r/ShortTermRentals

We have a really nice 4,500sf home in Sunriver. We are currently with AvantStay but are currently "disenchanted." When we started with them (two years ago), they were really good, but they've gone downhill over the past year. Lots of poor guests experiences (completely their fault) leading to bad reviews for our home.

Does anyone in Sunriver currently do a good job?

I'm currently with Manzanita Beach Getaways Vacation Rentals and it's time for a change. They do a decent job at cleaning, but they're not very good at pricing or marketing. My house has lot of empty nights this July, which is unacceptable. And that's with prices that are lower than the competition I see on Airbnb. I somehow seem to earn less every year, despite the limited permits in Manzanita. I need to either sell the place (which I don't want to do) or find a better manager.

Who do you use? How are your earnings?

Has Booking.com changed?

Lately, I’ve been asking myself this question more and more.

Working with accommodation providers every day, I’ve noticed a growing number of challenges:

Longer response times from customer support.
Account restrictions or suspensions with limited explanation.
Technical issues that can take days or even weeks to resolve.
More complex processes for property partners.
A feeling that partner feedback isn’t always being heard.

For many years, Booking.com was the go-to platform for hotels, guesthouses, and vacation rentals. Today, however, many property owners are looking for additional distribution channels instead of relying on a single OTA.

I’m curious to hear from others in the hospitality industry.

Have you noticed the same trend?
What has been your biggest challenge with Booking.com recently?
Has your experience improved or worsened over the past few years?
Which alternative booking channels are working well for your business?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

I’ve been thinking about how much the short term rental ecosystem has changed over the last 10 years, and I’m curious if I’m missing something.

When Airbnb launched, it provided almost everything a host needed: payments, calendars, messaging, reviews, and distribution. For many hosts, Airbnb *was* their software stack.

Today that seems different.

A large percentage of professional hosts now use PMS platforms like Guesty, Hostaway, Hospitable, Lodgify, and others. Those systems increasingly provide direct booking websites, Stripe integration, messaging, pricing, and channel management.

If that’s true, then Airbnb’s role shifts from being the infrastructure to primarily being a distribution channel.
That raises a question I’ve been wondering about:
If hosts already own their own booking infrastructure, is Airbnb’s long-term moat mostly demand generation rather than technology?

We’ve seen similar unbundling in other industries. Google Flights doesn’t operate airlines, it aggregates existing booking systems and sends travelers to transact elsewhere.

Could short-term rentals evolve in a similar direction, where search and transactions become separate layers?
Or is Airbnb’s network effect strong enough that direct booking will remain a niche for most operators?

got a cabin in the woods thought itd be a nice little side thing. peaceful nature. guests who just want to relax

instead i get people who bring their whole extended family and leave trash everywhere. someone tried to have a party last month even tho i clearly said no events. neighbors complained. i had to deal with the fallout

the cleaning fees barely cover the actual cleaning. maintenance is constant. hot tub repairs are expensive. winter is a nightmare with pipes freezing

i did the numbers last week and after everything i make like 15 an hour for the time i put in. i could work at a gas station and make the same money without the stress

im starting to think about selling.

has anyone else gotten out of short term rentals and felt relieved or did you regret it later

Does anyone here own an Airbnb in Covered Bridge Resort in Sevierville, TN?
We’re considering buying there and would love to hear about your experience. How is demand right now? What’s it like working with the HOA? Any concerns or things you wish you knew before buying?
Thanks in advance!

Airbnb support aka manipulation, gaslighting, minimizing, dismissive, invalidation and deception

A year ago I had 2 listings in disputes. I submitted the evidence for both and they both failed

One was for a Lakeview house that was going to be de listed.
The other was for a one star review on a house in the city that was a stupid blackmail revenge I didn’t refund them review.

They both failed because they had submitted the disputes to the wrong one. The lake house went to the house and the city in the house and the city went to the lake house I got denied and I said why explain and they came back with we need you to submit This kind of evidence.
And what they were asking for made no sense
I was like why would I need to submit anything about keys when this house had a flood

It just seriously, it was boggled my mind forever because I knew my evidence on both. This things were very ironclad so it was impossible that this was the outcome.

Finally, I was on the phone with an ambassador and she kept on saying the wrong listing when I was giving her the ID. We finally realized they had swapped the listing numbers on the listings, and the whole system was glitched.

Of course later, I was like can I actually have a real chance to submit a review for that one star
and somebody told me all I have to do was send one picture of this particular, I didn’t think much of it. I thought they were being nice because they had glitched the first time

so I submitted it
Can you guess what happened?….
That’s right I got denied

So there are my two chances gone

So I thought because they had seriously glitched their system and never taken any accountability for doing that but maybe just this one time they would help me.

My daughter is in the ICU getting her breathing tube taken out I just needed some security with the super host status turn over is July 1 and it’s June 29.

The superhost turnover is July 1, I called and said if you can help me get rid of this review. So that my my algorithm could be higher it would cause less stress for me as I’m unable to work so I’m now dependent on that.

