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You know, when I was new to Airbnb and lurking in this forum, the best advice and words of wisdom I received were those from a certain lady host. What was her name again? Ah, it was @konacoconutz 
And Iām sure that plenty of other people would say exactly the same thing.
Kona, I donāt know you but I think I āknowā you to some extent. And I think already that youāre bouncing back. 
If it were me, I would consider writing the guest via her personal email and let her know how her careless comments affected me and my love of hosting, and that it possibly damaged my livelihood, and ask if that was her intent.
Does anyone ever contact a guest outside the review system and have a one-to-one in hopes of educating them to the ramifications of unnecessary criticisms or just āletting them have itā for being a biatch?
Maybe itās not allowed in the TOS, which Iām not going to attempt reading again. Iām not ready for bed.
That can be broken if unfair or deceptive practice is demonstrated ā donāt
let a couple billion dollars of California lawyer scare you off. ;-} BUT,
you must have provable property damages and be able to convincingly argue
more-than-50%-probable bad faith. Or, that is my understanding ā I am
only a jailhouse lawyer.
At 06:12 PM 1/25/2017, you wrote:
Noā¦ Writing to them wonāt do anything and will only prolong the misery. This is mainly because I left a scathing review of them which was removed by Air because of a technicality. I mentioned something in the review that they said I did not personally witness, but was the report of my co host. I would not be feeling nearly so dreadful if my honest review of her were allowed to stand. Air absolutely posively sides with guest. Such a slap in the face and a huge wake up call.
That said, I have written to guests in the past to grovel for an edit and this has worked in my favor. In that case the guest was reasonable and did edit.
This guest was a little brat and totally doesnāt care. She didnāt care enough to read house rules or follow instructions, why would I expect her to care now?
There are a certain number of bad actors running around and about the
planet, and youāre bound to hit one sooner or later. Donāt worry about one
bad review ā prodspective guests will write that off ā in fact, donāt
worry, period! The lack of support from AirBnB is troubling, but again,
you should just enter that in the debit column of your āStay or Go?ā mental
worksheetā¦
You remind me of a friend, a teacher at a private school and a superb and
much-beloved teacher, who got axed after 15 happy years when a new
headmaster came in with budget-cut plans ā naturally the expensive senior
faculty was the most vulnerable. It took a lot of time for her to absorb
the fact that it wasnāt personal (though it was certainly offensive) and
she suffered considerably. You just have to get over it and move on ā
btw, my friend found a new teaching job which she utterly adores, along
with a new partner, so Professor Dickwad ended up doing her a big-big
favor. Happy endings, puppy-dogs and rainbowsā¦
At 06:17 PM 1/25/2017, you wrote:
J! Cheers and thank you so much! You are lovely to say so. True confession, my first post on this board was me grousing about how much I hated the review system.
The content of the review was not just bad, it was horrific. The guest was exaggerating the issue and wanted to be refunded even more than I gave her and simply was extorting me. I knew that is what she was trying to do but I didnāt have proof.
Meanwhile I have video proof that the guest was exaggerating, but Air is done, their decision is final and they will now disengage from further comment on this matter.
No amount of begging on my part can get Air to change their minds.
I donāt know what unfair or deceptive practice Airbnb is engaged in. If signing up too many hosts was legally considered unfair Starbucks would have real problems. The attached article tells of people who suffered much greater harm than Airbnb hosts who have to lower their price, yet their binding arbitration agreements stood.
At 07:44 PM 1/25/2017, you wrote:
http://airhostsforum.com/users/ellennEllenN
January 26I donāt know what unfair or deceptive practice Airbnb is engaged in.
Right: thatās the first hurdle. I donāt think you could, and also I donāt
think you would have to, demonstrate that some piece of fraud is an AirBnB
policy or habit ā if you could do that you might have a nice RICO case ā
just that, on Date A, Host B suffered a loss due to a deceptive business
practice by AirBnB. If you then got similar stories from several others,
you might have a class action. But first you need a provable case of
property or money loss due to deceit or unfair practice.
Iāve had my issues with AirBnB, but nothing that has risen to that level ā
of course their marketeering rhetoric nauseates me and as a health measure
I ignore it, so itās possible that there is a claim or implicit promise
somewhere in the feel-good fluff that then they defaulted on. Given the
billion-dollar lawyers, not to mention what we delicately call around here
The Current Climate, thatās a fairly long shot.
If youāre interested, hereās a link to the relevant Federal
consumer-protection law:
Most states have parallel legislation; hereās Massachusetts General Law
Chapter 93A, which is A LOT easier to read than the Federal statute and
says essentially the same thing:
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/Chapter93A/
If signing up too many hosts was legally considered unfair Starbucks would
have real problems. The attached article tells of people who suffered much
greater harm than Airbnb hosts who have to lower their price, yet their
binding arbitration agreements stood.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/have-you-signed-away-your-right-suemotherjones.com
M o t h e r J o n e s ā jeezus, it still exists! Thatās like finding I.
F. Stone alive and well and living in Malmo.
--------------!
Though it would be hard to quantify loss, I think Airās assertions that itās just a platform for connecting hosts and guests, blah, blah, blah, is deceptive when itās actually actively manipulating search results for its own benefit. Not to mention acting as arbitor of disputes, etc. They play a very active role.
I also noticed Airbnb is growing really fast in my area (suburban area). I registered Dec 2016, and noticed 3 new homes in my area a week ago. That is almost one per week and it is a suburban area (30min drive to Melbourne CBD).
