airbnb

5 Tips To Help You Start Your Airbnb Journey

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Home Sharing Tips

If you’re going away and need a little extra cash without the trouble and obligations that come with a full-time rental agreement. Because of this Airbnb has become a good alternative for these people as it brings in an income but is more flexible. However, when setting up their Airbnb some people aren’t sure what all needs to be done. Hopefully, these tips will give you a better idea of what your basic checklist should be before you are ready to open your home to others.

1. Clean Your Home Thoroughly

For this step, many may assume that the normal amount of cleaning that they do throughout their home is enough to suffice but in most cases, it isn’t. Of course, if you do not want to do the amount of deep cleaning that this requires you could hire an outside professional to do it for you. This will also help if your carpet has any slight stains that you want to have taken out before renting out your house.

2. Have Secured Storage

It is important that you have a safe area where you can store any personal possessions that you want to leave on the property but could also be stolen. The best choice for this would be a lockable closet which you can use to store things such as jewellery, family heirlooms, or personal keepsakes that have sentimental value.

3. Have Very Clear Rules

You will want to make sure that at the time the rental agreement is made both you and the renter are fully confident that you understand the rules of the house that you have predetermined. This will make sure that if any rules are violated they will not be able to claim that they were unaware there were other rules in place. Some rules that you should consider thinking about are:-

– Are pets allowed? Is there a pet fee or penalty for breaking pet rules?

– Do you allow smoking on your property?

– Are there hours the renter needs to be quieter?

4. Make the Property Easy to Access

Nobody wants to get to the rental site ready to relax just to find out that they have somehow been locked out. In order to prevent this the best options a keyless entry (which is a box that you type a passcode in to unlock the door), or a lockbox (which is a box that will store the entry keys).

With these tips in mind, you will have a better idea of how to run a successful Airbnb during the beginning phase. Especially when it comes to making sure your customers are comfortable and happy on their first day in your home.

5. Create a Welcome Guide

If you haven’t already created a welcome guide we highly recommend spending sometime to create one. Firstly, having a welcome guide can significantly enhance the guest experience by providing essential information about your property, local attractions, and amenities. This not only makes guests feel more comfortable but also reduces the likelihood of common queries and the guests contacting you. We recommend putting in the guide house rules, minimizing the chances of misunderstandings during the stay. Additionally, including local recommendations in the guide adds a personal touch to the guest experience, making their stay more memorable. Most important of all the guide can also feature emergency information and contacts, ensuring the safety and well-being of your guests.

If you don’t already have a welcome guide you can download one for free for our resources.

12 Things we learnt from hosting on Airbnb

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Being an Airbnb host presents one with a wider scope of things that happen when you let out your home for rentals. Some of the lessons that we learn are beneficial to we the homeowners and also serves to instruct the guests on how to conduct themselves once in the homes. The lessons include:-

A home situated in the right area generates more profit

For people living in the popular London instead of letting your home stay empty, you can charge up to £200 for a night.  If you have a clean spacious spare room you can make over £60 per night. This is enough money to help you strategize on the plan and make Airbnb your main income whilst following things like a 4-Hour Work Week.

Expect complains

Sometimes, some guest gets irrational and complain about some unnecessary needs. If the complaints are not realistic, you can easily ignore the situation. However, if you have more than one guest complaining about the situation, it is good to address the situation right away.

Preparing a Lived-in home is not an easy task

Even though preparing your home for renting can be a daunting experience. You should get a cleaner to help. Make sure that you fix little problems, ones where you find a workaround for them but someone new to your property would need to know the workaround.   For personal documents, ensure that they are in safe which is locked.

Some lived-in house surfaces are too old. Even though we get positive reviews from the guests, some surfaces are impossible to make look clean even though they have been scrubbed top to bottom. Don’t worry too much, as long as the rest of the property is clean you’ll be okay.

Notify the guests about the potential problems at your home

Sometimes, it is easy for one to ignore some challenges in a home since you are the owner and knows how to deal with it. However, for some guest, the challenges may get unbearable. Thus, notifying the guests about the issue at hand is crucial. For this, you prevent getting some bad reviews for the home.

Notify your neighbours about renting your home

You can tell your neighbors to keep watch on your property once the guests are in. The neighbors serve as security to your home and property in case the guests behave inappropriately. Be sure to let them know what you are up to!

Little things get broken

Even though people may never have the intention of damaging your home, some things such as door handles may accidentally get broken. By this, you should not feel depressed since you are out to do business, there are risks you should expect. It’s rare large object get damaged. Most people are honest and will inform you of the fact.

The people are polite and honest

We might call it luck but, we may also say that the guests are polite and respectful to your home. It is rare to find your home damaged. For a good experience, we ensure that on the return of the homeowners, the property professional cleaned after the last guests that stay. This will make you feel alot better the experience.

The guest always leaving things behind

This is a common incidence whereby people leave behind somethings in your house. Sometimes, one leaves them unaware, and it is professional to reach out to the people to give them back their belonging. Do I as soon as possible to avoid inconveniencing them.

For a large family, beds may be a limiting factor

For large families renting a lodging, they opt for a spacious home. This normally is Mum & Dad, Children and Grand Parents. Beds might, however, be a challenge in the room. Thus, you can incorporate bunk beds for the room to suit the family. 6 people is the ideal number.

Some things may get displaced

It is rare that things get stolen from your home. However, the guests may transfer some of your things to a different location within the house. Even though this may be unsettling for you, it does not cause any harm.

Leave clear instructions for the guest

Its okay leave an invite note for the guests. Sometimes, you have food in the house, and you may want the guests to partake in the meal. Please state it in the welcome note that they can eat the food. Failure to this, you may be back to your pace to find that the food went bad. Also, put the house rules in the clear. By this, the guest will have an easier time running thing in the house.

