I know Air/VRBO are strongly pushing for hosts to offer non-cancellable bookings at a 10% discount. 

Unless you suddenly become a stellar STR Host and property (requiring additional spending), why not sell and make some better financial decisions....

You might want to check out listings in your neighborhood to get an idea of the going rates and what amenities other hosts are offering.

Hey Daisja - we host a monthly Real Estate meet-up with different topics on a monthly basis at the Brier Creek Carolina Ale House on the third Thursday of every month from 6:30-8:30.

@Aidan Jones  We host the largest REI group in the Lansing, MI area twice a month at our office.

.🔹 Airbnb is Facing Increasing Restrictions:New York City has implemented strict rules requiring hosts to register and be physically present, effectively banning many short-term rentals.Dallas and Atlanta have passed zoning laws banning short-term rentals in residential areas.California cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are ramping up enforcement with hefty fines for non-compliant listings.🔹 Co-Living is Gaining Legal Ground:Colorado eliminated all restrictions on the number of unrelated adults living together statewide as of July 1, 2024, marking a major victory for co-living advocates.This week, Jacksonville Municipal Court ruled in favor of PadSplit, voiding citations for “illegal boarding houses” on constitutional and fair housing grounds.Cities like all over like Washington D.C. are considering zoning reforms to allow more co-living developments as an answer to the housing crisis.As Airbnb restrictions tighten, co-living is emerging as a scalable and legally sound alternative that balances affordability, tenant stability, and community needs.

Your designer should think like a host, ensuring guests feel welcomed, comfortable, and eager to return.9. 

I find AirBNB from a host stand point much more user friendly & advanced.

It's basically built on top of WordPress core and they made it simple and easy to navigate.Where in wordpress, you have to get some plugins (some are also monthly paid) to achieve the same kind of functionality.SEO is not just about having a good hosting/platform and features, it's about utilizing the features in a way so your brand has visibility and people that come into your website gets proper value of their time spent.Here's a table comparison for you that I wrote earlierNow whether you have a carrot or a wordpress site, for SEO, you will need:- Website Credibility (Personalisation)- On Page SEO (Keywords, Titles, Meta Tags, Description, Image ALT Tags & Optimization etc)- Social Media Presence (Regular Posts/Videos and Engaging with your audience)- Monthly Content Publishing (Regular Blogs & Location Pages)- Monthly OFF Page SEO (Citations, Backlinks)Now if you consider the cost, end of the day it's quite same for both the platforms.But if you are starting fresh, I see no point of having their 180$ plan, you can continue with 89$/month plan from carrot and assign someone in your team to put regular blog posts and update the location pages.Or if you want to use WordPress and get someone setup the website and do regular content updates for you, then It can take 3-6 months to start seeing visible growth in organic traffic if all the things mentioned above are taken care of.

I do think that in many cases pool fences ruin the aesthetic and the Airbnb pictures so I'm sure that's why some hosts are cutting corners.