But I said if this is going to be a run around I don’t have time and told them my situation. But I said if you can actually be a support when I need support let’s get this taken care of so that I have a safety net for us. I said it a couple times over so that they would get the seriousness of my situation.

They actually promised me they would help me
I know I was shocked too
So I was like well it’s a very very rare case for somebody actually helps you and I thought my situation I was in May have actually been the thing to finally get some help. So I fell for it.

They said they had opened it up to let me submit my documents again to get the dispute going and get that review gone

so I submit all my documents and I thought well you know this is my one chance I’m just gonna spend some extra time it just make it like so there’s no way that there’s anything possible they could even catch possibly say no to me.

And I thought what I’m doing now will really help us in the long run so just get it done. I told them again please don’t take my time away from me. I don’t have time for this. I kept on saying that I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for this, but here you go like I’m just gonna do it like this is my only opportunity.

I submit all my documents and not only 30 seconds later did I get declined

I was like got that stupid script that they send out after careful review and consider consideration. We are upholding our original decision, blah blah blah that stupid thing.

So I emailed Back and I said how the hell could you even careful consider anything when I haven’t even submitted all of my evidence yet and you just received that 30 seconds ago

So they kind of like panicked and said oh there’s a bunch of threads open we meant like just send it over here so they asked me to send it to a different thread and while I was doing that, I said listen I don’t want to hear that script that you just sent me and I if you go over all of this and you think that it’s still not in my favor, I would like you to tell me exactly why because I had hard proof that literally every single thing that he claimed was a lie

So I would like to know what didn’t pass and if you need something more, ask me because I can submit it

So then I got a email saying that they’re still working on it like a couple hours later and I was like how can you still be working on it? It’s pretty black or white.

And then at 2 o’clock in the morning, I got the same script saying that I was denied

Then it clicked that I was never even doing a third review because I didn’t even submit this stuff through the app. It was all just submitted to the email.

So they pretended to give me another review because they knew they had to, but for some reason, nobody can unlock this stupid thing

They then call and say I only want to talk to somebody who can unlock the system. They put me on hold. Keep me on hold for 10 minutes telling me they’re getting me a supervisor and then hang up so I called the second time they did the exact same thing.
I would get emails that would be like we’re sorry this decision frustrating but we are only allowed to give two disputes and then it locks

I’m like that’s interesting and why did I get a third dispute so like did you guys lie to me about a dispute or are you lying to me about it that it locks?

Then they would come back with there is no glitch and I would show an email and they would be like no there is no glitch and then when I finally prove that it would go to something else eventually, the end result was

I got an email from them telling them that I was becoming too aggressive, and they might have to remove me. lol.

I just think them said thank you for all of this evidence of your corporation being so corrupt you actually provided me with quite a bit of great stuff and you’ve also kind of included some life or death shit that you just don’t even care about lying to grieving people about so

That’s where I’m at

There’s so many rent and rave posts in here that I thought I would give everybody a little chuckle and a laugh. So this is a true story.
I’ve been talking to this guy is met on a dating app for a while. I had been married for a long time. I have little kids. I never actually do this, but the thing that caught me about this guy was that he was a plumber and I was redoing this one part of my house and my laborers were just like so disappointing and it was a nightmare to get done.

Anyways, I was so annoyed with how things were going. That my inhibitions had kind of just disappeared and I was just gonna kind of be silly and sexual at the same time. I just need to like blow off some steam so we started talking about countertops and how hot it would be and how if he came over and plumbed something I would do them on the countertop or something like that and I’m like it’s so hot whatever Something like that

Well, in the middle of my Airbnb guests had just checked in and they were asking me about something. I can’t remember really what
But either way I accidentally sent them my messages that I was writing to this guy lol

Then I realized it and I was like oh no, so I went and deleted the messages right away

And I was like oh my God oh my God I hope they don’t see that. I hope they didn’t see that.

So then I wrote to them Did you guys see that weird text that just came through that thread and then disappeared or am I the only one?

And the lady was like uuuuummmmm ya

Thinking that they would just drop it and we would move on, but they certainly didn’t

She then continue to say well how would something like that get on there? I was like I don’t know. Technologies is weird.

She’s like well this means somebody’s hacked your system and they have all of our credentials and we know they’ll know that how to get into the house and they’ll know where we are. This is becoming a major safety issue.

I was like I don’t think that’s a possible thing….

She was like it was just so vulgar and raunchy. We are just so feeling uncomfortable because somebody’s gonna have our information.

Hahahahah
Oh my God thinking about it. That was just funny. That was not what I was expecting somebody to react like anyway anyways they ended up checking out and I had gave him a full refund. !

Whoops, that stupid text message and I never even sent stupid text messages like that ugh !!!!

Whoops

So embarrassed
So funny

It is what it is

And I like never even talk like that or send messages of that message or even talk to anybody online and it was like the perfect storm for that all the play out

I'm the seller, and I have a STR that makes 160k+ gross income/year, but will likely only appraise around 350k-400k as a residential property. I listed it for 800k and did immediately receive 2 full price offers and a lot of additional interest, however, I'm worried the deal will fall through after the appraisal.

