A Tale of One Airbnb
“Hello. Thank you very much for your message and your interest in our suite. We started hosting through Airbnb in March 2017…”
This is the opening of our welcome message reply to all new inquiries for our Airbnb listing that we have for the suite we rent in our primary residence. It’s the first experience guests have with us. But I’ll back up first and give a brief background on how we got to where we are now and what we’ve learned from our experiences with hosting through Airbnb since we started.
The Lead-up
We bought our first house in 2009 and lived in it for seven years. It was a good situation for us at the time but there came a point when we needed to make a change for a number of reasons and we started seriously thinking of moving in the spring of 2016. The area we wanted to move to was more expensive than where we were living. We wanted to find a house with a suite that we could rent out to supplement our incomes in order to help with the mortgage. We found a house with a suite in a nice area that would be good for us in many ways. Our offer was accepted and we moved into our new house in late 2016.
Once moved in, we took a couple months to get settled but the bi-weekly mortgage payments started to really add up. We needed to get the suite rented to generate some additional income. Using Airbnb was the plan from the start even though we had no experience with it as hosts, or even as guests. It was going to be a new experience for us. Our provincial tenancy act has some significant problems with it for homeowners. The main reason we didn’t want to go with a conventional rental and a lease was the lack of protection that homeowners have when dealing with problematic tenants. I had a bit of a freak-out moment listening to a horror story on the radio around this time of a nightmare situation where the landlord had no power to evict a tenant who was, effectively, destroying his house and not paying the rent. We didn’t want that to happen to us.
Renovations and Preparations
The suite itself needed some small renovations to get it ready for renting. We found a contractor to do the work and I was willing to do the finishing work. The suite was great but it was an in-law suite and didn’t have a private entrance so we needed to put in an door. We also walled up a sliding door that opened into the backyard for our own privacy and we also added a couple additional windows for more light. Right at the same time I was doing the finishing work, my wife and I caught Norovirus. I don’t recommended it. A really nasty illness. It was one of those sicknesses where you think you will never feel better ever again. My wife had to leave on a tour the next day, (not sure how she did that), and I was at home recovering while taking care of a 5-year old and finishing painting the suite. My immune system was so wrecked that I ended up getting conjunctivitis as well. Ugh. I don’t think I was fully recovered for at least two weeks.
However, I managed to get the suite finished despite being sick. For furnishings, it actually didn’t take a lot for us to get the suite set up. We already had a good amount of what we needed as we had slightly downsized from our previous house. Of course, we needed a few things but the overall expense was really not too bad. We were given some good advice at this time which was to buy new items for ourselves and to put the older items we were replacing into the suite rather than buying new items for the suite. This worked quite well. During the renovations, I had contacted our home insurance company and adjusted our insurance policy as a bed-and-breakfast just to cover our bases even though Airbnb’s insurance policy is very good. I was also able to get most of the listing ready on the Airbnb website. It was a very straight-forward process and quite simple to do. Once the painting was finished and suite was completely ready, I took pictures, added them to the listing and made the listing active. We were ready to go.
Open for Business
In a fairly short period of time, we received our first inquiry; a young woman from in town who wanted the suite for one week. She explained that her housemates were noisy and she needed somewhere quiet to study for upcoming university exams. Her check-in date came, we greeted her when she arrived, and gave her a quick rundown on a few things in the suite. Throughout her stay, we hardly knew she was there. She checked out and left the suite in great shape. A very positive first hosting experience. Since then, we have hosted over 150 bookings the vast majority of which have been really good experiences. We have no plans to stop renting in this manner any time soon. We hope to be in position, one day, where we don’t need to rent our suite and to be able to use that area of the house for ourselves. But until that time comes, we need the suite to be rented constantly for the revenue stream it provides us.
