Howdy to all you happy hosts and rental rock stars! I hope your July was full of booked nights and 5-star reviews. I have recently seen a rash of hosts upset about beloved items being damaged in their rentals. So I think it is a good time for a reminder to never put anything irreplaceable in a rental. It might take 10 days or 10 years, but given enough time everything in your rental will get damaged. So don't risk something you can't live without. And now, with the PSA out of the way, lets get on with the July Host Wrap-Up!
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Where to Invest in a New Rental
I am constantly seeing lists of the top X places to purchase a new rental property. I have to say a lot of them are just rubbish,
like this list of the top places to buy a rental in Florida. Is anyone really surprised that the best place for a rental property is in Florida! The 4 largest cities in the state are all on the water? Not exactly groundbreaking info. That is why I was pleasantly surprised when I saw two lists come out this month that included some really interesting locations like Steamboat Springs, CO or Killington, VT. As with any major investment you need to do your own research before jumping in, but these lists from
Value Walk and
Extra Space are interesting jumping-off points for those looking for some less than obvious locations.
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Super Host Rules Changes
New month new rules. Once again Airbnb is making tweaks to the rules for hosts. This time they are changing two rules for the Super Host program. The first change is that hosts will no
longer be required to have at least a 50% review rate in order to become Superhosts. Second, is that you can maintain your super host status even with a rate of one cancellation per 100 trips booked over the past year
. Essentially you have to cancel on less than 1% of bookings. These are relatively minor changes, but worth knowing about.
You can read about them here in Airbnb's own words. Quick side note, I hear lots of hosts ask if being a Super Host worth it. As a super host for a number of years now, I think it is better to have than not, but if I lost it tomorrow I wouldn't lose any sleep. It's worth getting, but far from a hosting deal breaker.
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Listing Spotlight
This month's listing Spotlight is
a 30-acre ranch just outside of Austin TX. I particularly love the listing because of its write up. This is a huge property with lots of details to cover. The write up jumps right into a solid sales pitch, giving you all the highlights and major selling points right of the bat. Then it breaks down the details with a solid and clear bullet-point breakdown. Really well done. My only complaint is the pictures are beautiful but lacking. You do not get a feel for the layout of the property or understanding of details. Listing photos should include Big Picture shots, medium context images, and smaller detail photos. This listing only includes medium context images. Even so, it does look like a great place for you and 17 of your closest friends to enjoy a weekend.
Got a listing you want us to feature? Send it our way at hello@goodhostshop.com.
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Hosting Tip: Creating a Listing That Books
You may not judge a book by its cover, but you better believe people will judge an Airbnb rental by its listing. In the short term rental world, your rental listing is everything. You can have the most amazing house for the best price, but if your listing is poorly done, no one is going to click book now. So make sure to take the time to write a quality listing that is focused on what matters to potential guests. How do you do that? Check out our top tips below to help you craft a listing that books.
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Question of the Month
Rental hosts rarely receive the opportunity to see how other hosts operate. Which makes it hard 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:
Do you ever offer discounts?
- 0.0% - Never !
- 31% - Rarely Under Special Circumstances
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35% - Occasionally, if it is slow and I need the booking
- 34% - I will consider any reasonable offer
-
0.0% - I price up so I can offer them all the time
Wow, I want to give all the hosts that answered a slow clap for this result! Discounts is one of those things that you do not want to be too extreme on offering. Sometimes you need to make your monthly goal so you need to lower the price a bit to get a few extra days, but at the same time there becomes a price point where it is just better to let it sit empty. From the looks of these poll results, it looks like you agree with me.
This month, I want to look at how far away to live from your rental:
polls
