Airbnb owner problems

Discussion in 'Airbnb & Short Term Letting' started by Gockie, 28th Jan, 2016.

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  1. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Because this is my thread... thought I'd share some happy news. I rarely click into my listing as a guest, and it's been a few months since I last tried to do this but I was pleasantly surprised. Full 5 star rating based on 57 reviews. Go me!!! :)

    "Keep in mind the number of stars you see at the top of your listing page is rounded to the nearest half of a star, and it’s a cumulative average of the primary reviews you’ve received since you started hosting."

    Yes you get some guests who are harder to deal with (can be language or perhaps culture) and I had one lady I wanted to strangle recently (figuratively) :mad:. But at the end of the day.... :p:D

    Screenshot_2016-02-29-17-49-56.png
     
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  2. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    I've also decided that I like to vacuum before changing sheets. Vacuuming gives a good sense of achievement in a short time...
     
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  3. Gingin

    Gingin Well-Known Member

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    Congrats with the air BnB endevour,it looks great. I was wondering how it compares to passive single tenancy in terms of occupancy rates , yield and effort. Net return to net return.

    Seems like a lot of energy and mgt, wondering if lucrative in your experiance
     
  4. DaveM

    DaveM Well-Known Member

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    I get around that by not vacuuming. And not changing sheets
     
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  5. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    :)
    Hehe

    Thanks Gingin. Say the normal rent maybe $480 per week. Airbnb brings it up to about $900 to $1000 per week for me. So say that's extra income of about 2k per month, it takes some extra effort, but its not extreme. It could easily be an income replacement if you have 4 of these properties....

    I do a lot of sheet and towel washing (I aim for 5 day or longer rentals) and typically its ok to manage. You have to stay on top of it though. And organise a cleaner a lot of the time - I typically do around 50% of changeovers myself.
    You can change your pricing and change the min length of stay etc. It all depends on what the demand is and what you are happy to do.
     
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  6. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    For a very short while a few years back I went out with a guy. Anyway, we went back to his place and I saw it was in a completely cluttered state, just enough space to walk through. His bathroom was filthy and when I asked for a clean towel... nope! He didn't have any. So anyway, next time I visited it was apparent he made an effort to tidy his place and even bought some nice new towels!

    The ending to this story in case you were wondering is it didn't go for too much longer but we were still friends. :)

    The moral to this story.... I guess it's obvious?
     
  7. DaveM

    DaveM Well-Known Member

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    Buy 20 towels when on sale in case you date Gockie?
     
  8. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Hahaha :D:D:D
    In all seriousness, I've bought heaps of towels for this Airbnb adventure. For me, Target has been the place to buy them!
    I shouldn't be short of clean towels for a loooonnng time. ;)

    If you date me though.... yep. Its mandatory to have quality towels.
     
  9. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Trting to understand what the next guest means.....

    "Do you have electric transfer in the room?"

    She might have been the one who asked if she can put things in a fridge too....

    Edit: she has now clarified.... "powerpoints".....
     
    Last edited: 12th Mar, 2016
  10. Omnidragon

    Omnidragon Well-Known Member

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    Problem I find with airbnb in Aus is rates are way too low, compared with doing it overseas. Probably because of oversupply of apartments.

    Eg in Melb most airbnb apartments are 1/2 or 1/3 the rate of hotels. If I ran this operation in Hk or Shanghai I can get 80% of hotel rates.
     
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  11. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Oh wow. Business opportunities...
     
  12. Omnidragon

    Omnidragon Well-Known Member

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    Entry price an issue tho
     
  13. GreatPig

    GreatPig Well-Known Member

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    An interesting TED talk by Joe Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, on the origin of the business and designing for trust.
     
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  14. Casteller

    Casteller Well-Known Member

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    Had my Airbnb listing active about 5 days, got a lot of inquiries but decided it wasn't worth it and delisted, and rent now through an agency instead. Applications semed to come from people who might have trouble getting a place through an agency (dogs, no job, etc..). I could only rent minimum 32 days.
    Seems Airbnb is shutting down listings in Europe from people who have multiple properties up for rent, too many regulations being broken.
     
  15. Skilled_Migrant

    Skilled_Migrant Well-Known Member

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  16. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Ok. I have a question. A bad Airbnb guest burnt my carpet in my property with the face of an iron a week ago so the carpet has melted near the entrance. I got compensation from them, strange but true!!

    So, I am looking to change from carpets to another floor covering as the floor easily gets dirty and even though the current carpet is less than 2 years old it's looking much more aged due to the wear and tear and what looks to be spills of various food or drinks.

    So what would you use? Tiles, vinyl planks, wood look tiles? It's for the living area and into the kitchen so it needs to be hard wearing and able to get wet. I'm a bit worried tiles might feel a bit too cold, (for the 3 months Sydney has winter which is what we are coming into now) but it will be very hard wearing. Any recommendations? Considerations include depreciation and initial cost and feel underfoot. Needs to be very hardwearing and easy to clean too.....
     
  17. Depreciator

    Depreciator Well-Known Member

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    Is it on the ground floor? If not, there will rules for the building that govern what you can use for the amenity of the residents below.
    From a depreciation perspective, carpet is best, followed by floating timber/vinyl, with tiles coming third - by a long way.
    Scott
     
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  18. Nick Valsamis

    Nick Valsamis Well-Known Member

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    In this situation it may be best to go with vinyl planks instead of laminate flooring seeing as you would have more people going through the property and chance of water spills.

    There are different thickness of vinyl planks with generally the thicker ones having a thicker wear layer as well.
     
  19. Gockie

    Gockie Life is good ☺️ Premium Member

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    Thanks Nick! Yes, I think its probably the best option. :)
     
  20. dabbler

    dabbler Well-Known Member

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    Well, to be honest, I would use tiles or if not possible then a vinyl like lino.

    Every place we have lived in for last 20 years bar one we tiled on a slab, the slab stays a pretty even temp, so you do not notice cold really, but you will notice noise, carpet deadens sound, tiles reflect it, if it is only an entry, then no difference really.

    I would not do floating floors, even though they may be close to tile in hard wearing (for some, not all) they clip together, if liquids sit on this they can start to come apart at the edge, or start to swell, if you have to mop a lot in that area, again probably avoid that. They are also not considered fixtures, insurance treats them different.