All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Avellaneda

Hi BP!

I have a short term rental in Bonney Lake Washington. I have it normally booked through the short term sites (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) but I currently have a set of 4 travelling nurses there right now. They are there for about a 4 month stay. I had them sign a long term contract for the time they have booked.

This is my first time hosting for a few months. They are asking me about having visiting family stay at the rental for undetermined amount of time at different times throughout the stay for each of them. I advised them that if anyone is staying more than 2 nights they would need to be added to their renters policy and to the rental contract and they are asking to compromise on this.

What do you do in this type of situation with your renters?

Thanks!

Hi Matt,

I agree with the feedback from others above. My immediate question to you for this listing is what is your target audience? The home is not staged for anyone in particular. With Airbnb you need to know your audience. If you are targeting groups of families, the home needs to be fun and inviting. If you are targeting travelling professionals, you can add convenience, desks, and other amenities to make it stand out. Looking at the other listings in the area, it will not be hard to stick out and be booked more often with a little targeted staging of the home. The other listings had dark pictures and did not look great, and they were superhosts. 

I would also worry about the host. Why are they not a superhost? They have a total of 196 reviews but do not have superhost status? I would dig into that further. 

Our Airbnb is not in a vacation destination, but it is being booked regularly. Its all about the setup and who you want your target audience or guest to be. Remember that STR is more a hospitality business investment than it is a real estate investment. If you treat it as such you can get much more out of it.

Best of luck and let me know if you have specific questions I might be able to help with!

You set your base price and min/max in Pricelabs. Did you use the help me choose button? If so it is usually pretty close in pricing. You should choose a high base so that you Garner the most out of it, then set your minimum to what you would normally expect. That way you can nab higher bookings and as the algorithm gives discounts closer to day of you will still get bookings.

My home is in Washington and I have all Airbnb and have had 1 guest via VRBO. I think it depends on what part of the country you are in as to which is more popular.

i will have to check out craigslist to see if that works in my area.

Interesting, i wonder if they also blocked that many in other states? I can't even imagine how many they blocked in the Vegas area! Hahaha

@Adrian Beales- no not in those two specifically, but I am looking for a resource to bounce questions off of. Do you have a company name or person I could contact?

@Adrian Beales- thank you for the reply. The property is located in Bogota.

 Interesting, I did. It know that. I live in Washington and thought Oregon culture was very similar. Would you say Oregon is worse than a state that was historically racist like Alabama, Kentucky, etc?  I feel like a state that had large KKK groups and still shows the Confederate flag with pride would be a better location.

I feel like this experiment would be better completed where the data supports that more racism exists. Oregon doesn't seem like a place that is discriminatory in most circumstances. Seems like a better location for a pilot would have been better?

Also, not to throw a wrench in it, but other apps that are channel managers show all of that information when Airbnb doesn't. How do they seek to control other companies?

Airbnb and VRBO are unfortunately the 2 main platforms. They both have their pluses and minuses. Depending on your area and how you have the space setup you could also target traveling professionals through Furnished finder. Those folks are typically looking for months at a time stays though. I have not had any leads from Furnished finder because I have sporadic bookings scattered throughout the months and so it doesn't allow for month at a time stays.

I also listed on Peerspace  which showcases your place for different reasons.(photography, video production, meetings, etc) This is for companies to rent your place so you can usually charge more and they don't typically spend the night, just book for like 6 or 8 hours type of thing.

The other thing you could do would be direct bookings which would require a website and some type of marketing to drive folks to your website. ( Social media, SEO ads, etc.)