Airbnb serves a wide scope of people more than just holidaymakers

You may be thinking that Airbnb serves people going for a vacation only. The truth is, it serves a variety of clients such as people transitioning to a new home. Also, business people and people attending seminars also seek Airbnb services.

 

What to learn to host like a professional, visit our free course today and get started Airbnb hosting the right way.

Hosting Like A Professional

 

 

 

Stringer incorrectly interpreted AirDNA data

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On Friday a firm which deals with analysis of Airbnb rentals,Comptroller Stringer Scott, forcefully stroke city claiming with a “deep flawed” research study making use of its own date to accuse this well-known home-sharing service of double-digiting increases in rent in Big Apple parts.

“The report that interrupted incorrectly AirDNA so as to come up with assumptions on Airbnb impact on the rental pieces in New York, makes false conclusions at a very big cost to many of the hosts of Airbnb who rely on that platform to earn their daily living.” The reporting firm said.

The report by Stringer which was released on Thursday laid claims that Airbnb was the reason as to why rent increased by 9.2% average throughout the city between 2009 and 2016 and also for the double increase in some of the neighborhoods which are coveted.

However, AirDNA said it was all wrong by the comptroller. He claimed that, “The comptroller takes every new listing which is uploaded on the site as number listings which were active for that year. Most of the Airbnb listings actually are inactive. They just idly in that site, make no rent and are not booked by guests and hence impact not or less on the prices of rent.

AirDNA said that merge all the types of listings is total misrepresentation and misguide to New Yorkers who rent out their spare rooms so as to supplement what they earn or settle mortgage.
Stringer has assumed mistakenly that even a rental listed and was occupied once in a year impacts equally with professional, full-time managed listing.

This report firm added on and said, most of the active listings comprise of private rooms. Single –listing hosts compared to multi-listing hosts are five times more and 65% of the total properties are under management of hosts having a single listing.
Chris Lehane the spokesman of Airbnb demanded that Stringer should retract that study naming it “hit job” which has the hotel industry behind it.

On Friday, a spokesman of the comptroller said that on basis of information availed by AirDNA, they concluded on same report be it apartments which were listed full-time or part-time on Airbnb.
He added on and said, “Our report stated explicitly that Airbnb was behind the 9.2% increase in cost of housing but not 100%.”

Valencia Wants to Stop Tourists from Taking Best Views

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A group of Valencia residents now support a bill that aims to ban tourists from being booked into rooms that have the best views of the city.
Valencia city hall is currently mulling over a new regulation that would restrict private rentals to the ground and second floors of apartment buildings. If passed, the law would basically ban all private apartment rentals offering a view of the historic buildings and coastline of the city. Also, it would prohibit tourist rentals from the historic center of the city and allow regulation of holiday rentals on zone-by-zone basis, The Local Spain reported.

There have been complaints by locals that the current tourism boom in Valencia has priced out locals from the most desirable neighborhoods of the city.

In a statement, Sandra Gomez, Valencia deputy mayor, said that the new law empowers councils to regain control of what buildings may be used for.

Valencia joins a host of other European cities waging a war against holiday rental sites such as Airbnb. Just last year, Barcelona threatened to bar all Airbnbs from the city because of properties operating without a license. Last month, Paris city filed a case against Airbnb and other illegal listings. A court hearing that is set for 12th of June, could affect up to 85% of listings on the website.

Airbnb Launches Travel Stories Feature

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Airbnb has announced that they are launching a new feature to their website called Travel Stories. This will allow guests to upload videos of the highlights of their trip so that they can be viewed by others who are interested in that accommodation.

There is a new Travel Stories section in the Airbnb app which contains some frequently asked questions and where you can find all the information that you may need. There is also advice on the kinds of things that you may want to include in your video and tips on how to make your videos look as good as possible.

Your videos should also be uploaded to the Travel Stories section. The app will be able to access your camera roll so that you can choose which videos you want to include. You will also be prompted to add tags of the location so that it is easy for people to search for videos that relate to the destination they are interested in.

You will be able to preview the story that you have created before it can be viewed by other users. The stories that you create can be viewed by other users of the app. This new feature will enable Airbnb to become more social and to interact with its customers more, as well as giving them the chance to interact with each other.

At the moment Travel Stories is only available on the iOS version of the app. The app must also be completely up to date for these features to work. No indication has yet been given about when the feature will be available on Android.

Madrid Proposes Stricter Home Sharing Rules

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Madrid is seeking to pass a law that would in effect ban up to 95% of homeshare and Airbnb listings from the city’s historic center.

The new regulations, which were announced by Sustainable Urban Planning secretary Jose Manuel Calvo on May 9, impose stricter rules on home rentals, more so in the historic center of Madrid.

Residential use
According to The Local Spain, the move aims to preserve residential use of properties, which will in effect end permanent use of such buildings and instead replace it with short-term use by tourists. This would stop housing units from being turned into exclusive accommodation for tourists.

City officials are hopeful that the new regulations would bar landlords from turning whole buildings into rental units, unless where they hold a hotel license.

According to the new rules, it will be illegal to rent apartments to tourist for over 90 days in a calendar year. As for those being rented out to vacationers, they will need to have a different entrance from permanent dwellers. In the city’s historic center, only a few ground floor buildings (roughly 6%) would be allowed to be rented out to tourists. The central zone includes Chueca, Sol, Malasaña, Lavapiés and La Latina neighborhoods.

As the new plan awaits approval by the government, Madrid has temporarily banned issuing tourist licenses for a year.

Madrid is not the only city fighting homeshares. Valencia is in the process of introducing new regulations that aim to bar Airbnbs from taking the best views of the city, while Palma, Mallorca’s capital, outlawed all unlicensed homeshare listings. It takes effect this July.