Howdy to all you happy hosts and rental rock stars! I hope your January was full of booked nights and 5-star reviews. With the New Year underway, it's always a good time to do some host reflection. I like to look back periodically and see what guests have been the most profitable and least trouble. Then see if there is anything I can do attract that type of guest more often. Are there any changes I can make to my listing photos or write-ups that will make my listing more appealing to that type of person? Anyway, I think I am due for a look back soon, and maybe so are you? But before we do that let's look back on the January Host Wrap-Up!
Giggster
As Rental Hosts, we are constantly looking for ways to get the most money out of our properties, which is why I was excited to learn about Giggster. It is essentially Airbnb for film shoots and photo shoots. You list your property and production companies can find you when needed. Now the negative side of Film and Photo shoots is it means lots of people will be in your home with lots of equipment. It is also quite likely they will need to move furniture to accommodate their needs. On the positive side you can expect to make really good money. Every owner has to weigh their own pros and cons. I suspect most hosts wouldn't mind suffering through some best boys, grips, and camera operators moving about their property to make well over their normal nightly rate.
More Airbnb Rule Changes
Yup, its that time of the month again, when we here at the Good Host Shop update you on the ever-changing Airbnb review system. I know it might seem repetitive, but reviews are the lifeblood of rental hosts, so its important to know how they work.
So this update is an attempt to help fix the issues of inconstant ratings. Like when a guest gives 5 stars on everything but gives you 4 stars for the overall rating. That doesn't make a lot of sense. So Airbnb, to their credit, is attempting to fix this. In their own words: "we’ve changed the system so that now, even a 4-star overall rating will trigger a prompt if the guest has given 5 stars in each of the specific categories." This prompt will hopefully get guests to fix the inconstancy themselves. You can check out their blog for full details on this change.
Listing Spotlight:
Escape To Fredericksburg
Hosting Tip:
5 Ways to Increase Your Airbnb Income
We all love to make guests happy, meet new and interesting people, or have a free vacation spot. But let's get to the bottom line of why most of us host. You want to make money! You run an Airbnb to b profitable. Meeting new people is nice and a wonderful perk. But if you weren't making money, you wouldn't be letting strangers from around the world stay at your place. So, if you are going to make money renting out your property, you might a well try to make the most money you can. So in that vein, we want to come up with 5 actionable things you can do to increase your rental income. These are 5 proven strategies from experienced hosts on how you can maximize your rental income
Question of the Month
Rental hosts rarely receive the opportunity to see how other hosts operate. Which makes it difficult to learn and improve. The solution? Every month I ask a question so we can all learn from each other. Let's take a look at last month's question:
- 38.5% - Yes
- 30.8% - No
- 0% - Only to Positive Reviews
- 30.7% - Only to Negative Reviews
That is a very interesting split indeed. I personally fall into the "only responding to negative reviews" side of things. I can respect responding to all reviews as it's a polite gesture, but I find it to be too time-intensive. For those that said no, I would highly encourage you to respond to the negative reviews. Not so you can argue with your old guests, but more to make your case to future guests. Politely and factually explain your side, or even perhaps explain how you have fixed any issues that the guest ran into.
For this months question, I want to know how often you get longer-term stays:
