What 2 things do you wish you knew before you started hosting?

41

Cute story! I once had guests that kept getting lost in my neighborhood. They hardly spoke English. Finally I would just scream into the phone (because they never stopped talking) SEND ME A PHOTO. Then I would go rescue them. Luckily their stay was SHORT

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42

  1. Compare your listing to similar in your area and undercut them by 15+ percent. Get lots of good reviews, then inch up your price to market rate, or higher.

  2. Be very leary of new ABB users with little to no info or history in their profiles. While some can be great guests, most will not be.

Bonus: Do not assume your guests read anything about your listing info or rules. Most skim the rules at best. If it’s super important, tell them face to face.

43
  1. Guests rarely read the whole listing
  2. The constant irritation of guests wanting to check in early when your check in times are clearly stated.
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44

As this is a constant irritation; will the hosts here who are also guests tell us why it is challenging for guests to read the listing and what if anything we can do to make it easier. Thanks.

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45

@EllenN. I actually think that this is partially AirBNB’s fault. There is significant lack of formatting options available to us as hosts. The inability to make our own headers, for example, make even short full descriptions appear to be wordy. Imagine if you could bold or use italics, true bullet lists, and add headers beyond the three that they have given us. I find “The Space” " Getting Around," and “Other Things to Note” to be limiting.

I know I keep harping about the Platform, but it just isn’t robust enough for the path that AirBNB has chosen for itself.

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46

I blame air bnb as the formatting of the page isn’t good. Most people only bother reading the first bit & they hardly let you write anything anything there. The rest of it you’ve got to click on things to get it to open up & I think people just don’t realise they need to do that.

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47

I’m not convinced they read anything except the price. It is one of our house rules that you have to tell us what time you will arrive. We also have it set up that upon booking the guest receives an email from Airbnb reminding them to tell us when they will arrive. If all that doesn’t work; I send them an email on the Airbnb email system. If that doesn’t work; I call Airbnb and ask them to contact the guest. I don’t know what time the guest who is arriving tomorrow will be here.

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48

I don’t know what time my cousin, who is 82 and should know better, is arriving on Monday. Humans are hopeless! But on a nicer note, today’s guests drove all the way from Philadelphia to Boston today and arrived within 5 minutes of their expected time. What are the chances after driving through the Northeast?

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49

That is spectacular!!!

50

Aw come on. I see your Northeast weather and raise you Los Angeles traffic.

51

I agree with you. As a guest I find reading through listings completely irritating. They are often poorly written. And they vary so much it’s hard to keep track. It is exhausting. And then it is hard to remember - is this the place with the hot tub? With the Kayaks? With an ocean view? A river view? Etc. Guests will peruse maybe dozens of listings, all written with different styles with different specifications. It’s a lot to weed through, trust me.

Also, when shopping listings, at the bottom airbnb suggests other places. Great, right? Only those places are not in your specifications. So, you could possibly book a place that doesn’t accept pets, but because airbnb suggested it as an option when you searched for ‘pets allowed’, you think it does. This has happened to me a number of times, though I didn’t actually book - but was very disappointed because I thought I found a perfect place for a group of 5 only to find out they only take 4.

I myself, and intelligentish woman who researches, prints out details, etc., stood at a hotel desk in China arguing to tears that we were not being given the rooms we booked. Well, I as wrong - I was just exhausted, confused, and exhausted. (We had just adopted a 12 year old boy, after all). So I think people are just limited, human, stressed, and dealing with a booking system that is, at times, wacko.

52

Thanks for your insight. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can write our listings to make them more compelling to read? I don’t mind answering questions that are answered in the listing, but I do mind guests being upset about aspects of our listing that are clearly and often repeatedly spelled out. The biggest issues for us are people who don’t tell us that time they will arrive and people who don’t understand that we have large dogs. I recently got cleanliness feedback, “The dogs leave dander but that’s hard to avoid. ” This is frustrating as I make it very clear that I have large dogs.

53

I was talking the traffic around Philly, NYCIty, Connecticut Valley and Boston. The northeast corridor is pretty gnarly for traffic, especially right now when construction projects are trying to finish up before the first frost. People from “away” are always surprised by how bad our traffic can be. They all think that during their vacations the roads will be like those Lexus commercials… only one car on the road.

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54

Hi smtucker. I’m with you on the ABB platform. I’ve never used the guest interface but the host interface seems to be pretty antiquated. How long has it been this way? I do web design for a specific genre on the side; used to be a full time web designer about 10 years ago. So the limitations are beyond reasonable for me. If its been a number of years, then perhaps they’ll make some changes? [crossing fingers] I’d just rather edit everything on one or two pages or in sections (like editing about info on a Facebook page). I haven’t gone live yet with my ABB account, so I cannot fill out a long description section yet. Rules added individually and no able to edit or rearrange? Yikes! Not user friendly. Just sayin’… It could be so totally awesome… :slight_smile:

55

Incredibly antiquated. How long has it been this way?

56

Well, let me say - I don’t want to blame the hosts for the problem. I’m just saying that, in general, it’s difficult weeding through a lot of details since there is little uniformity between listings, both in how they are written and what is offered.

I did find that in my description I can format with line-items, instead of paragraphs. I no longer get the questions “how far are you from metro” which I got all the time, but the information hasn’t changed - just the format.

It now looks like this:

"Why settle for just 1 room? Our sunny, two-bedroom, semi-private apartment in the lower level of our home is close to metro and great for touring DC or visiting UMD

Bedroom 1: 1 queen & 1 twin
Bedroom 2: 1 queen
Living area: 1 queen futon
Private Bath
Kitchenette
Hot breakfast

Walk 5 min to the F4 bus stop
Ride 2 miles to Prince George Station (or drive and park)
20 minute metro ride to city center.
Or - MARC train/.5 mile walk/12 minute ride to Union Station
Free Parking at house"

Then I would number each item in your rules, etc. Makes lists. Easier for the eye to follow. Such as

  1. I have very large dogs, and all the joy and pain associated with them
  2. I require all guests to remove shoes
  3. Please be prepared to pay your taxes upon arrival

Keep it super simple. Cut all all unnecessary verbiage. DO NOT tell my your philosophies on life, your cosmic feelings about the universe in your listing, etc. That’s great in a profile. What I need to know is - where am I going to sleep, and where am I going to pee.

I’d be happy to take a look at what you have and see what may be clogging up the works. It’s just my one opinion - I’m not an expert.

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57

Hi dcmooney,

Thanks a bunch.

Here’s a link to our listing:

58

Well, wow, with all those 5* reviews I should be asking YOU for advice!!

But I did come up with some ideas and will just send you a word document. I think you can make it much cleaner and easier for people to read. There was a lot of information that I don’t think is necessary and it crowds out the important points. Let them be surprised by some things like the dvds and water filtration system.

Send you a pm

59

But see, that water filtration system in LA is a BIG deal. Would tilt me towards her property. I will enjoy seeing what suggestions you have though.

60

This. So much this. Along those lines - decline “dumb question” guests. If they did not read your description with the answers you have already provided, they will not read your house rules.

1 Like