Year 2 Thoughts & Changes

Hi Legends, I just found your property on Air and read the reviews. What a lovely space you have there! It looks really idyllic. I’m going to forward it to my cousin in Boston.

I was trying to get an idea of why guests would select your location. If guests were hanging around during the day to get a “farm experience” then offering the pool during the day would be a perfect activity for them and your hours of 10-6 are great.

But if they were visiting the area and using your place as a home base for touring around other nearby spots they would likely either want to use it later in the day or possibly not at all.

It looks like you have a mix of guests - some like the peaceful tranquility of getting away to a farm, while others are using it as a home base. So there doesn’t seem to be an obvious one-answer-fits-all in your situation.

If it were me I would give guests the option of day-use from 10am-6pm, OR 5-7pm evening use. That would give you a time that you can use it yourselves and/or maintain it. That might help to meet all of the possible wants of your guests.

I would offer the option of using the pool at an additional cost. Mention it in your listing, rules, wherever. If you were to charge $5 per day per guest to use the pool and pool towels it is an added benefit to those guests at a reasonable cost. Then your guests who not able to use the pool won’t feel like they are still paying for it.

Some hotels impose a “resort fee” to ALL guests, which I hate - but I wouldn’t mind paying IF I were using those services. At our Air, if guests want to swim in a pool they can go 2 minutes down the road to a beautiful community pool that would cost ~$5. We’ve stayed at non-hotel type places that also charge for those guests who use the pool - nobody in our travel group has complained.

Regarding your home-baked bread and honey… your reviews indicate that the VAST majority of your guests really appreciate you going that extra mile. After all, you have a fairly unique “farm experience” to offer and it seems to me that is part of it. Even though you seem set on not offering it anymore, you’re removing something that has set you apart and may bring back repeat guests. That’s a shame that those few ungrateful idiots would ruin it for the many that love that feature about their experience with you.

(IMO, your “extra guest” fee is a little high, but people were getting added benefits, like the bread and honey. If you remove those perks and raise your base rate you might want to lower your extra guest fee.)

Then once again, I’d suggest that you offer that back in as something that people can “order” from you at an extra cost if they want it. Your working farm already has saleable items with your goat milk soap bars and honey. Why not send an order sheet for them to order those items to have ready for their arrival, and also offer a breakfast/snack option of home-baked bread (specify the type so there are no complaints, i.e. white bread, rye bread), butter and farm honey? If you also offer goat cheese that would be great combo! Then your repeat guests can still opt to have that experience.

One last thing… your listing shows as 1 bedroom with a queen bed in the den. It looks like a normal 2nd bedroom to me - I would change the description to a 2-bedroom.

Best of luck! Please let us know how it goes.

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We’re more than halfway through our second year. We have an in-ground pool and use it as a marketing item to get more guests – our place is called Poolside Cabana With Gourmet Flair (I’m the ‘gourmet flair’ breakfast maker). The proximity to the pool is our reason for saying No Children, No Pets.

I would not charge an extra fee for pool use – make it one of the amenities. The pool chemicals, service, filters, etc. then become tax deductions on your Air business. We have both a pool and a hot tub. The tub is inside the fenced portion of our lanai within feet of the cabana, and the question of guests using it has neverf come up.

I would let the pool hours set themselves. Establish and post Quiet Hours. Your guests are theoretically adults. If there’s no pool light, they won’t be swimming at night much, anyway.

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Congratulations on that new pool!

My husband & I are 2 years in on our Airbnb listing & it has been disappointing so far, although we have had a recent increase in bookings. Not sure why as we are in Arizona & the heat is just beginning. Needless to say, we also list on VRBO for the entire house & have gotten far more booking doing it that. I have also tried entire house on Airbnb with no luck…well maybe one.

Back to your questions.

We have almost every Airbnb guest request early check-in, and we also state in our contract what check-in, check–out time is. I don’t get that either. They are welcome to drop off their bags, but we try to keep it at the time stated.

