Our new Airbnb

Good on you for keeping it! Another alternative is stay at home mothers are great for this kind of work.

 

Kick that tenant out! JK

Agree that would be an awesome location and perfect apartment for Airbnb. I have two cleaners and one focuses on CBD.
Let me know if you have any other questions!

 

Ok will do!

As for the tenant she's been the perfect tenant so I'll let her ride it out till she's ready to leave. I'm itching to get into Airbnb though!

 

It's been a month since we did our last update so thought I would check in again! We had about 6 nights vacant in May with most of them being single nights where for the most part it's more hassle than it's worth for a single night booking.
June and July are almost fully booked and I had a friend ask to book for the long weekend in June- when I looked at our calendar, I realised our weekends are all fully booked until October! I think we need to raise our prices

We had a bit of stress earlier this month when our guests couldn't get the heating to work (first guests to need it). After a lot of back and forward with our cleaner and neighbour we finally got the pilot flame turned on- a super simple fix which we could have done if we were there but being in another state turned it into a long winded debacle.

Oh and we got super host!

Does anyone have any thoughts on electric blankets?

 

My place is pretty cold (which I warn people about) so I provide electric blankets. They're very cheap from KMart.

 

@Depreciator maybe it was my few years of living in the litigious US but I take you aren't worried about liability/ burns/ fire etc?

 

I'm more worried about somebody falling down the stairs or something like that. I don't think death by electric blanket is all that common.

 

Hmmm... maybe I can add an electric blanket for my Sydney place. Thanks for the idea!

And re: single nights. I've started making my Sydney place available for single nights between bookings, but I bump the rates up. If someone really wants to book a single night and is prepared to pay for it, I'm happy to host them.

 

Congratulations on becoming super host.
Re Electric blankets, we once had them provided during our stay at a Canberra AirBnB. It was cold winter and we loved it. Totally recommended !!
I think it's a great booster to your guest's positive experience.

 

@Gockie do you just go in to your calendar for the single nights available and adjust the minimum stay? I have done this a couple of times (and once did get a booking for $300 for one night- i think the adele concert was on!)- do you break even on your cleaning or are you out of pocket?

 

I set my calendar to min 1 night stay and adjust all other dates I don't want as a 1 night stay to whatever higher number as needed!

The extra money coming in completely justifies accepting these bookings.
I set the cleaning lower than the cost - if it's too high I think it turns people off.

Question for you... do you use some smart pricing system? Otherwise, how did you realise that night could get you $300?

 

@Gockie I did try beyond pricing for the trial but thought the prices it was suggesting were way too high. However now that I am getting bookings for February and March next year I wonder if I should follow the pricing (their premise is the further out the prices, the more price doesn't matter, hence make them high).

The $300 I just put it in randomly as I figured for that amount it would be worth the hassle, not expecting a booking.

 

@jodes, do you have a carspace in the St Kilda place? Do you lease it out as part of the Airbnb or lease it separately? I have a tandem car space which I'm thinking about to lease it out separately as I don't think most traveler come to Melbourne with cars, no? Thanks!

 

@Ouchmyknees we don't have a car-space but do have visitor permits available for our guests- surprisingly i'd say pretty much everyone has had a car and needed the permit (whether they hire it or drive to Melbourne). A lot of people do the Great Ocean Road before/ after they visit us so I guess that's why they have the car? I was pretty surprised as our place is in an awesome location and you don't really need a car.

 

Hi @jodes I plan to do the key solution with a similar two-tier set up, but I'm bit concerned if the guests won't return the keys to the two lock boxes and the new guests can't get in. How to you mitigate the risk?

 

electric blankets are great fire starters when left on all day put them on timers if you do, i wouldn't rely on visitors to turn off!

 

Digital locks might also be helpful to do the same, where you can remotely change the access code as many times as you want.

 

Available at Bunnings, $250-$350, AA battery operated, manual key override if batteries go flat
Example -
Lockwood Keyless Digital Deadbolt