We’ve learned many things along the way by hosting short-terms rentals. One of the things we have learned is to trust that the bookings will come. They always do. Whether it’s people who want a rental for a weekend getaway, people coming in from out-town to visit friends or family staying in the hospital, students doing semesters or practicums in town, or people in transitioning between other living situations, people always seem to need a place to stay. Generally speaking, we have found that the longer the length of the reservation, the more in advance the guests make the reservation. We have a one-day advance notice policy for reservation requests. Initially, we allowed guests to book the suite the same day of the reservation but we had an experience with a booking which happened at the last minute that turned out to be rather uncomfortable with some sketchy activity going on in our suite. We adjusted to a minimum one day’s notice with the assumption that those people who don't plan ahead to find a stay at least one day in advance might not be the type of guests we are comfortable hosting.
Our most uncomfortable hosting experience happened within the first two years of hosting. I noticed two blank days in the listing’s calendar. I thought that if reduced the nightly rate we might attract a last minute booking. This was a mistake. We got a booking but it proved to be quite uncomfortable. The lesson we learned is that, while there is a price ceiling for what we have to offer, there is also a bottom line we need to stay above even if it means a few blank days here and there. We don’t price below the nightly rate that Airbnb suggests for similar listings in our area.
With regards to less than ideal hosting experiences, as much as we do to avoid them, they can happen. That said, we have found that there are some ways to further minimize them. We have created a fairly extensive list of House Rules which we continue to add to, if needed. As it appears on our listing, the list of rules is:
***Please read to the end and acknowledge that all of the House Rules have been read, understood, and are accepted when making a reservation request.
No parties
Quiet time after 10:00pm.
No candles or incense.
Please remove shoes in the suite.
No cooking with peanuts or peanut oil as we deal with severe nut allergies.
If you break something, please let us know.
Please ensure the gate is always shut and the latch is secured so that deer are not able to get into the yard.
Please wash and rinse all dirty dishes and put garbage in the garbage bins prior to check-out.
No third-party bookings. Only those guests who on the reservation are permitted to stay in the suite.
In the interest of security on the property, no unauthorized visitors. Please be in touch with us first if there are any visitors who would like to visit you while you are staying in the suite.
No smokers. Smokers are asked to look elsewhere for accommodation as there is absolutely no smoking or vaping of any kind anywhere on the property, inside or out. Furthermore, any residual smoke smell in the suite will be considered and reviewed as a serious lack of cleanliness and a violation of House Rules.
If we suspect any illegal substances or activity in the suite or on the property, or anything else that makes us feel unsafe or uncomfortable at any time, the reservation will be cancelled immediately and the local police department will be contacted.
In the unlikely event an accident of any sort should happen, the hosts are not liable for any injury guests incur while in the suite or on our property. Prior to check-in guests should ensure they have proper travel insurance coverage for the duration of their stay at our house.
We own the house so we get to set the rules. This is why we rent through Airbnb. If guests break the rules, we know that we can cancel the reservation immediately, if we feel it is necessary. With a list of House Rules like this, we hope that it functions as a deterrent for anyone looking at our listing who we’d probably rather not host anyways. We have had some people opt out of booking with us after they read all the House Rules.
Sometimes, we find that the guests might not have actually read all the rules. In our welcome message, (we don’t use Instant Booking), we ask that guests acknowledge that they have read and accept all of our House Rules. Once the reservation is confirmed, the guests have agreed to the House Rules but asking them for this acknowledgment is just an extra layer of protection for us. Upon writing this part of this post, I had a fun idea to add to our House Rules. I added a quasi “Van Halen clause” that reads:
“For our peace of mind, to ensure that all of these House Rules have been read, (and in the fun spirit of the famous "No Brown M&Ms" clause cleverly included in the rider of the well-known, 1980s rock band, Van Halen), when acknowledging that you have read and accept all of these House Rules, please indicate that you will not perform any cartwheels in the suite during your stay! :) Thanks very much!”
Excerpt from Van Halen’s rider including the ‘No Brown M&Ms’ clause.
