Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Jun 26, 2016 5:59:13 GMT
So tonight, I was lying in bed reading and my roommate called my name. She never comes up to my loft, but she was at the door gesturing for me to come. She said, "look out the window! There is a guy peeing on your back porch!"
We ran downstairs and I walked out to the back porch. "Who are you?" I asked him. He was swaying, drunk and smoking.
"I'm renting a room here."
"which one?"
"first room on the left"
"Did you pee out here?"
"No."
"You know this is a no smoking property. You will need to go out the back gate into the alley to smoke."
"Oh, I didn't know that. I thought I could just come outside."
"It's in the listing rules. This property is completely non-smoking."
"Aw, ok. My bad." Stumbles off towards alley. He was the extra person in the reservation, the boyfriend.
My roommate and I sat there marveling over how I hadn't even left a review for the tweaker yet and here I have the drunken peeer. He didn't even go in the grass. He went on the paving stones! I did not bother to call customer service. They leave Monday morning and I think he got the message.
In the last three months, I've had four unacceptable incidents. The exporter, the underage drinker, the tweaker and now the Peeer.
What has happened to my listing? I live in a big old house on the lower west side, which is on the south side of Chicago, but not the "South Side" south side. It's a gentrifying, working class Latino neighborhood with a sprinkling of hipsters and loads of artists. It a slightly gritty, really beautiful, inner city neighborhood with a tightly knit community and remarkably little crime for Chicago. I've been here doing Airbnb for three years.
The first year I started off my prices very low, 32-48, until I got some reviews. I was always full of great people. The next year, I raised my prices slowly until I charged 34-99, depending on the room's amenities. I was always full of great people and got good reviews. This year, when summer hit, I expected to be charging the same prices as last year. The new calendar tool priced my listings more on par with what I charged the first year when I was getting started. I turned off automatic pricing and tried the pricing suggestions, but they were still rock bottom. Then, I set my own prices that I felt were fair, and got very few bookings even though it is high season. So, I've gone with a balance of using the pricing suggestions but tweaking them myself. The ones I raise slightly aren't getting reservations, so mainly, I'm not using automatic, but updating my calendar daily using Airbnb suggestions. At those prices I am fully booked as I should be for summer.
While the majority of my guests are still amazing and lovely and great, I do seem to constantly have to deal with extremely bad behavior from some guests. This guy and his girlfriend are paying 49 a night as did tweaky boy.
After doing a bit of research, I think there are a lot of new Airbnb users who really don't seem to get it. They act like this is a hotel, or like their own house. In addition, when I began, there weren't yet 3000 hosts and now there are 6000. Hosts on the south side of Chicago have grown in the last year by well over 100%. With all these new listings lowering their prices to get guests without having many reviews, I must be competing against them for guests and perhaps Airbnb pricing mechanism is setting my price suggestions based on average listings around me. I don't know if I am penalized in the algorithm for not taking their suggestions or if Potential guests just see the newer listings just as nice next door for 10 or 20 bucks less, just with fewer reviews and choose those instead. So, I keep my prices competitive with them, as I can't really risk having no profit this summer.
We ran downstairs and I walked out to the back porch. "Who are you?" I asked him. He was swaying, drunk and smoking.
"I'm renting a room here."
"which one?"
"first room on the left"
"Did you pee out here?"
"No."
"You know this is a no smoking property. You will need to go out the back gate into the alley to smoke."
"Oh, I didn't know that. I thought I could just come outside."
"It's in the listing rules. This property is completely non-smoking."
"Aw, ok. My bad." Stumbles off towards alley. He was the extra person in the reservation, the boyfriend.
My roommate and I sat there marveling over how I hadn't even left a review for the tweaker yet and here I have the drunken peeer. He didn't even go in the grass. He went on the paving stones! I did not bother to call customer service. They leave Monday morning and I think he got the message.
In the last three months, I've had four unacceptable incidents. The exporter, the underage drinker, the tweaker and now the Peeer.
What has happened to my listing? I live in a big old house on the lower west side, which is on the south side of Chicago, but not the "South Side" south side. It's a gentrifying, working class Latino neighborhood with a sprinkling of hipsters and loads of artists. It a slightly gritty, really beautiful, inner city neighborhood with a tightly knit community and remarkably little crime for Chicago. I've been here doing Airbnb for three years.
The first year I started off my prices very low, 32-48, until I got some reviews. I was always full of great people. The next year, I raised my prices slowly until I charged 34-99, depending on the room's amenities. I was always full of great people and got good reviews. This year, when summer hit, I expected to be charging the same prices as last year. The new calendar tool priced my listings more on par with what I charged the first year when I was getting started. I turned off automatic pricing and tried the pricing suggestions, but they were still rock bottom. Then, I set my own prices that I felt were fair, and got very few bookings even though it is high season. So, I've gone with a balance of using the pricing suggestions but tweaking them myself. The ones I raise slightly aren't getting reservations, so mainly, I'm not using automatic, but updating my calendar daily using Airbnb suggestions. At those prices I am fully booked as I should be for summer.
While the majority of my guests are still amazing and lovely and great, I do seem to constantly have to deal with extremely bad behavior from some guests. This guy and his girlfriend are paying 49 a night as did tweaky boy.
After doing a bit of research, I think there are a lot of new Airbnb users who really don't seem to get it. They act like this is a hotel, or like their own house. In addition, when I began, there weren't yet 3000 hosts and now there are 6000. Hosts on the south side of Chicago have grown in the last year by well over 100%. With all these new listings lowering their prices to get guests without having many reviews, I must be competing against them for guests and perhaps Airbnb pricing mechanism is setting my price suggestions based on average listings around me. I don't know if I am penalized in the algorithm for not taking their suggestions or if Potential guests just see the newer listings just as nice next door for 10 or 20 bucks less, just with fewer reviews and choose those instead. So, I keep my prices competitive with them, as I can't really risk having no profit this summer.