when you're first getting started on any
short-term rental listing platform
whether it be airbnb or verbo or one of
the others it can be a bit overwhelming
to navigate through all of the different
fields and settings generally it's a
good idea to have all of the fields
filled out so that you have a complete
listing and at first glance it might
seem like the best option is to turn on
every setting that airbnb recommends but
that's not always the best idea because
i'm sorry to break it to you but airbnb
does not always have your best interest
in mind not to worry we've got your back
and we'll show you how we configure our
airbnb settings for our short-term
rental business so that you can optimize
your pricing protect yourself from
getting kicked off the platform and more
what's up guys i'm stephen and i'm kylie
and we're gonna jump right into three
airbnb settings that we always make sure
are turned off and then if you stick
through to the end we'll also show you a
few settings that we always make sure
are turned on so one of these things
actually almost got our listing shut
down
so you're going to want to stick through
to the end to hear about that the first
setting that we want you to shut down is
any fee except for cleaning fee pet fee
and maybe extra guest fee guests hate
fees and understandably so you go
searching for an airbnb to book and
maybe it says 190 per night but then
when you actually go to book it there's
a whole list of added fees tacked on for
most listings there'll be the airbnb
service fee which is usually about 14
for the guest unless the host is using
the host only fee structure and then you
have the cleaning fee which for our
properties ranges from about 120 to up
to 350 and then in all of the markets
that we operate in we also have to
collect occupancy tax which is a
requirement of the city and that
transient occupancy tax can range from
anywhere from 10 percent to 13 in some
of the markets that we operate in when
you add on all those fees that 190 per
night starts to look pretty expensive to
the guests and those are just the
essential fees hosts also have the
option to add on a pet fee a linens fee
resort fee a management fee a community
fee and an extra guest fee that's a lot
of additional fees and if it were me you
know looking at a potential place to
book i'd probably skip over that listing
once i started seeing all those hidden
fees add up if you do legitimately have
those extra fees then we would recommend
trying to bake those into your nightly
rate with the exception of the cleaning
fee pet fees and maybe the extra guest
fee which we'll discuss charging a
cleaning fee is pretty standard practice
and pretty widely acceptable at this
point so i don't think that adding a
separate cleaning fee is really going to
hurt you but we would recommend looking
around at what other comparable listings
in your area are charging for a cleaning
fee so that you can set yours
competitively maybe even a little bit
lower even if you have a great cleaner
who might charge a little bit more for
her excellent service you really don't
want to charge much more than what the
market rate is or you'll probably lose
bookings because of it yeah you have to
think you're always with guests going to
be compared to other listings guests
will have a few that they're you know
kind of narrowed down their search and
something has to make your listing stand
out and you don't want a detractor of
your listing to be like an above market
cleaning fee so all that being said if
you feel like you have a really good
handle on your numbers and setting your
pricing you could try and bake in the
cleaning feed to your nightly rates by
increasing them and do a little trial
and see if that helps you pet fees are
something that we do charge an extra fee
for it depends on the size of the house
and there are some properties where we
don't allow pets at all but we typically
charge somewhere between eighty dollars
and a hundred and fifty dollars per
short term stay and again we haven't
seen this hurt our bookings and we've
only had maybe a couple of people turn
down the offer i think it's because the
alternative for a lot of people is
either to leave their dog at home or
with someone else or pay to board them
somewhere and so usually they're willing
to pay a little extra for the
convenience of bringing them along and
then there's an extra guest fee which is
a per person per night dollar amount for
every guest over a set number so for
example if you have a one bedroom place
that can sleep two in that bed but you
also have a fold-out couch so you can
charge an extra fee if the quantity of
guests is more than two and that would
mean you know people sleeping on that
couch we do have this set up at one
property because our cleaner does charge
us extra if the pull-out couch has been
used because it's extra time and laundry
for them to do during the turnover but i
have been meaning to talk to you about
getting rid of that
it's probably better that it'd just be
something we bake in to our nightly
rates you know our listing looks more
attractive without that extra fee and
because people are either going to
intentionally or unintentionally put
down the wrong number of guests on their
booking so maybe they put down two but
they show up with three or four and then
we see it on the camera and we're upset
because we feel a little duped do we
reach out to them do we charge them more
do we just let it slide are we gonna sit
at home stewing angry because they went
behind our back we just don't want to
deal with it one thing though to keep in
mind about this extra guest setting even
if you don't set it you know for any
extra guests up into your max occupancy
set it for the number of guests past
your max occupancy for like a very high
fee so let's say your max occupancy is
six and then you put the setting for
every guest after six the fee is a
hundred dollars per person per night
this is a way what we've been told by
airbnb that if someone does bring extra
gas they do damage to your house and you
can prove that they had extra guests you
can go back and say okay you brought
eight so that's 200 per night that
you're gonna have to pay to you know
cover the problems that you caused with
bringing extra people the second setting
we want you to turn off is the ability
to book 365 nights at your property
you'll find this on pricing and
availability tab under trip length and a
setting called maximum stay so when you
first set up your listing the default
setting is usually a one night minimum
stay and a 365 night maximum say we set
our short term listings to a 28 night
maximum stay but there then is a little
check box to manually review and approve