We have a rare lakefront property in Arizona in a community with a private community clubhouse. This includes, Olympic size pool, jacuzzi, basketball, tennis, volley & hand courts. Workout & cardio facilities.

Since we are lakefront, we do offer our boat for guests use. It isn’t extra & my husband captains the boat. We are re-thinking our free boat access to our guests that book the entire home as we have had to do repairs that may otherwise not have been needed (can I say a new $4,000 motor?). We still haven’t decided what we will do.

I don’t think I would add on a charge, but include it in the booking cost, as others have mentioned. I try to stay competitive with the other properties in the community so raising rates to reflect the location doesn’t seem possible at the moment. Everyone & their mother seems to be jumping into the short term rental business. Many in Arizona have multiple properties & don’t live in any of them. We have a beautiful home that we live in when we don’t have the entire home rented (mostly the winter months) & love meeting all the wonderful people. We have made some great new friends from around the world. I would simply like to meet more. :slight_smile:

We offer, at no charge, a welcoming basket that contains wine, sparkling water, coconut water, nuts, chocolates, tea, coffee, juice & morning bagels, muffins or something similar. I am not a proponent of giving out anything that is not in individual container or wrapping (I know, not eco friendly), but I would never want someone saying they got sick off of something I made. We also provide laundry soap, shampoo, conditioner, & hand soap to guests… no charge. I use organic products in the house, so I guess I do that as a matter of principal. BUT…the interesting thing to me is that not 1 house guest, either Airbnb or VRBO has mentioned any of those things in their 5 star reviews. Maybe it is seen as something expected…not sure, but kind of make me think it may not be worth the extra $$. Like you, we are re-thinking a few things. I wonder if it would be better to scale down the benefits & simply offer a clean room with private bath & see what happens. Although, I really do enjoy doing the little extra’s.

It doesn’t matter what we have set our prices at (for the private room/bath)…at least so far. We have had prices at $125 per night to $50 per night. Seems to make no difference & have booked at all prices. But, like I said we have had few bookings any way you look at it. We have seasonal rates as well. Does it have to do with the number of other property owners in the same community doing short term rentals…could be? There are about 10 in the community itself, but… we are not a condo or apartment & we are directly on the lake & have a boat.

I will be interested to hear how your experience goes with the pool.

Give us a heads up if ever in the area…special discounts to other hosts.

Cheers from Arizona!

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Congrats on the pool and welcome to all the fun and pain$$$ that come with owning a pool!! :joy::joy::joy:

We charge a daily rate to ‘heat’ our pool bc it can get very very costly in electricity, and our rates are on the lower side. Once we install a new heater that I can monitor remotely, I will just bake this into our price, but for now its a charge. Since we all know guests dont read, we have had a few that scouff at the heating fee, and thats fine. Most are more than happy to pay it and I just send a ‘request’ for money via ABB and thats that.

Our other property has a Hot Tub and that has always been baked into the nightly price.

I think you are right in raising your price , see what happens. I raised my price for the separate poolhouse too this year by 10% which is quite a bit as it brings additional 6k a year, and the house is still in big demand.
I would not charge separately for the pool but I would just not include it in amenity. And if someone asks if they can use pool just tell them
No it’s for the family use only. My friend does it and usually people are ok with it.

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Just going back to the breakfast thing - I make my own bread (walnut, granary, spice fruit loaf, etc) and croissants - I slice the bread and freeze it, and freeze the pre-risen croissants. Guests seem generally to be knocked out by this and we’re sure it’s contributed significantly to the 94% 5* ratings we’ve got. It just an extra touch that people like.

You’re trying to find a balance between having a life and hosting.

POOL:

  • You can do whatever you feel works for you. And yes, to strict rules and hours. KNOWING, some people will try to push them. In year three, you will see if you want to offer it again.

And you can offer it as a resort fee for those who want to use it. So if guests who don’t want to use it don’t feel like they’re paying for it.

