Airbnb Hosts: What’s One Thing You Wish You Knew Before Starting?

[Renee Adams]

I’ve been diving deep into short-term rentals in Atlanta and have talked to a lot of hosts and investors lately. Some have systems that run like a dream — others, not so much.

For those of you who’ve been in the game, what’s something you wish you knew before you launched your first Airbnb or STR property?

Curious to hear your lessons — especially the ones that hurt but helped.

[Ken Boone]

Biggest lesson learned. When people show up over your occupancy without your prior approval - and I am not talking like 1 extra, but grossly over your occupancy, you evict them immediately with no refund. Early on we had 10 people show up to one of our STRs that sleeps 6, 2 adult woman and 8 kids, from 2 yr old to teenagers. It was just a  2 night booking and we were naive. We thought, it can't be that bad. 

It turned out to be the worst trashing of a place we have had in 7 years of running STRs. Bottom line, if a guest is willing to break your house rules right from the start, get them out ASAP. They won't respect anything you have.

The next time it happened 23 people showed up to an STR that sleeps 8. This time we contacted VRBO and explained the situation, they agreed that guest broke the rules and can be kicked out with no refund. We immediately followed through and most likely saved a lot of time, money, and hassle.

Our rental agreements are very explicit in our max occupancies and what happens if you go over without our prior approval now.