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I understand how house sales work - having bought and sold three within the last couple of years.
My point was because as you put it ‘you are not God’ it would have been better to advise your client not to take bookings for a period when they didn’t know the place would be available. You could have blocked out any dates you were unsure the client would be able to honour.
This is why it is surprising that Airbnb accepted this as a penalty free cancellation under their exceptional circumstances policy.
This is exactly what I did when I sold my last place that I was using for STRs. Not rocket science
Certainly in the UK, it would be extremely unlikely that a home would go on the market, have prospective purchasers over, receive an offer, process surveys and legal paperwork and agree a completion over the course of a month or so.
Guest was not asking for too much. The offer you made didn’t “make her whole” for the 4-night stay.
IMO, you shouldn’t have booked ANY dates that were beyond what you’re willing to hold for the house closing.
By that, I mean that many houses have 30 days (or 6 weeks, 2 months) between contract and closing. The ethical thing would have been to only open calendar dates within that timeframe. Then you tell any would-be purchasers that you have obligations on the property for the next 30 days.
It was unethical to enter into contracts you weren’t sure you could honor. You can take that as me (and other hosts who agree) being on some “moral high ground”, but that’s literally what I’d do. I was voted most trustworthy negotiator in my MBA class, so either my ethics are better than most MBA’s (and yours) or I’m just bad at business.
Hi @Allison_H,
Seeing as u haven’t read some of my responses, here’s a time frame breakdown for u.
Guest books a January 29th stay on the 2nd of November.
Home owner notifies me they would be putting home up for sale on the 3rd of January,
We proceed to clean up bookings and missed guest’s booking which was in existence since November.
Home goes under contract on the 12th of January.
15th of January we notify guest of this conundrum
Note: We did not know before taking their home that the sale would actually be in January. All we knew was at some point they would sell. It could even have happened in December.
Does this show you our uncertainty? If not, I’m sorry i can’t explain better
“Their plan was always to sell but they weren’t sure when they would. The AirBnB was a stop gap.”
This is all I need to know. You knew there was going to be a sale. Rather than limiting your calendar to a period of time you could, in good faith, enter contracts, you left it open. You left it open because the financial incentives outweighed any ethical obligation to the guests.
Which is your prerogative. But let’s not pretend it wasn’t a dick move.
Airbnb’s ‘extenuating circumstances’ policy covered you, but I think you abused the spirit of the policy. It should be used for unforseen circumstances and this situation was absolutely foreseeable. IMO, (strike: that makes you a bit of) those are the actions of an a-hole. You asked for opinions and that’s mine.
One question: If Airbnb required that you pay for replacement lodging (like booking .com does), would you have taken reservations you weren’t sure you could honor?
In this instance I’m mostly disappointed with AirBnb. They are allowing people to list their homes or rooms on AirBnb as a backup and if their home sells they will just cancel people who have made travel plans months in advance. This puts all hosts in jeopardy to losing guests who no longer trust the system.
AirBnb built their brand on the notion of trust, and if stories like this run rampant they will lose business. If I were AirBnb And I knew a host had put a listing up with the intention of cancelling if a better opportunity came along I’d be very pro-active in banning that host.
Hi Admins,
Are we allowed to call each other names now?
Thought there were rules against this sort of thing?
I have a few names of my own but I’ll ignore this time. That’s one strike. Play nice
You are missing the part where the property manager tells the owner that they have tenants in their property through January, and they must push out closing until their obligations to those guests are fulfilled.
"Our friends moved out of their home and knew they’d sell their house at some point TBD. They figured they’d cover their mortgage by STR in the meantime.
We started STR in October, and allowed bookings into January (possibly beyond).
Yes, we could have chosen to only book dates 30 days out. That would have allowed us to say “We’re sure we can host in October because the house isn’t yet listed.” And we would have decided the same for November, etc. As soon as the house is listed we’d only allow bookings within 2-3 weeks, to be sure we didn’t take any reservations beyond a potential closing date.
But we didn’t do all that because it would’ve meant less guaranteed income. We chose to fill the calendar as much as possible because our income was more important the guest’s experience."
Hi @JJD
No I did not.
I had no idea.
Only information was at some time the house would sell.
It could very well have been same November we took it over or December a year later. That was a variable the owners didn’t give us. There was NO TIME RANGE either.
You’ve actually been digging into me emotionally for a while. Let’s just keep it civilized. This could be any one really. An opportunity to learn how to handle. It’s unique IMO.
Would you accept to AirBnB a possible sale? How to handle etc…
Listing a stay while it is “for sale” (no anticipated sale date or contract)
Making an offer to a guest
The latter is perhaps “ill-advised”. Unethical? LOL. By that logic, you should drop your prices to the minimum - to avoid personal gain at the expense of another.
Oh … while we are at it. It is clearly unethical, immoral, and sexist to not allow couples to book your “1 person only room stay”. Same logic. Ah, but I forget this is now what you are doing. So, it must fall under “how you run your business”, right? Not an ethical or moral issue at all, eh?
Since you have such strong convictions of what is ethical, perhaps you should cancel with airbnb. Any company that rampantly exploits hosts via EC, Withholding Payments, Damage Reimbursement, etc must also be “unethical”, right?
We are looking forward to you putting your money where your mouth is, closing your stay, and maintaining your personal sense of morals and ethics.
When you pose a question that has an ethical component, how do you expect me to answer if addressing (what I see as) poor ethics is viewed as “digging into [you] emotionally”?
There’s a certain degree of moral indignation I feel over the fact you put guests in this situation, but I shouldn’t have name called. IMO, it wasn’t right to book guests into dates you weren’t sure you could host, but I should address that bad choice, not characterize you as bad. I do apologize for personalizing it.
So back to the discussion. Could you answer this question for me?
I have a hard time understanding why people post a question asking for opinions, then when they get an overwhelming amount of responses that give an opinion contrary to what they want to hear, just start doubling down, defending their belief that they acted correctly and seizing on the few posts who agree with them, to convince themselves and assert that they were right. Why ask for opinions at all if you don’t want to receive any that don’t support your view?
No!
I am responding mostly to only you repeatedly.
I have spoken to other people who expressed same opinions but they did it differently.
U, on the other hand, came with a complex.
And I put a pin in it. Period! Move on.
I have a hard time understanding why some humans feel like for some reason they stand a head and shoulder above others morally when clearly they are from the exact same pool.
Wierd i tell you.
