So, there’s a pretty easy way for us to know what Airbnb wants us to be doing right what they want us to be doing as a host and that’s by checking out the review system that we leave as a guest. So, I want to dissect that this week.

Welcome to short-term rental riches will discuss investing in real estate but with a specific focus on short-term rentals quick actionable items to acquire manage and scale your portfolio. I’m your host Tim Hubbard

Welcome back to the short-term rental riches podcast happier here again, we’re talking this week about their view system with Airbnb. We all know how important reviews are one of the really easy ways to discover or uncover, what exactly it is, they’re really wants is to leave a review as a guest, right? And so, I just got back from a real nice trip in. Go Playa Del Carmen and I rented an Airbnb of course. And that my family there and I had a fantastic stay and now is the time for me to leave a review. So, I thought it would be nice to just go through all of the questions that are being be ass and it’s going to help us identify the things that are most important after you stay in a property and Airbnb. They want you to review, right? They send you a lot of reminders, it’s sort of the lifeblood for every host and a short-term rental is to make sure that we’re getting reviews, good reviews, and that has gas for also leaving them.

So, I’m just going to run through this from start to finish everything at the time of this recording that Airbnb asks us to put in. They have a lot of things through required, but they also have quite a few things now that or additional you can skip them if you want. So, the first thing here, it says we’ll wait to publish your review for five days or until your host writes a review for you. Whichever comes first, the first question they ask is how was your stay so this is pretty General right, but they’re asking us just based out of a five-star rating system.

Now, this is specific to Airbnb and we know if you’ve been in the industry for a while, that sometimes we think the five stars just really isn’t that fair. I wish personally that we had 10 stars because the difference between a four star and a five-star that’s 20 percent, right? And that’s a huge difference. So maybe one day they’ll change that. But for right now we’ve got five stars. So, I had a great stay and I just mark this one, a five star? The next question, ask you is, how was the check-in? So, this is really important, right? If you missed my episode, on the biggest failure you can make as a host. It’s all about the check-in and that was specifically about getting locked out. So, the check-in is really important. And this is the first question they’re going to ask you as a guest after, how was your stay? And again, this is out of 5 stars, but they’ve got a couple of our little options down below is they do with this step and a few other ones. So, they’re asking, tell us what stood out. Was it responsive hosts where they’re clear? Instructions, easy to find easy to get inside, felt right at home. Flexible check in something else. So, they have these additional questions. He’s additional prompts under each section. We got to kind of look at this and think about this on the back, and right? They wouldn’t be asking these questions if they didn’t think it was important and based on how these other suggestions these are filled out. You better believe that that’s affecting your visibility with your property on Airbnb.

The next question that they ask you as a guest leaving review is how clean was the place. How clean was hearing be? You stayed in again; this is super important and I would say this is probably the biggest reason why you’re going to get a negative review. And that’s just if your place was not clean. Luckily, this place in Mexico was really clean and they did a good job. You can tell they were very professional about it. So again, five stars, two thumbs up. They’ve got some more questions underneath the five-star rating, though, and those are what stood out and they’ve got spotless furniture and linens. We know how important the Linens and the furniture are. You can’t have a stain on your couch and expect someone to think that your property is clean. It says, tell us what stood out was it free of clutter was her squeaky-clean bathroom? The bathroom is you need to pay the most attention with the bathroom, your housekeepers need to I I’d say because everyone uses the bathroom in the short-term rental, right? At some point, during stay, they’re going to use it. And that’s one of the places where, you know, we can’t have a little hair laying around. We can’t have anything so we got to make sure the bathrooms spotless and they’ve got that on here.

Some additional information did it have a pristine kitchen or something else. So, they’ve got these additional questions again. This is under the cleanliness rating, which I left another five-star review, the next question. Every means going to ask is how accurately did they? Their place. How accurately did they describe the short-term rental? They are being be that you’re staying in. This is all about expectations, right? We’ve got to make sure that there are a hundred percent clear, so we’ve talked about this before we got to make sure your listing is perfect. You got to make sure your pictures are perfect and if they’re outdated pictures. Well, you should update them again underneath this rating. They’ve got some more information that we can input.

It asks tell us what stood out. It did look like the photos. Did it match? The description had listed amenities and services are something else. So, again, they just want a little bit more information, but this should cue you in to exactly what it is that Airbnb. Really wants and what we want on the guest side, so expectations, super, super important.

