All Forum Posts by: Tom Freestone

Hi @Noah Laker, 

We currently have a guest that wants to book for multiple weeks but we have 2 guests that are staying over the weekend.  One of them booked 3 days ago and their stay is in 2 weekends.  We would like to request them to cancel.  We do have some maintenance tasks that need to be completed prior to the extended stay like getting a fence, getting the siding repaired from a burst pipe, some washing machine maintenance too.  We are open to offer a credit and full refund to buy their cancelation.  Any suggestions on how to approach this?  Its on Airbnb and we are concerned that we could jeopardize our superhost title or worse.  We are still within our first year so pretty green.  Our other concern is that they get scared we are scammers for some reason and get reported to Airbnb.  Google searching says that the host cancelation method is a pretty widely used scam.

We do a year out.  So far our rentals have rarely booked more than 8 weeks out but we did have 2 book greater than 6-9 months.  We're near Olympic National Park so there are definitely people who plan an excursion.  I would think it depends on your strategy.  If you're trying it out or may want to pivot to long term or mid term then I would keep it closed.  We are doing it for the long haul so we want to net as many as we can.  

What if the situation is just a more lucrative opportunity?  I have a guest that wants to book 2 full weeks but I have a weekend right in the middle of it.  I was planning to offer a $200 credit and full refund.  What if they say no?  Did I do anything wrong if they try to escalate to Airbnb?  I'm also concerned that if Airbnb does not like my approach they block me and then I can't get the 2 weeks anyway.  I do not have a lease agreement to show them and plan to book the 2 weeks on Airbnb.

We chose Hospitable.  Even though it was our first it is a huge help.  We had a couple guests come through last year where the entire exchange was automated.  We don't recommend that but were watching closely more fore science :)  The automation with Turno and Schlage encodes is by far the biggest help plus it gets a little discount on the property consolidation with Pricelabs.  I can't imagine changing codes every guest.  I'd go nuts.  

Hi all,

My wife and I have setup our 2nd STR and it is in an area that got hit pretty hard with winter storms in Clackamas County Oregon east of Portland. Today we got a request to stay at our property for 5 months because they need to relocate due to a tree falling on their house. We have never dealt with a stay over 7 days so this is drastically different for us. Financially this is an attractive scenario for us but we are unclear how rental rights and payments should be addressed. How do payments work and what should be aware of in considering this? Does Airbnb charge prior to the stay? Should we create a separate agreement or amend our Airbnb terms and conditions for this property? Should we plan to have our maid go in there monthly or something like to that to keep up to a certain level of cleanliness to return to the market? Any other advice or suggestions? I pasted our listing below if checking it out helps.

Thank you!

Tom

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1042423909892942685?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=ebf3973c-a10b-482a-a570-32f14843581a

I had a guest request a 25% discount on the stay. I respectfully declined and actually just copy and pasted what Julie posted as a reply with a little personalization ("The current price shows all available discounts."). They booked! It sounds like it will either work out great with this one or a troublesome guest.

I'm only in my 2nd month of operating our first STR. I have been sticking to the advice on the forums and definitely over anxious on getting the bookings. Just stayed the course and once we got our first three 5 star reviews on Airbnb 3 days ago it really seems like the flood gates are open. In 3 days we got 5 bookings. Just throwing it out there to the newbies. It is a grind but stay the course to reap the fruits you sow.

I have a guest who shared with me that they are celebrating their wife’s birthday. I thought putting out a birthday card with a $25 visa gift card would be a good touch to get the 5 star review. Is that a bad idea?

Hi guys, 

When you guys adjust pricing for the different platforms, are you doing it through Pricelabs?  What do you use to push pricing to the OTAs?  Mine is currently set at Pricelabs and it pushes through to the OTAs so it is the same price.

Thanks!

Hi guys, is there a post where someone actually posted their visual aides for guests?  It sounds like a lot of people have created these so I'd like to copy from the best instead of trying to recreate the wheel.

Hi All, I was checking to see if there is anyone having success in Northeast Phoenix as a secondary market to Scottsdale. We have been exploring the non-HOA areas to invest. It looks like in the AirDNA data that there are some real winners with nice pools tailored to the sporting events and there are also some that are available 6 months out of the year. Any feedback, areas to avoid, or other helpful info would be appreciated. Thanks!