Top 3 Things I Wish I Knew When Starting Out on Airbnb

1) Don’t sweat the small stuff

When starting out, I had somewhat the notion that every guest I was going to have will be a delight to host. In the back of my head I knew that this was not going to be the case, but my brain wanted me to continue being overly optimistic and perhaps a little naive. Turns out, every now and then you get guests who simply don’t care as much about your property as you do. This is not something to complain about, rather it is something that we as hosts need to accept. Asking someone to care about something as much as you do will never work — which is why this should not upset us. If a guest breaks something in your listing or handles appliances, books or electronics rougher than you do, it’s because it’s not theirs — and as a result there’s a higher likelihood of stuff breaking. What we have control over as hosts, is to make sure we accept guests with favourable reviews, communicate our house rules clearly (going into more in-depth detail on point 3) and are always courteous and welcoming. There’s nothing worse than showing a potential guests the cold shoulder, just because you had a previous bad experience with another guest. Make sure you don’t have anything of significant value in your listing that can be replaced rather easily. Some hosts do through the official process through the Airbnb platform after the guest broken something and has already checked out, but personally I find it to be a cumbersome and time-consuming process with very little fruition — unless we are talking about high-value items such as TVs or other valuable electronics. A broken mug, food stains on the sheets or a missing book can be easily replaced and should not be worried about too much. My suggestion is to shrug it off, make sure you communicate your experience with your guest honestly through the review process, so that other hosts after you know what experience you have gone through with this particular guest, and move on. The rewards on the macro-level outweigh the headaches on the micro-level a hundred times over.

2) Ask for 5 star reviews (if you feel your guest has had a great experience with you)

At the beginning of my Airbnb journey, I always hoped that guests have had a great stay and would give me a 5 star review, however I never flat out asked them for one. I thought it would come across as pushy and somewhat entitled when asking them to review their experience at my property with 5 stars. Well, I couldn’t have been wronger.
Have you ever received a 3–4 star review from a guest, but they never had anything bad to say? Chances are you have. Well, I have too, and that is because some guests simply don’t understand the review system on Airbnb. In their eyes, giving 3–4 stars means they had a great stay because they think that giving 5 stars equals unrealistically perfect. The next time you get a guest who might be new to the platform (you can usually recognise this on their number of reviews and date when they joined Airbnb), feel free to send them a message kindly asking them to review your property with 5 stars. Make sure you give them a 5 star review first and clearly communicate this reasoning in your follow up message. Say that you have thoroughly enjoyed hosting them and that you hope they will be back soon. Given that you have already given them the highest rating, they will most likely reciprocate.

3) Don’t be afraid to reiterate your house rules — and be very clear about them

I’m very passionate about this point, as I have had some pretty bad experiences around not communicating my house rules properly.

Let me say this: YOU are advertising YOUR space. Your guests aren’t checking into some random hotel, they are checking into your home/property. You need to be EXPLICITLY and UNAPOLOGETICALLY clear about what they can and cannot do. When I started out, I thought I have to be as lenient as possible, so that I somehow don’t rub my guests the wrong way — WRONG! A lot of first timers fall into this trap!

Instead, be confident in what you provide and know the value of the experience you offer. You have put a lot of work into getting your listing ready and have probably invested quite a bit of money. Know the worth of your work and price your product accordingly. Also, be very strict with your house rules and principles. If guests don’t agree? Move on. There will always be other guests who will appreciate what you offer. It sounds a lot like dating, and there are actually quite a lot of parallels. Know your worth, and if you have a bad feeling about a potential guest, don’t host them. Usually you get a vibe through the communication and when you get this uncomfortable gut feeling, chances are something is dodgy. Even if it’s easy money to accept, it won’t be worth all the headaches and stress that come with unruly guests. Maybe you’ll make slightly less in this particular month because of turning them away, but that is a small price to pay for keeping your sanity and not losing the love of hosting!