All Forum Posts by: Heidi Kenefick

Someone messaged me a PDF on Vrbo with their email and phone number requesting to send a certified check for a three week reservation totaling nearly 4K. Is this unusual? Would you guys accept or just ask that they book through the app? Never had anyone request like that before. Would you be concerned about a scam?

@Andrew Steffens

I did some Market recon last night. The cleaning fees in my area are all over the place. Some had no cleaning fees. Some were $50. Some $200. I tried only looking at similar sized houses.

@Lauren Kormylo

That’s great advice, thank you.

I will up the cleaning fee a bit and see what that does and I just joined price labs so we shall see how it prices vs Airbnb dynamic pricing.

@Theresa Harris

There is second and third sets. And a dozen + towels.

@Bill Brandt

Thanks. I did it myself twice and it took like 6 hours. It doesn’t sound like a lot but when you factor in 2 loads of laundry, changing 5 beds, cleaning 2 bathrooms, and then dusting/wiping down it’s a lot. My current cleaner is basically only spending 2 hours just changing the beds and cleaning the bathrooms.

I have had the same cleaner for about a year, and she has been good to me. Her prices are fair and she even has done some runs to Walmart to get stuff for the house.

But I recently switched from a mid term by the room to a STR for the full house, which is her bread and butter. I have had a few guests message me privately to say the cleaner didn't do a good job, fridge wasn't clean, some dirt on the floor etc. I spoke to her about it and she agreed to do better.

Yesterday I had a guest leave after one night and request a refund due to the house not being clean. A couple items were legit- there was something sticky on the floor (spilled juice?) and the fridge had not been wiped down. I went to the house myself to clean it and noticed my cleaner really hasn’t been sweeping or vacuuming and so did a deeper clean today.

I had someone come meet me to bid it out, and she is way way way more detail oriented than my usual cleaner. She charges $250/clean and requires a deep clean which is $450+. My usual cleaner charges $90.

Any idea what might happen to my Airbnb revenue if I increase my cleaning fee to $250? This is a 5 bedroom house and I rent it out for $175-200/night. It’s a fairly new listing (2 months) and in a college town and not a luxury rental.

I would appreciate any thoughts and feedback on 1. Switching cleaners and 2. Upping the cleaning fee.

Thanks guys!

@Michelle Backer

You should consider investing close to nyc. I used to live in Hartford,ct and that’s a fantastic rental market because of all the triplexes.

Or maybe go north up to newburgh. I have family there and it’s a good rental market too, but stay out of the inner city.

Sometimes the best option is in your backyard. It allows you to go and see the property, and the neighborhood where it is located!

I agree with others who say invest where you have a network. I invest in NC where I once lived and had a lot of contacts. When a water heater flooded on a Saturday and I couldn’t reach the PM I had a friend go to the property. Networks make a huge difference!!

@Doug Fluckiger

I had issues with them too. I only had them for about 2 weeks and in that time span had two double bookings a which they would not cancel. This despite syncing my calendars, but the booking one didn’t sync properly with Airbnb. And they did not collect payments and after hours of searching for their phone number was told that they couldn’t collect the payment and I should reach out to the guest. Luckily it was only for a one night stay.

The customer service was awful, and people target new properties on Booking.com knowing that they are going to get a free stay. It’s a huge problem. I won’t use them again.

@Asury Johnson

How do you manually generate the code?

Update- she replied to my email and said she was sorry for taking so long to get back to me but that her contract was canceled and she understands that I may need to keep the deposit for the inconvenience. 

Very glad she is okay, kind of bizarre it took her 10 days to tell me. Either way, very glad that is settled and I will change wording in my leases going forward.