My family and I are a little more than halfway through a few months vacationing in Europe and we´ve stayed in two STR´s so far. We rented a house in Tuscany for 2 weeks, an apartment in Rome and a house in Villefranche Sur Mer. Both houses were excellent, the apartment not as much even though it had an incredible view. My takeaways from being on the client side for a while were the following, (Most of these are pretty basic and just personal preference stuff, and experienced hosts already know it, but it was fun to be on the other side of the equation for once)

1. Cleanliness mattered more than anything else on first impression.  The Tuscany place offered a maid service at our disposal for $200 euro and we took advantage of it a few times.  It was a nice option to have, especially for a bigger place.  The Rome apartment was clean but had hairs on the pillow, residue in the bathroom etc.  (these are things that I sometimes roll my eyes at on the host side, thinking people are looking for discounts etc. but were actually pretty gross on the client side)

2.  I would take a functional coffee maker and plenty of coffee over almost any other amenity. 

3. We would have been totally content with 6 towels, they left out 12 in a 3 bedroom, and sure enough all 12 got used (I am traveling with my wife and two daughters).  Whatever is offered will get used. 

4. Location over amenities for us, especially in a walking destination.

5. Even as hosts who like to automate as much as possible, I liked having a physical book of recs, phone numbers, maps etc. vs a purely digital version. 

6. Tuscany had a wall of books, with a really diverse selection.  It was a cool benefit and probably not all that expensive, especially in a place where they get longer reservations and people have more time to kill.  My kiddos actually read unprompted which is something that is a rarity at home.

7. Self-check much preferred over guided check in.  Just easier and more time efficient. 

8. We happily paid a small markup for certain things in exchange for connivence.  The best example was car rental in Tuscany where the host had some sort of deal worked out with the car rental agency (a smaller local operator), where we booked the car directly through a contact they provided and they brought the car to us.  It worked out to about $40 euro more per day but was well worth it.  I am sure they get a small commission from that and the host didn't have to lift a finger, it was all done through the car rental agency.  Really convenient touch that probably adds a few 100$ to their bottom line per month. 

9. Speed in response time is huge.  I am very conscious of hosts/managers time and really try not to bug, but we had a few incidents with the water heater in Rome.  That was a professional manager with 350 units and they had a 4 hour lag time on responding.  Yikes.  

We usually prefer hotels over STRs just because of the service but this trip is changing my mind a bit and it might be hard to give up the space in the future especially traveling with the kiddos. FWIW the STR market here is cranking, just a preliminary glance when booking this stuff showed really high occupancy numbers and great rates, especially in the city centers. Anyways, it was cool to be on the other side of the coin, I know most of this is basic but maybe there's some value in there for a newer host!