How do people sell cash producing properties that won't appraise? Are investors willing to pay the difference? Do I need to list it as a commercial property or something and have the buyer get a commercial loan and appraisal? Do I need a cash buyer? This is a unique property, not something that can be easily replicated. There are no comps.

I understand that lenders have to be able to sell the home if gets foreclosed on and stops being rented as a STR. As a seller though, I'd be giving the property away at the appraised value with the income it produces. Not to mention it's been fully remodeled and comes fully furnished.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? I'd appreciate any insight!

I've been talking to a lot of property managers lately, and one thing keeps coming up: maintenance requests seem to come from everywhere—phone calls, emails, texts, voicemails, and even handwritten notes.

I'm curious how everyone here is managing it.

A few questions:

• How do tenants submit maintenance requests today?
• How do you assign jobs to vendors?
• How do you keep tenants updated without your office getting flooded with "Any updates?" calls?
• What's the biggest bottleneck in your current process?

Full disclosure: I'm building a platform called Maintena to simplify this workflow. The goal is to let tenants submit maintenance requests by scanning a QR code, automatically organize and route requests, and keep everyone updated without all the manual follow-up.

I'm not here to pitch—I'm genuinely looking to learn how real property managers handle maintenance today and what features would actually save you time.

If anyone is interested in trying an early version, I'd be happy to set up your portfolio for free in exchange for honest feedback.

I'd really appreciate hearing what's working (or not working) for your team.

Hey guys

How do you make to avoid commissions on platform

I am really looking for the best way to promote my property outer of the established platform.

Any suggestions ?

I'm currently looking to work with a few vacation rental owners who could use extra support managing their properties.

Not long into researching short-term rentals.

The income looks great until you start reading

what actually happens when you own one.

Everyone makes it sound like passive

income. But every host subreddit reads like a

support group.

I'm starting to think the $10K - $20K mo is just the

glamours part.

The thing that keeps tripping me up is cleaning

and turnover coordination. From everything I've

read it sounds like the operational backbone of

the whole business and also the part most

likely to collapse at the worst possible moment.

So I'll just ask directly. And be honest for crying out loud.

What's the worst thing that's happened to you

because a cleaner didn't show up, didn't confirm,

or just completely ghosted you two hours before

the guests arrived?

While you're at it:

Are you still manually texting your cleaner

before every single checkout, or have you

actually found something that works?

When it does fall apart what does it really

cost you? Refunds, one-star reviews, driving

out there yourself in dress clothes, with mop and bucket, honking at

every car in your way, just so you can get there before

your guests arrive in 30 mins?

Or is chaos just baked into

the business model at this point?

I want the horror stories. The "nobody warned

me about this" moments. The stuff that made

you seriously question whether the cash flow

was worth the headache.

 

If it's as bad as I think it is, tell me.

If I'm overthinking it, tell me that too.

seriously considering throwing in the towel on self managing. I just spent my entire Sunday morning arguing with a guest who thought "checkout at 11" actually meant "start packing at 11:45 and get mad at the cleaner"

The margins on my two units are fine, but the sheer mental load is exhausting. every time my phone buzzes on a weekend I assume the house is flooding or someone broke the wifi router again. I handed one of the units over to jmk property management a while back and honestly the difference in my stress levels is making me rethink keeping the other one in my own hands

Im just tired of my whole life revolving around the airbnb app notification sound. idk how you guys with 5+ units do this without losing your hair tbh

Hosting a private apartment with a jacuzzi + home cinema setup and trying to understand what guests actually value most (not what I think they really value).

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Can anyone please tell me, what i should know as regards, asking for stewardship of a short-term hospitality and property management venture (listed on airbnb UK). Last year, I invested into 3 properties with a friend that already does airbnb hosting. I brought the funds and since he was already into this, he was supposed to manage the property (i.e cleanings, bookings, etc) then give me a monthly report. We have a contract and i agreed to split the profits with him, 60/40 to incentivise him. I've got a blink doorbell in front of each house so i can see who comes and goes. We've had at least 90% bookings in all there houses, most of this year, but in the monthly report my friend/ manager sends to me, we're always in the negative. All the money from the bookings go to him. For now, i'd rather not involve a lawyer, but i will, if i have to. Is there a way to know how much each stay was booked for? can i be added to his airbnb hosting profile? how can i tell if what he claims the stay was booked for is correct? Thanks in advance for your advise.

Hello fellow hosts!

I am writing this post as a caution and advise to any host who is thinking of onboarding or are part of luxury lodging.
I have been working with them for past 12 months and now for past 2 months they have abruptly stopped paying us or share owner statement. Despite handholding them and giving them exposure to JC market, they continued to underprice our property, have not paid damages done by guests and are now holding us hostage for our due money.
Happy to share more about how inexperienced they are and how the bring in poor quality of guests.
Also looking for some advise from the group how to get out of this situation.