BREAD AND HONEY: Don’t offer it. You don’t have the time and you don’t want to. You did it and now you don’t want to, period. If you want to sell honey or offer it as a souvenir then fine. But don’t add extra work, you already have to do laundry.

Balance your life between hosting, your farm and enjoying your life. I’ve been hosting since 2010 and I try to do less, not because I don’t enjoy my guests but because I like me more.

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Thank you so much for all the opinions on our situation! I think for now we will leave out the bread and honey and see how it goes. There is so much involved in running our farm (2 houses, outbuildings, goats, greenhouse) and the work never ends. I run the show 90% of the time because my husband is a lawyer and works in the city during the day. On top of running my own business out of the farm, I take care of it so I think simplifying things will allow me to enjoy having guests here a little more rather than rushing to make sure everything is perfect.

As for the pool, since we changed our listing to tell people that the pool is here and will be open to guests in June, we have received 2 requests over the weekend where the people requesting ignored everything written in our listing, ignored our rules and both emailed asking to stay 1 night and arrive hours before our check in time. 1 said she will be bringing an infant and inviting her family who lives locally over to use the pool even though we don’t allow outside guests or infants. I am hoping this is a fluke and these people didn’t see the word “pool” and immediately think they could cram an entire pool vaca into a 1 night stay. Oh the joys. haha.

I think we will just have to see how this works for us and make changes accordingly. If the pool becomes a problem we will remove it from the listing and just not allow it as an amenity.

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Lordy! That is quite the nerve!!! Did you tell her no to everything I hope?

You are being really firm I hope? I mean… If this is happening again and again, you have to look at the way YOU are stating things and presenting the place.

You aren’t giving the impression of being flexible are you? If you give an inch they take 20 miles!

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Hahaha. We are very firm in ALL of our listing. I think a little too firm but we kept modifying the listing in the hopes people would eventually get it but its not working for the last few requests.

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Good!!! So it’s just that you are getting guests with extraordinary levels of chutzpah?!!!

Yes indeed! A lot of people think they are special and that the rules don’t apply to them.

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I have had that happen with super hosts:

“Oh we see you don’t allow outside guests, that’s why we wanted to ask if we can have friends over for a small party. They are super quiet like us!”

WTF to put me in that position. Got put on the spot and became a mealy mouthed mess… “Oh sure, no problem, enjoy your party.”

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh…

I went inside and silently stomped around and pounded pillows until the company left!!!

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Oh jeez! Trust me I know the feeling. It happened twice last summer and it made my blood boil. Both times they said “I already invited this person over before I knew outside guests weren’t allowed”. And I reply “you accepted and agreed to the rules which stated outside guests are not allowed”.

Its those guests that infuriate me for sure! Nothing worse than being put on the spot!

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I just wanted to report back on my stopping breakfast at my listing after two years of offering it (and it being mentioned in most reviews.)

So far my ratings have stayed the same and today I was left a £30 tip. Never in the history of my time hosting has that ever happened.

It’s easy to feel if you don’t do more you will be penalised by poor reviews but so far that’s not what I’m experiencing…

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That is excellent! That means that people are appreciating everything you offer and you shouldn’t feel compelled to go above and beyond to give more.

We are hoping our guests feel the same this year and think they will.

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Hopefully it makes up a little for some of he bad guests you have been having lately. It wasn’t the smoking guests who left it??

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No, the guests immediately afterwards. Lovely guests(mum and daughter) who I would have again in a heartbeat.

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You??? :astonished::flushed::scream: What is becoming of the world when even you, Kona, didn’t know what to say and accepted. :laughing: So funny. They must have really caught you off guard.

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Hahahaha, yes… I am a softie too and not much of a barracuda when they put me on the spot. :laughing: So unexpected! There just didn’t seem to be a good answer… To can we have friends over??

In the end, we left each other great reviews so I guess it was worth it to let them have their small party… Plus I felt sorry for them as they had some unfortunate things happen that ruined their trip to Hawaii.

I agree, funny now. Not so much then, bahahhhh.

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