Post by Maria Lurdes (Milu) on Jun 14, 2017 18:38:36 GMT
Hey everyone - now that I've joined the FB group (Deb, I love participating there with "Dee" tee hee), and some other groups, I'm spending less times on private forums. I wanted to post my recent experience and decided that I'd like it a bit more hidden, not necessarily on FB. Granted, anyone who wants to search for this info can find it, and the host that I'll talk about could potentially join this forum, but I'll take my chances.
Back in January of this year I had a woman stay with me as she was testing out various neighborhoods - she was looking for a house in our area as the family was moving from a smaller town about two hours away. I remember her being an ok guest - a bit ditzy, but she was traveling with her young son and I put it down to trying to keep track of the rambunctious kid. When the guest left, the keys were not left in lockbox, so we had a few texts back in forth as she insisted they were there and I knew they were not. I cut new keys and thought - huh. Anyhow, three days later she texts me to tell me that her 4 year old had confessed to hiding the keys in a wooden box, and there they were. I appreciated that she followed up.
Fast forward to late April/early May? She contacts me by text to say that she's bought a house in our area and would I be able to meet with her for coffee, she had a biz proposal. Off I go to coffee and she tells me that she stayed in various Airbnb places while she was house hunting, and she liked mine the best, and thought that I was the most professional and together host. She wanted to do Airbnb with the top apartment in her three family building (her family on main floor, long term tenants on second floor) and wanted me to co-host. We talked freely for a while with her asking a lot of questions, and me and my big mouth just blathering away about how I did things, best practices, how I had grown my business, etc. At the end of the coffee she asked if I was intersted in co-hosting, I said yes, and that I would draw up a proposal for her, and she could evaluate whether she thought it could work. We then went to her place so that she could show me the apartment. At the apartment I gave her some practical advice like what to stock the kitchen with, to lock off the laundry room, and specific decor suggestions like replace the disgusting ratty couch with a sleeper sofa, remove the fancy acrylic bar table and chairs and replace with regular dining table chairs, and other recommendations on decor. I thought - well, I have my work cut out for me if she thinks this place is anywhere near acceptable.
My proposal outlined all of the duties that I would have which included ALL the admin/marketing/messaging) and outlined her duties (providing on-site guest support and experience, maintaining the building entryway, greeting guests, etc.). I proposed a 30% cut to me. Less than 30% would not make the venture worthwhile for me, as it's a big commitment. She signed the proposal in our next meeting. After she signed the proposal, she tells me that the night before, she'd created her listing and instantly got a good booking, for six weeks, starting that day. First red flag. Six weeks? I said that meant that we couldn't do any improvements to the place, we couldn't get a photographer in there, and that we wouldn't have a first review for almost two months. I also told her that she had now kind of given up the new host bump, as she'd blocked off such a big chunk of time. Personally I felt that it was a bit underhanded, as she'd basically cut me out of that long booking, or earning any revenue because the place was now off the market for such a long time. I would only get paid from Airbnb for bookings that happened after she hit the little "accept co-host agreement" which she only did after she signed my much more detailed proposal. Fine, we move on. No inquiries whatsoever on her place for the first week, and every day I am diligently tweaking the copy, adding to her guidebook, editing the very mediocre photos as well as I can, playing with pricing, etc. The second week, and there is an inquiry from a guest wanting to book a month, at a greatly reduced rate - basically 40% of the standard rate. I reply back to the guest with my normal nice reply, suggest that we'd love to welcome his family and we'd be happy to offer him a very good rate, but that his amount was too low. He says thank you, let me consider. He goes away. Next inquiry comes from guests that want to come for three days and he mentions coming for a jujitsu event. Before I can reply, the main host replies in a fashion of an 18 year old kid texting on the phone, like "hey UR welcome please stay". Then 10 seconds later "hi, we want to host you please book with us" then again a few seconds later "we have parking space" then again right away after that "you are into Jujitsu, cool I want 2 learn". I'm shaking my head. I text the main host directly and say 'hey, please let me reply to the guest inquiries, that's what we agreed to". She says ok and stops replying. Next inquiry comes in and same thing - she replies within 30 seconds and peppers the guests with responses. This time I call her and say - hey, I think that perhaps we're working at cross -purposes, do you want to reply to the inquiries yourself? Trying very hard to keep calm and collected. She says no, no I just hear the ding and I react. I suggested that she turn off notifications for inquiries. Neither of these two inquiries end up booking.
