementing any way. Interesting way of putting it; you have changed as Airbnb has changed. Businesses move really in almost predictable cycles. because when everything is said and done they are still governed by human nature and the same economic forces.

[anon67190644]

Oh. Here is my favorite rock star story. I worked in hotels to work my way through college. KISS checked in one night, registering and taking over a huge number of rooms. The only person I met initially was the business manager. One member of the band flirted with me, and well, wanted me to party with him. But I was an 18 yr old classical musician and was totally not interested. Two days later the business manager returned. He had a briefcase. He explained that his people had trashed the rooms. He opened his briefcase and suggested that I accept some cash. He proceeded to hand over $35,000. in cash! This was his estimate of the damage caused by two nights by this band. I have no idea if this amount was enough. The business office would have dealt with that, but I did mark those rooms as “not available” assuming that this guy wasn’t kidding. Cashing out that night was not normal at all. I had $35,000 that didn’t match the receipts.

[superhostnyc]

sorry, it’s a link to the image of the last page of the survey - the only page I thought to screenshot. I wish the links in text would show up as a different color it would be easier to see a link in a reply…

[anon67190644]

oh… and this was 1978 when $35,000 was a HUGE amount of money. For reference, I paid $180 a month for a one bedroom apartment that just sold for $460,000.

[Sarah_Warren]

I have actually had 2 bands. One of which I would definitely not host again. And no, you’ve never heard of them which is why they decided to stay at my place, lol. And that is why I’m glad I don’t attract “that” crowd either, the partying nouveau riche! And I’ll definitely try to weed out future bands on road trips, at least those that want to cram 4 adults in…

[AllAboutAirbnb]

@KenH

Did anyone in America get this survey or email? I sure as hell didn’t. I’m having trouble believing Mr. AllAbout.

@konacoconutz

All About must not be in the US. I believe Air is rolling out these things in other countries. There’s no real evidence they will be doing that here.

as it was written in the post, this is just a survey so it doesn’t mean the ideas suggested will be actually implemented. however, as @superhostnyc pointed out, Airbnb tends to roll out changes and tests pretty quickly

[superhostnyc]

Yeah, I’m becoming more convinced that the survey follows the decision, not that the survey results inform the decision. A bit cynical I guess…

[konacoconutz]

Just humor me, All… WHERE in the world are you?

[LornaS]

I will never use Instant Book. I will never accept a guest without knowing their full name, email and phone number, where they live, and the reason for their visit. We have one guest room in our own apartment and I will not let in strangers without this information. Also, communicating before the final booking is very important. It allows you to both ask and answer questions, which will clarify the accommodations, house rules, so there are no surprises for either of you. For example, it is important to know their time of arrival so it does not conflict with host commitments. We just got an inquiry from someone who is arriving on Dec. 25th! That is a day we usually go to our daughter’s. Foreign visitors often arrive
on very late flights, but we retire early and we always tell our guests to arrive at our house no later than 9 pm. This is in the information on our site but as you all know people don’t read the whole thing. It is really important to communicate with the prospective guest ahead of time to get everything clear.

[konacoconutz]

These things are just so elementary to sharing a home that I am still shocked that Air is considering punishing hosts who don’t want to go along with IB.

[AquaticQuests]

I’ve seen new hosts who rushed to instant book being hit with one star reviews because the listings weren’t ready when guest arrived, or because host had to cancel literally less than an hour after the booking was made, and the guests goes off on a tantrum in the reviews!

Further a listing like mine accepts between 1 and 12 people and he number of rooms available varies depending on the size of the group although regardless of the size of party, they get whole house, but some rooms are locked up.
If I was to put it on instant book, I can potentially see chaos as guests book for two and expect all the rooms available for the 2 of them, etc.
These are issues I can resolve before booking on “request to book”!
On instant book I’d be scrambling to sort out these issues after guests have arrived!
No thank you! No way

[JonYork]

@Sarah_Warren, you said, “I don’t trust them to stand by their cancellation policy anyway, I mostly view it as a deterrent from lousy guests.”

For what it’s worth, they have stood by their cancellation policy with me every single time. I’m on the strict policy and they have stuck to it every time without fail. And we’re very grateful for that.

You also said: “Well, they did break the cancellation policy changes that the Italian hosts are going through and will eventually be pushed on us all. And I don’t doubt it at all.”

