‘my property is underperforming and i don’t know why . . . '
We hear this all the time during our intro calls. Essentially, people call us because they aren’t having any success renting our their home short term on their own. I’m going to keep this to Airbnb standards for the sake of simplicity. The first question I always ask is ‘what are you doing to screen guests?’. The answer is always the same. The conversation usually goes like this.
‘Do you have instant book turned on’ (me)
‘No, i’m not comfortable with that’ (struggling homeowner')
Let me elaborate. Turning your home into a short term rental comes with risks. For that matter, anything we do in life where money transacts involves risk, it’s just the nature of the beast. Our job as hosts is to provide a simple booking experience and to minimize that risk.
What hosts SHOULD be doing.
Turn instant bookings on. We all shop at Amazon, not because we love the concept of it, but because it is EASY! Guests scrolling through a zillion different listings are looking for the same thing. If they have to reach out to the host and ask to book the property, consider them gone.
Turn instant booking on, and make sure you check the boxes that say ‘with good track record’ and ‘verified government id’. This means that a potential guest has to have gotten prior positive reviews from another house. If they’ve been good to another host, odds are they’ll be good to your listing as well.
Bonus tip. We set up an automated message to send five minutes after the booking is placed to scare off any bad actors. We speak to the security cameras and noise monitor present at the listing, we lay out a few rules, and we make it mandatory that the guest responds. Kind and professional, that’s the tone. The message also states that for any reason if any of our rules or ways of doing business make them nervous, they can cancel within 24 hours at no expense to them.
Problem solved.
As promised, value in under a minute.
If you’re interested in our services for your own Short Term Rental, we’re taking on new clients until April 1, 2026. Hit the link below to set up an intro call.
- Jaryn