Ok going to make a cup of tea. Is this too boring of a story? We already all know the punch line, don't we? Should I continue?
Back in January of this year I had a woman stay with me as she was testing out various neighborhoods - she was looking for a house in our area as the family was moving from a smaller town about two hours away. I remember her being an ok guest - a bit ditzy, but she was traveling with her young son and I put it down to trying to keep track of the rambunctious kid. When the guest left, the keys were not left in lockbox, so we had a few texts back in forth as she insisted they were there and I knew they were not. I cut new keys and thought - huh. Anyhow, three days later she texts me to tell me that her 4 year old had confessed to hiding the keys in a wooden box, and there they were. I appreciated that she followed up.
Fast forward to late April/early May? She contacts me by text to say that she's bought a house in our area and would I be able to meet with her for coffee, she had a biz proposal. Off I go to coffee and she tells me that she stayed in various Airbnb places while she was house hunting, and she liked mine the best, and thought that I was the most professional and together host. She wanted to do Airbnb with the top apartment in her three family building (her family on main floor, long term tenants on second floor) and wanted me to co-host. We talked freely for a while with her asking a lot of questions, and me and my big mouth just blathering away about how I did things, best practices, how I had grown my business, etc. At the end of the coffee she asked if I was intersted in co-hosting, I said yes, and that I would draw up a proposal for her, and she could evaluate whether she thought it could work. We then went to her place so that she could show me the apartment. At the apartment I gave her some practical advice like what to stock the kitchen with, to lock off the laundry room, and specific decor suggestions like replace the disgusting ratty couch with a sleeper sofa, remove the fancy acrylic bar table and chairs and replace with regular dining table chairs, and other recommendations on decor. I thought - well, I have my work cut out for me if she thinks this place is anywhere near acceptable.
My proposal outlined all of the duties that I would have which included ALL the admin/marketing/messaging) and outlined her duties (providing on-site guest support and experience, maintaining the building entryway, greeting guests, etc.). I proposed a 30% cut to me. Less than 30% would not make the venture worthwhile for me, as it's a big commitment. She signed the proposal in our next meeting. After she signed the proposal, she tells me that the night before, she'd created her listing and instantly got a good booking, for six weeks, starting that day. First red flag. Six weeks? I said that meant that we couldn't do any improvements to the place, we couldn't get a photographer in there, and that we wouldn't have a first review for almost two months. I also told her that she had now kind of given up the new host bump, as she'd blocked off such a big chunk of time. Personally I felt that it was a bit underhanded, as she'd basically cut me out of that long booking, or earning any revenue because the place was now off the market for such a long time. I would only get paid from Airbnb for bookings that happened after she hit the little "accept co-host agreement" which she only did after she signed my much more detailed proposal. Fine, we move on. No inquiries whatsoever on her place for the first week, and every day I am diligently tweaking the copy, adding to her guidebook, editing the very mediocre photos as well as I can, playing with pricing, etc. The second week, and there is an inquiry from a guest wanting to book a month, at a greatly reduced rate - basically 40% of the standard rate. I reply back to the guest with my normal nice reply, suggest that we'd love to welcome his family and we'd be happy to offer him a very good rate, but that his amount was too low. He says thank you, let me consider. He goes away. Next inquiry comes from guests that want to come for three days and he mentions coming for a jujitsu event. Before I can reply, the main host replies in a fashion of an 18 year old kid texting on the phone, like "hey UR welcome please stay". Then 10 seconds later "hi, we want to host you please book with us" then again a few seconds later "we have parking space" then again right away after that "you are into Jujitsu, cool I want 2 learn". I'm shaking my head. I text the main host directly and say 'hey, please let me reply to the guest inquiries, that's what we agreed to". She says ok and stops replying. Next inquiry comes in and same thing - she replies within 30 seconds and peppers the guests with responses. This time I call her and say - hey, I think that perhaps we're working at cross -purposes, do you want to reply to the inquiries yourself? Trying very hard to keep calm and collected. She says no, no I just hear the ding and I react. I suggested that she turn off notifications for inquiries. Neither of these two inquiries end up booking.
Ok going to make a cup of tea. Is this too boring of a story? We already all know the punch line, don't we? Should I continue?
