AirBnB Owners - How's Business?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AirBnB owner (Rehoboth) here. Booking were non-stop at my place through mid-October - literally, every day booked. Since then, it has been crickets and for the first time in years my place is sitting empty a few nights a week. Dropped prices, cut out fees, and it is not helping much.

Disappointed that AirBnB’s have taken over many communities and eliminated traditional Bed & Breakfasts, a once enjoyable vacation lodging option.
AirBnB’s were a COVID / WFH craze that has reached it life cycle - too many rules, excessive fees and intrusive owners using cameras inside and out. During our last stay at an AirBnB, we covered cameras we found inside the property with ‘press n seal’. We found cameras on the deck looking at the hot tub, there’s were covered too. We didn’t want to be internet porn sensations. The AirBnB owner appeared at the unit with the police stating we needed to leave ‘cause we broke the rules. The police agreed that the cameras were an invasion of our privacy and sided with us. We stayed the remainder of the contract and left an appropriate review. We were ‘flamed’ by the owner for destroying his rental. We have photos that show how we left his rental in better shape than we found it. Owner is threatening us with legal action, our response is “bring it on”. For this reason we are done with using airBnB’s and encourage others to rethink using AirBnB’s. Never had such a bad experience at any hotel or resort.

AirBnB owners/operators have brought this upon themselves with their insecurities and greed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AirBnB owner (Rehoboth) here. Booking were non-stop at my place through mid-October - literally, every day booked. Since then, it has been crickets and for the first time in years my place is sitting empty a few nights a week. Dropped prices, cut out fees, and it is not helping much.

Disappointed that AirBnB’s have taken over many communities and eliminated traditional Bed & Breakfasts, a once enjoyable vacation lodging option.
AirBnB’s were a COVID / WFH craze that has reached it life cycle - too many rules, excessive fees and intrusive owners using cameras inside and out. During our last stay at an AirBnB, we covered cameras we found inside the property with ‘press n seal’. We found cameras on the deck looking at the hot tub, there’s were covered too. We didn’t want to be internet porn sensations. The AirBnB owner appeared at the unit with the police stating we needed to leave ‘cause we broke the rules. The police agreed that the cameras were an invasion of our privacy and sided with us. We stayed the remainder of the contract and left an appropriate review. We were ‘flamed’ by the owner for destroying his rental. We have photos that show how we left his rental in better shape than we found it. Owner is threatening us with legal action, our response is “bring it on”. For this reason we are done with using airBnB’s and encourage others to rethink using AirBnB’s. Never had such a bad experience at any hotel or resort.

AirBnB owners/operators have brought this upon themselves with their insecurities and greed.

I’m sick and tired of the rules too and invasion of privacy. And the nitpicking of Air BNB owners who claim that their place was left dirty when it wasn’t. I no longer stay in air bnbs. Been burned twice. Second time I took pictures of how I left the place after I cleaned and still they insisted that I somehow ruinied dining room chairs with a food stain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To their credit, looks like Airbnb has heard these concerns and is taking steps to address them.

https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/1589541705921212416

Total price will show in search. Checkout requests beyond "turn off lights, throw food in the trash, lock the doors" will have to be shown before booking.

Bookings must have gone off a cliff.

actually I invite these improvements, we have a no chore checkout, and we charge exactly what our cleaning company charges, so this will change nothing for us.

Ditto. We have four Airbnbs in the Southwest, and we've never asked guests to do anything more than turn off the lights and the HVAC before they leave. I actually hate when guests strip the beds (usually means they're hiding stains), or wash the dishes (they don't really). I don't even want them taking out trash, because I can add to it while cleaning and not waste an extra bag.

I just added "No cleaning on check out -- just pack up and go!" to the description of all our listings. We charge a $45 cleaning fee, which I think is more than fair.

[Anonymous]

This article reminded me of this thread. AirBnB says bookings are up, but the bottom line is that supply is up more.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-housing-slowdown-is-wreaking-havoc-on-the-short-term-rental-market-11670518837?mod=hp_lead_pos12

“I’ve felt a massive drop,” says Ms. Must, who in the height of the pandemic could command more than $1,000 per night on a holiday weekend but now has her rates starting around $275 on Airbnb. “I am so beyond stressed by it.”

Vacation-rental owners across the U.S. have taken to social media, from Facebook to Twitter to Reddit, to lament that their bookings have come to a screeching halt, punctuating their disquietude with #Airbnbust, a hashtag that went viral this fall.

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The supply increase has multiple causes. Taylor Marr, an economist at real-estate brokerage firm Redfin, notes that during the pandemic, demand for second homes pretty much doubled. But, Mr. Marr says, “as the overall housing market has started to cool because of the economy tightening up, that has impacted sellers who would list their houses for sale. To hold on to their low interest rates, they are saying, ‘Why not rent the house?’ ”

There are also second-home owners who bought properties before the pandemic who have decided that now is the time to enter the vacation rental pool. “We hear these stories every single day,” says Brian Egan, co-founder and CEO of Evolve, a vacation-rental management and hospitality company. “All this inventory that has been sitting there is being brought into the short-term rental market now.”

Mr. Egan believes it is a combination of people whose finances are strained by inflation seeing where they can create income and people not wanting their properties to sit empty because it feels wasteful.