any requests for longer than that the
primary reason for this threshold is
depending on where you are and what the
regulations are where your property is
located guests can start to establish
tenant rights and i'm sure you've heard
horror stories about squatters and
guests refusing to leave and needing to
start a formal eviction process to get
them out and nobody wants to deal with
that
sounds like a nightmare we've never had
to deal with that you should check your
local laws or regulations you know what
they are be aware and then set your
nightmare maximum according to that the
third setting that we want you to turn
off is rolling calendar availability so
we went over this topic in detail in our
pricing video and we'll put a link to
that at the end of this video but
basically when it comes to availability
on airbnb you have three options either
you can have all dates open in the
future or you can have dates opening
automatically on a rolling calendar
basis in 3 6 9 or 12 month increments
where every day your calendar is opening
another day 3 6 9 or 12 months in the
future or you can set it to dates
unavailable by default which is our
recommendation when you first start your
listing the default setting is going to
have all future dates open which is wild
to me but it also makes total sense
because airbnb wants your calendar open
because if it's closed or limited then
there's less opportunity for a guest to
book so in theory that sounds fine but
there's a few reasons why we choose to
set dates unavailable by default the
first and you know most frequent
occurrence i think would be that dates
get released where you haven't
accurately set pricing and the second
kind of comes along with this you have a
shorter lead time window gives you a
better opportunity to capture changes
and market conditions and therefore
price the house in the best way but if
you want to learn more about this
setting and some of our other pricing
strategies then be sure to stick around
to the end and we'll link the full video
for you to check out those are the
settings we recommend turning off but
then there's also a couple that are
important to make sure are turned on the
first one is a camera disclosure we
cannot stress to you enough how
important it is to not only disclose
your recording devices and yes your
noise monitor is considered a recording
device but also to disclose them
properly we have two instances that
almost got us in a lot of trouble which
we'll share about and we'll also be
showing you exactly how we write our
disclosures to hopefully keep us out of
trouble the first situation we had
disclosed a camera but not the noise
monitor this was pretty early in our
hosting days but since they don't record
audio or video or people's voices or
anything like that we didn't think it
was considered a recording device but
when you get down to the technicality of
it they record decibel levels which is
something that does need to be disclosed
on your listing page yeah we were
operating this way for a while and i
guess just sort of flying under the
radar until a guest at one of our
properties reached out to airbnb to
report us this guest was somehow
involved in the music industry worked
with some high-profile people and was
concerned that we'd been eavesdropping
on his conversations in reality he just
didn't really understand the
capabilities and really the limitations
of that device when airbnb support
contacted us we provided evidence of
what the device was that it wasn't you
know recording any conversations or
audio and didn't get any penalty or
issues from airbnb but i'll also know
that was pretty early on when these
noise monitoring devices were coming out
i think they were a little more lenient
because of that so i wouldn't
necessarily assume that they would be
lenient with everybody now we were okay
in this situation the guests did leave
us a pretty bad review lesson learned
and something we make sure to check
whenever we're creating a new list now
let's talk about cameras i'm sure it's
no surprise to you that you need to
disclose a camera at your property but
did you know that there is a correct way
and an incorrect way to disclose it we
didn't until about two years ago when we
got a pretty scary message from airbnb
we were reported by guests for not
having a camera disclosed at our
property but we were confused when we
read this message because we did
disclose that we had the camera at the
property the problem was i guess that we
didn't disclose that it was actively
recording
i know we were like huh
like what gets a camera for it's not
apparently just listing the camera is
not enough this was a bit of a
frustrating situation because i couldn't
really figure out what we had done wrong
so i just kept calling and calling until
finally i got somebody that was super
helpful they basically spelled it all
out word for word what we need to have
to make sure that our cameras are
disclosed properly so here's what we
right now quick disclaimer that this is
not legal advice nor do we work for
airbnb we're simply sharing something
that's worked for us this is for general
information purposes only so here's what
we write we say we have one actively
recording camera overlooking the
driveway which records video and audio
there is also a smart home device on the
back patio which actively records noise
decibel levels it does not record audio
or video all devices are on the exterior
of the property this wording hopefully
eliminates any confusion while we're on
this topic that's in the safety section
of your listing we recommend taking a
close look at everything there it's also
a good place to disclose you know
details about your pool in case you have
a you know an ungated or non-fenced pool
you can disclose it there and just be
fully transparent the second setting you
should be turning on is the criteria for
instant booking you'll find this under
the policies and rules tab of your
listing in the instant book section here
you'll be able to select whether or not
you'll allow guests to instant book your
property and you'll also be able to set
some secondary criteria we require all
of these fields first is a government
issued id second is a host
recommendation and the third is a
pre-booking message you can keep this
message pretty simple we asked the
guests to let us know a little bit about
the reasons for coming to the area and
who's going to be staying at the house
with them those are quick tips for today
if you found this video helpful we hope
you consider subscribing for future
videos on vacation rental tips and if
you need to go make any tweaks to your
listing make sure to do that asap and
we'll see in the next video