Here is my stats for 1 month, without Airbnb, I could achieve $1500 pm, after all agent fees, council rates, land tax, insurance, water fixed rates.
With Airbnb, I achieved $3200 after all costs, so there is an extra of $1700. Of course it is probably the best season for my area now, and I would expect much worse in slow seasons. I dedicated about 40-50 hours in the whole month, managing booking/enquiries, doing cleaning (will be outsourced from next month, Iām currently having long holidays), checking in guests and doing maintenance (there is more maintenance work than I expected). I would say the return is not too bad, it is about $37/hr, slightly less than what I earn for my part time job (but I have these extra time anyway).
Though, as a new host, I feel it is very stressful but I may get used to it. In slow month, if it yields me more than $2500 a month, I will keep doing it, otherwise, I may opt for LTR, it is a lot less stressful.
And I do worry about the over-saturation of supplies, I see some hosts listed a very low rate and they stopped hosting after a few months (they must have realized they donāt make money). But their listing still shows on Airbnb website, and I donāt understand why Airbnb does not clear those inactive hosts. Their listing still come up in the first page (probably due to very low price) when you donāt choose date for the stay. However, when you click on it, you will find all dates are blocked.
Just curious how you know that they are not booked with a long term booking? I have a 1 month booking starting this weekend and an enquiry for a 5 month booking.
Iāve been stalking that listing from last year 
, it is just inactive, every single date from now until 1 year later is blocked. No new review sicne last Aug. Plus, for the listed price, I think the owner is better off doing LTR. The reason I track that listing is for research purpose, I did a few month research before I decided to try hosting.
Btw, I got an average of 10 views a day for the first month (new host boost), but now I only have 3 views a day, Iām not sure if it is due to end of boost or holiday season has past.
Hi Debthecat, I also got two long term booking enquiries but they all didnāt turn into actual bookings. I offered 20% discount (15% in my listing, but I offered 20% when they ask what I would consider). Is this discount too low? What would long term renters expect? After discount, my monthly fee is 80% more expensive compared to what they pay for when entering into a one year contract. But in my case, they donāt have to enter a 1 year contract (they just commit for one or two months. In addition to such flexibility, they donāt need to worry about utilities and internet bills, furniture and appliances. I think 80% more expensive is not bad at all for a short term rental of a month or two. The price is still cheaper than a motel, and the property has so much more space and free facilities compared to a motel.
Your advise is highly appreciated!
I do my sums on what I can get as a long term rental + power, internet, gasā¦ I donāt include rates as they are the same whether short or long rent. I annualised the numbers and now I have a figure I have to reach - this year I am $20k ahead of that figure. As I was made redundant as unable to get another jobā¦and I have tried. This is now my job and the hourly rates isnāt bad.
I donāt depend on Air as the only agent ā¦ I also rent thru a real estate agent in town so I am always updating calendars on 2 houses.
$20k ahead sounds great. Well done!
Kona, I had the exact same thing happen about a year ago. I had written at the end of a review a āwarningā to other hosts that this guest left bad reviews for every superhost she stayed with and great reviews for everyone else. Which was true because after I read all of her reviews of hosts she had stayed with thatās exactly what she did. Every superhost she gave negative reviews to even though all their other guests had raving reviews. And every non-superhost she gave raving reviews to. So in my review, I warned superhosts that this might be a risky guest for them.
Air removed the entire review. I wrote and asked why and they said because that was my personal opinion about the guestās mental attitude and not something that actually happened while they were here.
I then asked if they could remove that portion of my review and allow the rest of the review to stand - and they did! So the next day the review showed back up on her profile - minus the offending portion. That satisfied me completely.
I found your [@ace] post really interesting. My space is about a 20 minute walk from Harvard and is not a whole apartment so that comparison doesnāt really work. But your average of $135 per night didnāt mirror what I have seen within a 5 minute walk of Harvard. When I position the map to only show whole apartment properties within a 5 minute walk, filtered for one bedroom and one bathroom, the average nightly fee is $256. If I look at Cambridge as a whole, then the price drops down to $202, but of course that include Inman Square, Cambridgeport, and the less desirable area off of Hampshire and Cambridge streets that are not connected to any square.
There is no question that when there is more supply, prices do go down. I am not sure that AirBNB is the responsible party. Even apartment rents have slipped down in the higher priced buildings.
I have lowered my price for January and February, though I am still charging more than I did when I went onto the āmarketā back in June. I do believe that the sabbatical or short term coursework market is a ton less work, so it might give you more time to do some other things with your new-found time.
I havenāt had a single booking or inquiry (besides repeat guests) since late Nov! Apparently, my listing has dropped off the face of the earth, and the brand new, commercially-held 3 br units around the corner that charge $375/night in the summer are asking: $85/night which is way less than my 1 br apt. (And their units are still 50% vacant for Jan and Febā¦). People in my neighborhood are currently offering 1-2 bedroom entire apartments for $60/night. Some of these units were on the market before I jumped in a couple of years ago and they were charging $225/night during low season.
Iām guessing the calculus for many hosts at this point, is desperately try to generate at least what a long term lease would bring in ā 1 br apts are renting for around $1800/month. So if a unit can get 25 days at 60/night they are getting $1500/month & they hope to rake it in during the high season. But Iām wondering how much rates will drop over the Summer given the over-saturation of hosts now. I do think that by next year, there will be fewer Air units on the market in my 'hood. I canāt imagine how stressful this must be for people who are used to long-term tenants and theyāre just praying for takers at $60/night, and are still vacant.