Yes, being an Airbnb host can be fun, hip, and profitable. But if you are one of the following, you’ll do yourself and everyone else a huge favor by NOT becoming an Airbnb host at all.
You Can’t Stand Strangers In Your Home
Really? Do we have to elaborate on this at all? You really can’t have your cake and eat it too when it comes to Airbnb hosting. You can’t expect to attract many guests willing to pay you if you’re going to be all Big Brother on your guests when they do stay there. Even if they don’t leave a bad review online, you can be sure they nor their friends will be staying at your place in the future.
You Hold Discriminatory Convictions
Where are you been in the last few decades? While you are entitled to your own moral convictions, even if antiquated and on the wrong side of history, you must be a welcoming host who will NOT discriminate against any guest based on religion, sexual preference, race, age, etc…. If you can’t do that, you should not host on Airbnb. It’s not for you.
You Hate Human Communication
Hosting on Airbnb means you have to communicate with all the guests. You will be checking them in, answering questions, dealing with emergencies, and checking them out. In fact, you’ll need to talk to many more “potential” guests in order to have enough guests to make your hosting worth your while. So if you’re allergic to human interaction, then you definitely shouldn’t host on Airbnb.
You Don’t Have Time to Host
You could be the nicest person but if you can’t put in the time and energy to meet the demands of being an Airbnb Host, you shouldn’t do it. You can’t expect to have the benefits of hosting without having to put in your dues. Sure you may eventually be able to outsource many of the tasks but when you’re just starting out, it’s on you.
You Are a Hoarder
If there is one thing common among successful listings on Airbnb, it’s that they all have very nice photos. How do you have nice photos? Clean and tidy rooms. And this extends to the spaces behind closed doors that are hidden from view and not shown in photos. If your guests open the cabinets looking for fresh toilet paper only to find a nasty mess, they’re not going to come back.
You Are a Liar
Exaggeration is still lying. A bag of stale pre-ground coffee wouldn’t qualify as a “gourmet coffee”. If you need to lie in order to attract guests, you can’t lie your way to getting repeat guests or great reviews. You’ll get discovered sooner than later. You will embarrass yourself and you will fail as a host on Airbnb.
You’re a Total Jerk
You notice that your room was booked at a lower rate that it’s going for right now because you didn’t realize there’s a convention in town this coming weekend. So you cancel the booking you already accepted on your guests and leave them out to dry knowing they won’t find another unit in town with such short notice. “What’s wrong with that?” you might ask? You. You are what’s wrong. You should not be hosting.
So, who else do you think should not host on Airbnb? Share your horror stories below!
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We currently have a BnB. How to I know if I can or should convert to Airbnb? Thanks!
Great article, haha! Attitude that explains it well!
Excellent stuff Symon! About time someone was REAL and says what’s truly UP! I am in touch through social media with many such peeps as described above. I think the newer sense of entitlement and narcissism is becoming so widespread and the encounters are mounting up more and more and this makes our work as Hosts more difficult. Thanks for what you do. We will continue to work in the best vain and effort! Best to you, Clara
My husband will be retiring in 2019 and we still want to work and keep busy. We are interested in purchasing a condo in the south as an airbnb. We live in the south now, but are seriously considering moving back up north after retiring. Do you recommend us running an airbnb 1,000 miles away? The southern airbnb seems to have a longer renting season. Also, I want to have an airbnb down south for us to use a few weeks in the winter.
Thank you.
More and more homeowners are able to list and manage their properties remotely, even from far away. But we recommend using a local co-host or a local property management company to manage it for you, because you’ll definitely run into situations where you need local boots on the ground to fix something, handle late night lockout, etc… If you’re going to be away, have someone manage it for you! The 15% fee is well worth it with the right local partner.
Good information.
I struggle with house rules. Nobody likes them, but without them people create problems that require unanticipated maintenance and can’t be fixed before the next guest arrives. I can’t tell if I’m being unreasonable to ask people to take food to the picnic table outside the single bedroom I rent out. I don’t want to boss people around, but if they leave even a tiny amount of food waste ants will come in.
This is actually a stupid article… Straight only preference is a valid preference. You may feel its antiquated but stop being a hypocrite. How can you say gay people should be able to choose, but these home owners not…
You’re free to do what you want with your home, just not as a host on the Airbnb platform that is designed to be inclusive and welcoming. Airbnb as a platform and community can choose how it wants their hosts to operate as well. Some antiquated ideas are endearing and timeless, like respecting our parents and elders. Discrimination is not one of them.
Yeah but some of these hosts would lie and pretend to be gay if it would bribg them more money by more guest potential.
Lying is a choice but its not the same thing
I loved this article: you spell it right out. The visual made me laugh out loud while drinking wine, I nearly spit. Fred and I have been hosting almost 6 years fulltime with our historic home in Portland, Oregon. I belong to several host groups and have seen all the types of hosts you mention. Though I think whiners/complainers also deserve to be included in this article. And then there are the enablers who cannot say no and it comes back to bite them big time, and then we all get to ‘hear’ about it.
We have figured out ways to over-vett our guests, so we only have great guests, and even great guests sometimes leave a 4 star (because they never give 5 stars)… whatever.
We love hosting. Come see us at http://www.theslaterhousepdx.com
FYI….you could have gotten your point across about disagreeing with people’s moral convictions without the hate speech. If you want to be respected then be respectful too.
You’re right, it was a bit much. Updated.