You’re absolutely right about that. I wrote to them and asked about this specifically – whether they intended to bring this new cancellation policy to America, and here’s what they said:

“We’re actively collecting feedback on those policies from Italian hosts and you’ll certainly be notified of any updates in the U.S.”!

At least they’re being semi-honest about it!

@Sarah_Warren, you also said your state allows STRs… just curious… what state is that?

As far as Instant Booking, we’ve pretty much always used it. It’s nice to get a big profitable reservation with no effort at all from time to time!

[quote=“LornaS, post:38, topic:8790”]
I will never use Instant Book. I will never accept a guest without knowing their full name, email and phone number, where they live, and the reason for their visit. We have one guest room in our own apartment and I will not let in strangers without this information. Also, communicating before the final booking is very important. It allows you to both ask and answer questions, which will clarify the accommodations, house rules, so there are no surprises for either of you. For example, it is important to know their time of arrival so it does not conflict with host commitments. We just got an inquiry from someone who is arriving on Dec. 25th! That is a day we usually go to our daughter’s. Foreign visitors often arrive on very late flights, but we retire early and we always tell our guests to arrive at our house no later than 9 pm. [/quote]

Lorna, I agree that it would be nice to get all that information and have all that interaction before someone books, but how do you do that? You don’t even see their last name until after they book… and usually that’s not going to tell you anything anyway.

I’d love to be able to get all that information before accepting a reservation. Mostly, I’d love to see some reviews from other hosts. But, about 90% of the people who book with us don’t have any reviews, their first-timers.

Before we turned Instant Book on, we had hosted for a while, and then one night, we got annoyed by messages from a couple of different prospective guests that came in at the same time asking dumb questions. So we turned IB on thinking that might eliminate some of those contacts. But I did like having some interaction with them before they booked. You can tell so much just by how someone writes and what they say.

In the end though, since Air has promised to let us cancel a few here and there if we feel uncomfortable, we’ve been willing to leave IB on. And so far, we’ve never had a time when we wanted to cancel. Well, actually there have been a few people when we saw their pictures, we thought they were going to be terrible. It was always kids who had pictures of themselves partying and looking really stupid and crazy. But some of them have turned out to be some of our best guests!

The fact that no one has any reviews, and most people don’t even have a written profile - we realized it makes it kind of useless to think we can screen them before we accept. So we’ve just left IB on since there’s no real reason to turn it off.

After they book, we do talk to them and if we did get an uncomfortable feeling, I wouldn’t hesitate to cancel on them. But nothing so far.

And, I’ll tell you that 95% of our bookings, even with IB on, the people don’t even use it! They almost always write to us with a question about this or that before they feel comfortable booking.

@LornaS, by the way I have a question about what you said. You mentioned Christmas day and said you just got an inquiry for someone arriving that day. Why don’t you just block that day off so no one will check in that day?

[LornaS]

Since I don’t have Instant Book, I get inquiries directly and can then respond and ask for details…their work, reason for visiting, etc., and at the same time repeat our conditions (even though they are in our description, no one seems to read them so I make sure to review them). The photos are meaningless. For whatever reason we have never had any of the problems that hosts describe on this forum. I think it is because we are renting a room in our own house, not a full apartment or separate house. So we are not expected to provide the same amenities as a commercial hotel. We dont allow kitchen privileges but we do allow use of washer/dryer and once a week our cleaning woman cleans and changes the bed. Most if not all of our guests are in NYC for either professional reasons or visiting children and grandchildren, so the only tourists we get are those from abroad, and without exception these are great guests. No mess, no fuss, very patient, no great expectations. I can’t figure out what is going on with all the problems many of the hosts list. We have never had them…except one last year with a woman from Iowa who stayed three nights and then dumped her complaints on us and left, demanding full refund. I refused so AirBnB reimbursed her and said they would
charge it to me and deduct it from future guest income. I refused and unlisted our B and B, until months later they
reviewed it and changed their mind so I am now listed again. I agree they favor guests, not hosts, simply because there are more guests than hosts and thus more money for them. As for potential problems, I recently had an inquiry from a guy who wouldn’t give me the name of his boss. He gave his company name and after some exchanges said he didnt give me the name because in a couple of months he was giving them notice and moving on. I then stopped replying because he sounded untrustworthy. Usually people are honest and upfront about everything. It’s easy to tell them apart from possibly shady people. We don’t make huge sums of money but it is enough to pay a lot of food bills. And when foreign visitors come we have interesting discussions about politics, art, travel, etc, which I really enjoy.