The next question here, where we can leave a five-star rating or 1-5, I should say is how good was the communication we know communication is key. We can’t have a perfect listing without great communication. So, this host did a good job. They were a super house by the way so we can have an average of four point eight or a lower on a review and still be a super house. So that gives you a little insight. When you’re booking an Airbnb, they’ve got to be nailing all of these different steps under the tell us what’s to down section. So again, this is on the same question, when our knees for a little more information where they always responsive did they offer local recommendations where they proactive do they have helpful instructions where are they friendly? So, these are just parts of having good communication. We’ve talked about guidebooks before and having recommendations not just on Airbnb, but we use host fully and offering some private recommendations or some local recommendations can go a really long way with your communication.

We covered A lot of topics on this podcast and a quick action will bite size format so you have the tools to acquire, and improve your short-term rentals on your own. But if you want to go deeper, I’ve a special invite You join us once a month that are rested, investor Clubhouse for we go in-depth on an individual topic. Everything from analyzing properties to improving operations and our bottom line, we cover it all the clubhouse members and myself are sharing best practices to earn. The most Revenue with the least amount of headache and I would love to have you there as well. That’s restmethods.com forward slash Rich. Our lives are shaped by those. We spend the most time with. So, if you want, to take your STR to the next level, come join us. I hope to see you on the inside.

Next question, Airbnb’s, going to ask is what did you think about the location again? I left a five-star for this one. That’s actually something that I put a lot more priority on when I’m booking an Airbnb because I like to be able to walk to places. Most is time, especially if I don’t have a car there. So again, I left them a five-star. They’ve got some more additional information. We can input on here though. They’re asking what stood out. Was it peaceful? Did it have beautiful surroundings, was it? If it were their great restaurants nearby was there, lots to do, was it walkable or? And then there’s always this something else question that we can fill out.

We know real estate, you hear all the time. Location, location, location. Well, I would say when it comes to short-term rentals, a lot of the time it’s like you can add a fourth location on there. Becomes location location location location right now. That doesn’t always mean you’re in a city though. That location could be a nice cabin out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a location. In other words that offers a really good experience. So, the location just has to match the experience that we’re offering the guests. And then the last question required question that Airbnb is going to ask us before we can submit a review is about the value. So, it says, finally was the Airbnb, you rented worth the price. And, again, I gave this one a five-star, I thought it was a great deal.

Now, this is one where you can nail all of the other ones, you can nail the communication, you can nail location, you can nail the expectations, you can nail the cleanliness. And if you’re doing all those things really, well, most time, you can charge a higher price, right? You should be able to charge a higher price because those are the most important things for guests. That’s why Airbnb, ask them first. But this fifth one I would say, remember the order here, this is the last question, they’re asking us because I feel like in this section, we can charge a little more, and maybe someone’s perceived value is slightly less, but we’re still going to get a good review overall.

So, this is the last question. Was it worth? What you paid for? Okay? Now comes time for us to leave our actual reviews. So, we’ve entered all of our ratings out of five stars. It’s so now they’re asking us to write the public review. Now remember, this is different than the private ones. So, mine says, you know, fantastic stay, thanks for everything quick, communication clean plays, great location. A lot of the things that they just asked me to leave a star rating for, and then I just said, thumbs up the next question, they’re going to ask you to leave a private note so this is really important for us as hosts to get this information from our guests.

So, we encourage our guests to leave this information for us all the time because it’s not going to be on your public review, right? So, if you were dropping the ball somewhere but it wasn’t really impacting the guests to wear, it didn’t affect the review, but it could have made their stay slightly better. This is where they’re going to put that in. So, you got to make sure that you’re paying attention to these private notes because This is where you can make your short-term rental, perfect to pay attention to the private notes and sort of like a free Hall past, right? We get to fix something with our property that doesn’t show up in our public reviews. So, make sure that you are asking for this information and also that you are reading it in, taking action with it. If there’s something, some sort of action will advise. And that is it. That is the process as a guest in a nutshell, from the gas perspective.

After staying in a short-term rental, Airbnb specifically. It’s just one other place where we can get direct input from are being be letting us know what’s important to them and they’re asking these questions because they know it’s important to the guests. So, if you haven’t stayed in Airbnb before, definitely go stay and some of that is the best way to really learn about the industry and learn about the business process and especially if you’re planning on investing in another city, that you’re not really familiar with.

I always recommend and staying in at least one Airbnb in that area to just get a good feel for the competition around there. So, I hope that gave you a little bit of insight from the guest perspective this time. And remember if you’re listening to the podcast, you can check out the YouTube video or you can kind of walk through these actual screen shares as well. And so, until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week and I’ll talk to you soon. Cheers.

Want to get on the fast track to Financial Freedom through short-term rentals What all starts with the properties you acquire but you want to make sure that you acquired the right properties. I want to give you my e-book. That will show you how to do just that. There is no charge. It’s my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. Just go to restmethods.com. That’s REST methods.com

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