Being an Excellent Airbnb Host Is Simple

Here are a few simple principles and tangible tips to ensure your hosting experience is rewarding, and enjoyable for you and your guests.

If you are interested in hosting with Airbnb, I hope this is helpful. Please use my referral when you sign up.

We had our first substantial booking just before the wedding. Two medical students rented our front room for over a month, and it covered the cost of our plane tickets to our Peru honeymoon.

Initially thinking we’d Airbnb long enough to cover the furniture, and a little extra, we’re still happily hosting more than two years later. Renting out our front room has provided substantial additional income — we earned enough our first year to cover the cost of purchasing some urban farmland.

Like any relationship, sticking to some good principles will go a long way.

Most likely this will be a short term situation, nonetheless it’s still a relationship. If falls somewhere between customer service relations and having a roommate.

• Communication– Humans are creatures seeking order in a chaotic world. The entrepreneurial vocation creates order from chaos.
  We make sure to send messages to our guests at every step, anticipating all we can to prevent lingering doubt about their stay. I’ll cover specifics in the next section.
• Expectation– In addition to important and timely messages, we made our listing as accurate and descriptive as possible. Pictures of every aspect of their room and the common spaces are provided, and everything down to the towels match the pictures. Every included amenity is listed, and nothing that isn’t.
• Boundaries– Hosting could easily become frustrating and lead to burn out if you are not good at drawing clear lines. We’ve had guests who’ve asked us for food, an iron after check-out time (we actually don’t own one and it’s not on our listing…), bicycles, and more. It’s definitely nice to have special perks — our budget-rate listing has a well-stocked snack and refreshment cart. Pick what you are glad to offer and stick to it.
  One of the most common lines we need to draw is guests wanting to check in early, or check out late. As it is, when there are back to back bookings, we have 4 hours to turn everything over. That is already a short window to schedule your life around, and logistically impossible to accommodate for everyone. We have a canned response for this request.

These tangible tips will keep these rolling smoothly.

I love systems. Genuinely, one of my favorite activities is making businesses run well. Here are a some of the things we do to stay on top of our bookings.

• Keyless entry– I couldn’t imagine having to exchange keys before and after every booking. I’ve stayed places myself where there is a combination key box, and outside loft buildings you will them covering railings like barnacles on the side of an old ship. I prefer not to have to manage any physical keys, and installed a keyless lock on our door before our first guest arrived. We’ve also had bookings while we weren’t even in town, everything was set up and they were able to get in and out on their own.
  I shopped around and picked a non-motorized model because they are much better on batteries. In fact, we have not yet needed to change the 9-volt during the entire 2+ years it’s been in use. Early on a few people expected it to unlock automatically and began messaging us it wasn’t working, so now our check-in message has clear directions for how to use the lock.
• Stock messages– As already mentioned, good communication and clear expectations are key. We have nearly every possible message and response already in a template, an option available through your Airbnb host dashboard. Our pre-written messages include:
  ⌲ “Thank you” when they book, letting them know they’ll receive their door code and house guide on check in day.
  ⌲ Check in message, with door code and detailed lock instructions. They have access to the house guide from the app, we chose to include it in this message so they see everything even if they don’t know how to find the guide.
  ⌲ Polite decline for early check in/late check out. As mentioned earlier, this is the most common request, and not something we’re able to accommodate in our position. We have a friendly response ready to go to explain this.
  ⌲ “Thank you” after they’ve checked out. We like to message (nearly everyone) that we enjoyed having them, and we’d love to have them back. We also let them know to book early as we fill up, and we’ve seen several repeat guests.
  The nature of Airbnb’s reviews may leave some people wondering how they’ll be rated, so we feel this helps clear the air and leave them more likely to leave a good review. When I was on the other end, I’ve had a host explicitly ask me for a 5-star review upon leaving — I’m sure this doesn’t hurt, and I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s tacky, it’s just not my style.
• Keep communication to a single channel– Guests can see your phone number, and may try to call or text. Both our house guide and welcome board in the room direct guests to message through the app. This keeps communication in one spot. Also, my wife and I tag team host tasks, so it’s important that we both have access to see any needs and respond.
• At least two sets of linens and towels– I imagine there are hosts that hurry up and do laundry in the little gap between guests. Or, they may not allowing bookings the same day someone checks out. For us, it’s been invaluable to have fresh linens ready to go.

Zapier has been saying an Airbnb integration is “coming soon” for a long time. When (if) they finally integrate, I will certainly be making some automagic happen with that.

Find your style, tweak your listing

We’ve changed our listing setting several times since starting. We learned we don’t really enjoy having the same person for a long time, and removed the weekly and monthly discount. Likewise, since we have a private room with shared bathroom and kitchen, an extra guest does have a noticeable impact on our convenience — to reflect this we charge $15 for the extra guest. If we were to list a full apartment, these options would be quite different.

If you start hosting, find out what works best for you! Enjoy all the characters you may meet from all over, and share your city.