We think we’ve done it in such a way that adds a bit of fun to the booking experience. However, it’s real purpose is to ensure that we know the guests have read all of the House Rules before we accept the reservation. We have had situations where the guests have said they have read and accept the House Rules only to then break them while staying in the suite. This new rule may not eliminate the occasional poor hosting experience moving forward but we don’t think it’s going to increase them and, hopefully, it will put a smile on the guest’s face during the booking process.
(UPDATE: We had our first booking since adding this line in the House Rules. The guest responded saying that they can’t do cartwheels! I replied to the guest saying that they were the first to see this new line in our House Rules. I asked if they thought it was effective in how it came off and if I should keep it. They said to ‘absolutely keep it!’ For now, it’s staying on the list.)
Another way we screen guests is by asking people in our welcome message, especially those who do not yet have any reviews, to provide us with a few details about themselves such as where they are from, what brings them to our city and suite, what they do, and anything else they would like to share with us so that “we are comfortable with accepting the reservation.” If the guests have some good reviews this makes it even easier but it really does help us and makes the experience a bit more personal. Of course, we understand that it is important to accept new Airbnb users as guests but in those cases we are a little more insistent on getting a bit of information from them before confirming the reservation.
After hosting through Airbnb for seven years now, I find that I am able to quickly get a sense of what the guests are like through their message interaction with me. I am keenly aware of good manners. Good guests understand that we are welcoming them into our house and they express that they are grateful for that. Good manners go a long way, as does expressing positivity and some kind of genuine enthusiasm that they will be staying in our house. We have found that most guests who book our suite are generally happy to be staying in the rental. Often it is for a vacation, but even if it isn’t, it is time away from their normal living situation which seems to give people a level of novelty which breaks up the day-to-day routine of their lives. I also appreciate those guests who say “Hello David” at the beginning of their message. I am immediately put off when I receive an inquiry that only says, “Arriving in the evening after 7pm.” These people now have a bit of work to do to impress me in subsequent messages before I accept their reservation. Unfortunately, this kind of message is not uncommon, which I can’t fully understand. For other hosts, this may be all they need, but for us I prefer a more personal interaction before I confirm the reservation. I don’t hesitate to decline a reservation if I’m not completely satisfied with anything that I read, or the impression that I get in the messages.
Since we started, I have refined how to turn over the suite between reservations. We charge a cleaning fee but we do the cleaning ourselves. While maintaining a high standard to ensure that the guests have a comfortable experience, I have tried to minimize how long I spend cleaning and preparing the suite after guests check-out. In cases where guests leave the suite in great condition, all I have to do is change the bedding, clean the bathroom and replace the bathroom linens, clean the kitchen, ensure that there is coffee and tea, vacuum, and dust as needed. I have this down to about 45-minutes when doing it on my own. We have double sets of bed sheets and bathroom linens so I can wash dirty linens when preparing the suite or after I have finished. Minimum time spent cleaning is the goal. Of course, every so often I do a deep clean, if required.
When we were initially setting up the suite, we were thinking of putting in a land line for a phone as well as WiFi and cable. However, we quickly abandoned that idea knowing that everyone has a cell phone and realized it was unnecessary. I can remember only one guest who asked for help with a phone call but I think part of it had to do with them not being very tech-savvy with their cell phone.
Our laundry room is in a common area with access doors to both the suite and our area of the house. It is the only part of our set-up where we have to adjust our daily lives for our guests while they stay with us. However, in order to have it impact us the least, we allow guests to have access to the laundry room only one-day per week for reservations of a minimum of seven days. We don’t see the need for guests to have laundry access for stays less than seven days, unless they ask. We also include our vacuum by the laundry room so that the guests can use it if they’d like to, especially for longer stays.
