All Forum Posts by: Josh Ball

I have raised our pet fee to $30/night. I have also noted in my booking messages that "If travelling with a pet. They must be crated/kennel while left unattended in the condo. Kennel/crate is not supplied." 

Thanks everyone for the advice/recommendations.

We've started a new condo in a vacation town a couple of hours away. We're allowing pets (with a $75 fee) to pass along to the cleaners. After this recent guest, the pet hair, pet debris from a dog that was clearly walking in grass & brought in the unit has caused for a deep clean of our unit. We knew that by allowing pets, we would need to schedule deep cleanings every so often but we had dog hair everywhere, mud marks on the door like it had been scratching to get outside, paw marks on the rugs, sheets, etc. 

I'm thinking about adding a message to guests who book with a pet that "no pets can be left unattended in the unit" to try to reduce the people bringing pets just to avoid boarding costs.

What do y'all do in this situation? This is our first guest who has left a good bit of hair/debris from their dog.

 I haven't noticed a change in bookings. Although, I am using Price Labs & I am worried the pricing I am providing is the new model but the majority of my competitors that Price Labs is pricing my property off of aren't. Therefore hurting me in the long run.

Competitor $100/night plus the 15%ish fee. Price labs prices me off of that to be competitive at $100 & I'm now at $85 since I'm paying the fee directly.

Quote from @Craig Jones:

I was just about to post about this.

Under the standard fee model, the guest service fee is about 14.2% and the host service fee is 3%.  So AirBnB gets a 17.2% cut in total.

If you choose "simplified pricing" the host fee is 15% and there's no guest fee.  You can then raise your prices so the guest sees the same total as before, and you actually end up netting 2.2% more.  

Another (minor) benefit is that AirBnB compliments you in front of the guest during the booking process:

Of course I'm not really covering anything.  The money has just moved under a different shell.

Craig do you know if the nightly rate displays to guests as a higher rate being that 15% is included? Or does the search results display the standard way with the fee included also?

I've recently switch to the "simplified pricing" that takes the 15% from each payout but doesn't display the additional "service fee" to the guests booking. I'm curious your take on it & whether you believe it to be beneficial? Do you find guests lean towards properties that have it already included in the nightly rate or would rather see the "service fee" charged by Airbnb?

 Thanks Andrew.

Do you find a lot of people take advantage of it or isn't worth the headache?

We've recently started a new STR in a small coastal town. The town allows golf carts with a permit. We've been thinking about adding one as a perk to our guests but wanted to get some opinions.

How does Insurance work? Assuming your guests have to sign a waiver? Do you handle this through the platform (AirBNB or VRBO) or outside? Other Pros/Cons?

Thanks in advance.

I'm seeing growth with the STR market where I am at. But just like a lot of things, what is increasing here, could be decreasing in a few cities over.

You've gotten some good advice above but $100 even seems cheap after looking through these photos. Definitely be charging at least what you're paying in cleaning, if not add a little cushion.

Unsure on the current STR market there but if it is strong would make a very cool STR. Although my first thought when I opened the photos was a wedding/event venue.