Does anyone else use other sites in addition to Airbnb to advertise their property? If so how do you manage it?
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I think that most experienced hosts here use other advertising services in addition to Airbnb. Airbnb is the industry leader (at the moment) but … eggs in baskets etc.
It’s important to be in control of your own business.
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There is a company called EVOLVE - they manage the different websites for you and take a percentage. They have been keeiping my unit full and at a higher price point than I had been using.
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I remember a discussion about them earlier this year. They’re into STR from many angles. Not sure about acting as a channel manager, but I looked their Airbnb listings and the reviews clearly show they are abysmal full-service property managers.
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Yes, I have been trying them out and I must say they have kept my property full at a higher rate than I was charging. They do not ask for additional pet fees which I did get from Airbnb. And there are some other differences. On their calendar they show all the bookings and they go out to 7-10 sites with the property.
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Many thanks for all of the replies, please keep them coming as I am new to Airbnb. Has anyone used cottages.com?
Using vrbo, i usually got older guests booking longer stays and calendar synching was quite easy for me. You have more control over an actual deposit which you release back to guests after check-out which was kinda nice.
I haven’t hosted this year so my info may be out of date.
Brian: Can you explain what you mean by “STR” and “abysmal full service property managers”?
“STR” is the industry acronym for Short Term Rental.
“abysmal full-service property managers” means back in February, I was looking at Airbnb listings where EVOLVE was the primary host and I saw a lot of listings with poor ratings. There were way too many listings with low 4.x and high 3.x overall, which is bad by Airbnb standards.
Whatever online service you use, you’ll be subjected to their terms & conditions and their way of working.
Airbnb though is the industry leader and anyone who is serious about their business really needs to be listed there.
But hosts should definitely weigh up the pros and cons of having their own site and taking their own bookings in addition to using an online service. It’s better to be in control of your own business, both now and for the future.
Quite often hosts are happy with an advertising service such as Airbnb until a policy changes or new rules come into play. That’s tricky if they have to start again from scratch.
But if you’ve built up your own site, social media following and repeat business you can be independent if you suddenly need to be.
Teak, what is it called where you are? You’ve been a member here (so more than likely an active host) for several years so I’m surprised that you don’t know what STR means. Here, the licensing people, the STR insurance providers and the TOT people all refer to STR. I’d always thought that was more or less worldwide. What is it in your neck of the woods?
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There are lengthy threads on other host/guest forums about what a horrible company Evolve is. Dirty listings, with broken appliances and furnishings, non-responsive agents when a guest reports an issue or needs some help, ignoring of emails, etc., etc.
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Just a personal experience. I have my property listed at Airbnb and BDC.Lately for whatever reason most of my bookings are coming from BDC. And even though I only have an apartment and I compete with hotels in the same area, if I do a search as if I’m a potential guest my apartment often comes up first in the search list.
To me the main disadvantages of BDC are they charge a lot more commission for a booking and then they pay you about 6 weeks later. Those problems could be removed if I chose to work out how to accept credit cards but at the moment I just put up with it.
For well over a year now, we are the same.
I’ve no idea where you are, geographically, but the base commission for STR in Europe with BDC is 15%, so you simply adjust your prices to reflect this. A moot point soon for us, now that Airbnb is moving over to the host only commission model, of 15%.
We get paid by bank transfer approximately ten days from checkout with BDC, so no idea why yours takes so long.
JF
Does anyone use a 30 day minimum stay? I have been thinking of this as a better way to go. I welcome your thoughts.
I’d be interested to know why you think it would be better? I know that you’re new here but remember that this is a site for Airbnb hosts who are doing STR and not landlords offering long term accommodation, although many of us have plenty of experience of both.
If you can let us know why you think it might be better for you, that will make it easier for us to comment.
There are potential problems from this on short-term rental platforms because it would change your rental from short-term to long-term in most US jurisdictions. You would then be bound by landlord/tenant laws, which certainly might be better for you.
However, I would highly recommend against using Airbnb specifically for long-term stays since Airbnb prevents you from using methods to protect yourself (background check, credit check, security deposit).
From the Extranet site if you use payments by Booking.Com
You get paid
By the 15th of each month, we’ll send you a bank transfer that covers all bookings with a check-out in the previous month.
So basically I could be waiting for almost 6 weeks for a guest who left in the beginning of the month and I didn’t get paid until the 15th of the following month.
I just realised the commission side and why it’s so high. It’s the 15% they charge. And it seems that model is going to travel to AirBnB also. So one way is to crank up rates I guess.
Must be a geographic difference as the payment system changed a while ago. We also use Payments by BDC and it’s never taken ten days (as stated below), usually the money is in the bank within a day or so, sometimes even before the payout notification appears in the finance section. It is still around ten days from checkout before the payment is processed, but to be frank, we knew that when we signed up with them.
Introducing your new and improved bank transfer payouts
- Your payout details are now displayed in a clearer manner.
- We’ll send your payouts every Thursday of each week. It can take up to 10 days for the money to reach your bank account.
- You can find all your documents and invoices in the Documents and invoices page.
Please give us your feedback and help us improve this page for you.
JF