We recently changed our Weiser Smart-Code door lock with a newer one that allows us to program different door passcodes for each reservation through the Weiser app. It also allows us to program the dates of each reservation so that the code is only active during the guests’ is staying with us. This is much better than our previous Weiser lock where we had the same passcode all guests and we manually changed it periodically on the lock itself. The only downside with the new lock is that I now have to change the door code on the automated Airbnb check-in instructions message for each new reservation. However, I have made doing this a part of the to-do list when I prepare the suite for new guests. In the end, it isn’t much of a downside but just a part of the the turn-over routine. As the door lock is battery operated, it is important that we make sure the batteries have lots of juice in them.
Our Take a Book, Leave a Book library is a new addition in our suite. These libraries have sprouted up all over our city. People have them at the end of their driveways so that users can stop and donate a book or take a book for free. It’s a fun way to contribute to the community. We have a large shelving unit in our suite and we thought it would be a good idea to put this kind of library there for our guests. We don’t overstock it, but if we have some decent books that we no longer need we add them to the library. Guests are welcome to help themselves or can contribute to the library if they would like to. We like to think that it’s a small, welcoming detail in the suite that guests, hopefully, appreciate and that it enhances the experience of staying in our suite.
Another new addition in the suite is our Map of the World. Since we started hosting short-term rentals, I have kept a running list of places where our guests are from. It’s been really fun seeing this list grow and it has actually become quite a long list of places from all over the world. We got a foam-mounted map of the world that we put on the wall in the suite and we have placed pins on all the cities from our guest list. Other hosts might have a guest book, but we liked the idea of seeing all the places on a map and we hope the guest enjoy it as well. The majority of our guests have been from all across Canada. From the US, we’ve had guests from Washington St., Oregon, California, Indiana, Wisconsin, and New York. Most exciting is that we’ve had a number of stays from international guests with people coming from Mexico, India, England, France, Germany, Russia, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Netherlands, and the Philippines.
The Airbnb’s review system is fundamentally good. Accountability is necessary as it aims to ensure that both guests and hosts respect each other. After a little while of hosting, we had a perfect, 5-star rating which, honestly, wasn’t a big surprise for us as we had done what we thought would warrant very good reviews. However, after more time passed, we occasionally started to get a few slightly less than perfect reviews while still having the suite prepared to the same standard. We still have a great rating and we have maintained our SuperHost status for a long time now. Our current rating is 4.89 stars. What we have found is that some guests look for an inexpensive rental but, unfortunately, they hold it to an expectation and standard well above the price point for which they are paying. Unfortunately, there’s really nothing we can really do about that. We have had some guests review our listing with little complaints of things that are missing that we never said was included in the suite. We’ve had people complain about the bed being uncomfortable only to have the next guest say the bed was super comfortable. Every guest is different and they all have different expectations. If we see a trend in a few reviews, then we would probably need to address the issue. We just do our best and no longer fret about a less than a 5-star review here and there. Experiencing this as hosts helped us when researching our first Airbnbs to book as guests on a recent trip. If we were new to using Airbnb, we would likely have considered only 5-star places but we now know that when we see a lot of reviews on a listing, and the overall rating is only a bit less than 5-stars, we still consider it. We don’t dismiss it immediately and we read through the comments on those listing which we find very helpful to get a clearer impression of the what we could expect if we book there.
As I finish this post, hosting short term-rentals was the right decision for us. We are very happy with how it continues to be a great way to generate rental income. The learning curve continues and we adjust as we go. If you have any suggestions as to how we can make it better, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
They say that when writing, write about what you know. This is my first ever blog post attempt and I thought using our Airbnb experience as hosts would make for a good first subject to write about. I’m going to get better as I write more posts and, whether or not I’ve written it well, I hope some of the content is useful.
If you have any interest, here is a link to our listing:
I’ll sign off saying that, about two month prior to the Covid pandemic lockdowns, we were shut down by our municipality and were no longer able to host short-term rentals. This was pretty upsetting and disappointing but we found a way to deal with it while still using the Airbnb platform. Ultimately, we were able to start up again with short-term rentals but that is tale for another post. Stay tuned…
David
