Hi all, my husband and I are purchasing a property that has an existing Airbnb listing. It's an adu with over 130 5-star reviews. I called Airbnb to see what the process is for taking over an existing listing and was told that the current owners have to Un-list the unit and then we will Re-list the unit and unfortunately start from scratch with all reviews/ratings. Is there any recommendations for how to keep any of the history / reviews and just let people know that it's the same great unit, just new owners - or do we truly start from scratch and lose all the wonderful reviews and ratings? Any suggestions?
Investor 路 Poway, CA 路 Member since 2015 路 7k+ posts 路 8k+ votes
3y
Last summer I switched PMs on two STRs that had over 1000 feedbacks between the 2 units. They both had to start over.
The property owner likes to believe that the property is what earned the positive feedbacks. The property management likes to believe that it is the management that earns the positive feedbacks. The reality is that it is both. A poor property or poor management would result in less than stellar reviews.
I am going to follow this thread in hopes that someone indicates there is a way for you to preserve your positive feedbacks. Note I was unable to preserve my positive feedbacks, but I did not solicit suggestions on this awesome forum.
Real Estate Consultant 路 OH 路 Member since 2023 路 2k+ posts 路 1k+ votes
3y
If the property is on VRBO you MAY be able to move over reviews, I don't think you can on Airbnb. I have not done this before but several people in our STR mastermind have successfully moved reviews over to a new listing. Some people have not had this work, so it all depends. The old listing has to be disabled and you can't pick and choose which reviews, so pretty much what changes over you have to be ok with them. I believe you would need to call in to customer service and have someone more the reviews over, sometimes you have to call more than once.
I'll throw this out there...since you are the new owner and the property/STR has changed hands, it might be better to just start from scratch. You'll probably do things differently than the previous owner/PM, which is more the fine! But the reviews should be an accurate representation of the property now.