BUSINESS | Palo Alto BNB

I was a bit surprised when I read the House Rules of another host who wrote that she never accepts reservations unless the person booking also is staying as a guest.

That surprised me because up to this point, I had accepted so many successful “corporate” bookings, usually for three employees, that I guess, I had been either lucky or well placed in terms of price and location to avoid any serious bookings by bad 3rd party apples so far.

I don’t doubt that there are some shenanigans being played by people covering for the actual bad assets staying at ones home, so I absolutely am not judging any host who wants to play it safe to protect their home or other place they are using for a BNB.

REAL-TIME BOOKING

One of these reservations for my consideration came across as I was walking out the door to drop by the house to move garbage bins in the middle of a heavy rain. It was a 3^rdparty booking, but it came late (around 8:00pm) for a SAME-DAY overnight stay, reportedly, for a group of three colleagues or “friends” coming from a local Google site.

When we started the BNB, we imagined this would be a great opportunity to help some last minute travelers and this seems to fit the bill catering to our open 24 hour policy. Rarely this occurs though.

However, historically, if you can say over a year is a decent history, looking at our own worst cleanups (which in general haven’t been toobad except for one unfortunate drunken party of a young adult crowd looking “to crash someplace” after an “event”), there is a tendency for last minute bookings for short stays to yield the most sloppy guests, even ifthe reservations were made by one of the guests themselves.

There are two things that were a little unfortunate to mar an otherwise smooth transaction (so far), was this particular young lady, who, by the way, has years of stellar reviews as a host and as a guest, made the Instant Booking reservation implying that she was one of the 3 guests.

Since the booking was already done, I had access to her phone number. I called her due to the fast moving situation.

I found out pretty quickly, she was making a reservation for her co-workers or friends coming from a nearby Google. It all seems plausible but in my case, she absolutely did not need to feign being one of the guests rather than introducing herself as the coordinator. She did not, however, at glance, appear to use Airbnb as a coordinator before, so maybe she was little gun-shy doing it of the first time under somewhat exigent conditions.

Her inexperience as a corporate coordinator showed up when I asked for the names of the guests and she only offered the first names. I let this slide, but when you ask for names, I recommend (reminder to self) ASK FOR FIRST AND LAST NAMES, NOT JUST “NAMES” so it is clear what your intent is.

So far, I have had great experiences with people coordinating for others, corporate or otherwise, let’s hope that continues.

Certainly, she’s putting her reputation on the line for her friends (or at least her security deposit).

So, we’ll see how this works out. I’ll find out here in about 12 hours when we clean up.

Please like, share and comment or contact me if you have any questions

CKY

So you are thinking about starting a BNB, eh?

A floppy bunny sleeping on the wall, A fine oil painting from a Renaissant or Medieval BNB, 😉 from Stanford Cantor Arts Center – photo by Challen

Here are 8 reasons you may not have thought about yet. Well, maybe you thought of them but you could still use some moral reinforcement.

You do not want a long-term lease. Not only do you not want one, it may become an obstacle. The future of your property is in question and you as a property owner do not want to get caught in a long term lease during a time where you may want or need to sell the property or you may need to move into the home yourself.
You want to maintain the property in excellent condition. You may be a complete anal-retentive owner and want maximum control over the condition of the house by avoiding long term leases. As responsible as a long term tenant may be, they are unlikely to keep the house in as good a condition or correct problems in the same manner as you would.
Your house is better designed for short-term occupants or guests. Most people staying long term have long term storage needs, including for the natural accumulation of stuff. If your place does not have much storage without significant remodeling or improvements, the lack of storage becomes an obvious disadvantage to get the highest lease rates but as a BNB with guests staying less than a month or a day or two, it is not an issue.
You love hospitality. Your long term tenant may think you are a nice responsible property manager, but you are not expected to be responsible in anyway to provide multiple “tenants” with their situational accommodating, being involved with opening the door, responding nicely to people at all times of the day or week, be concerned what impression they get when they see your prepared beds, picking out a guest menu – like what kind of coffee you have ready for their quick breakfast, or if the TV can get a particular movie channel. But you thrive on this kind of work and enjoy helping responsible people make sure they have a nice experience.
You can accept inconsistencies. Not every guest that signs up, stays signed up. You will get cancellations on occasion. Not everyone responds to you the same way. You will get some people who will bend the rules or are not quite as clean as you would hope. On the other hand, you will find where your own routine needs to be more efficient, whether it is how you followup with guest inquiries or how you go through your place to prepare it. After several guests, you will get intended and unintended feedback. No plan starts out perfect nor does it remain perfect. It takes some faith that things work out despite the inconsistencies.
You are a bored panda. It could be in your particular phase of life, you need the daily responsibility of managing a property, maintaining your listing site, website or the marketing strategies you are going to employ.
You have teflon skin. In other words, maybe not what you thought … You can tolerate some jealously, even hatred, from others. Anytime you try to do something that most other people do not, you may incur some adverse reactions for doing something that has the appearance of being successful even though it takes real work to get things going and keeping it going.
You value setting your own destiny. By being in the driver’s seat to make decisions, you control your own destiny and that brings you more peace. This one takes some experience, for example, balancing making money from accepting a variety of guests versus being willing to politely screen out those who don’t meet your standards. If you accept a person who may have triggered your scrub alarm instead of leaping effortlessly over your Shaolin-monk-worthy guest criteria (even if they needed some gentle persuasion), you could likely subject yourself to the hell of wondering what’s going to go wrong until they arrive and leave (assuming they don’t cancel at the last minute). Hence, you may be able to hit the abort switch to be at peace rather than make a few more bucks.