Superhost Status: Myth or Reality? Let’s Look at the Data

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All right everybody. So a couple of months ago, well, every three months I see posts online from hosts. Airbnb hosts short term rental hosts and they are showing off their super host batch and The Super Host badge. I've said this for a long time and I do a post every three months with this about saying how it is just very clever marketing. And the post that I put out is meant to be thought provoking for a reason because it gets people engaging but changes people's mindset. You know, half the comments are, I agree, half the comments are, you're an idiot because. But then one of the comments was from the chap who is on my right and he comes with data, right? And this is the cool thing, is that I can make up things on the spot, but he actually comes with the data to back it up. And I said, right, we need to get this on a video that'll be put out through the summit and we can reuse it for time. So Kenny, thank you very much. This is the video that we said we're going to do months ago. For everybody who's watching at home, just give a quick background on yourself, your company and then let's come and jump in with these, these numbers and this data.

Sure, sure, sure. Thank you. Thanks for having me on, Mark. Uh, so my name is Kenny Bedwell. I'm the CEO of STR Insights. We're a data and consulting company. We help people find profitable short term rentals across the United States only. So no UK yet. Maybe one day, maybe we'll wise up one day and do that. But I live in New York and I'm also a short term real estate investor and that's kind of how I got involved into this data and, and helping people find deals. And so my goal is to help people find deals but also educate them on the data behind it to maximize and cash flow with their properties.

So fantastic. Okay, so you've obviously come at this from every aspect and like for those of you that are tuning in overseas, unfortunately is the US but who knows one day. But this data and this information that we're going to share is applicable and relevant to all. So first and foremost, where do you stand on the, on the superhost badge debate? Is it the be all and end all? Does it help boost rankings or is it just a shiny badge that they want to get people to post on online?

Okay, so generally speaking, 56% of all hosts are super hosts. So I don't really know how that makes someone like super, which here it's like not even like more. It's like more than one. Every two people is a super host. But it is. But. However, on the flip side, there is a positive correlation to an a slight Bump increase in revenue for super host, because it's a filter in Airbnb. So anything that's a filter in Airbnb, you know, there's usually a correlation to increase revenue because people filter out properties don't have that. So for people who have amazing properties but don't meet the criteria of super host, the get dinged a little bit. And so it, it, it for me, I mean, is it the end all, be all? No, not at all. And I want to talk about guest favorites, because that's a new one too. And. And I think that's actually a little more. It's interesting, the new data we pulled from that. But end all be all know. But it is, it is important if you're going to live and die by Airbnb.

So 56%. Do we know? I know they said Roughly there's about 7 million active listings. Do we know how many hosts roughly, that they're there. Thereabouts. On. On Airbnb.

Yeah. So there's about 4 million, like, true active listings. Maybe there's like 7 million, like, total. They, they. They don't really like, they. So it's funny, Airbnb, I don't know if you call it lying or whatever, but, like, if you create a listing and then you, like, close it down and like, start another listing, which you can on the same property, they count that as one, two listings, you know, and they kind of database those. So it's 7 million, like total listings over a period of time. But I mean, it could be same properties or properties have been pulled out of service already many years ago. So that's something to keep in mind. But so you have about 4 million are actually active, you know, properties that people are, whether it's part time or full time. Wow.

And going back to superhost, what is the criteria at the present moment in time to qualify as a super host as like super host and commas. What is that criteria? If we know.

Yeah, if we know. I'm going to get quoted on this one. So as far as I can recall, you had to have, I think you had to have at least 10 nights booked in a single quarter. Remember where it's quarterly they come out, or you had five reviews or something like that. Like five. Five individual stays. So five individual stays and you have to have a rating of a 4.7 or higher.

Okie dokie. And that qualifies you for that. And we've got hosts that have got one property on Airbnb under one account, and we've got some that has got. Got plentiful now from all the data that you're looking at. And, you know, obviously the people that you help and you work with and, you know, there's lots of people are out there. Does it benefit? Let's just say me, I've got one account, I've got one Airbnb listing, but then I go and set up a second account. Say I somehow managed to do that, and I then put another couple of listings on there. Is that more beneficial or is Airbnb now trying to skew it to where you should only have one account and have all your listings on that said one account? Like, how's. How is Airbnb, how are people, like, sort of playing it to keep that ranking and rating high?

Yeah, so they definitely want you to keep it in the same.

Same account.

They don't want you to segregate it out, which is incredibly risky. So I'll give you an example. I had a guest. I don't know. I mean, they're obviously using AI to do this, but I had a guest one time, so I own properties, too, for those listening who don't know me. And I had a guest message me about their stay, and they were like, it was great, but we, like, found, like, a crack pipe on top of the fridge. And I was like, like what? You know, and I didn't say anything about the crack bite. But then, like, literally two hours later, my listing got. My entire listing account got frozen, like, shut down. And I'm like, what the heck? And so, like, I call Airbnb support, and they're like, yeah, like, it says something like, it's flagged, like, safety and all this other stuff. And I'm like. And the guy, like, he. He was kind of joking. Like, he found something that looked like a. Like a. A pipe, but it wasn't a pipe. And they had to get him on the phone to say that he was kidding, to confirm, to open up my listing again. But literally it was shut down like that from, like, a guest kind of making a joke with me. It's like, what? It's all under one account. So all four of my other listings were frozen as well. That's the problem.

So that's like a side topic. And I definitely, you know, I really do want to delve into this. I really, one day, and I would love to have somebody from ex Airbnb support or Airbnb support to try and be on the call with us here is that obviously with their purchase of an AI company, and they are obviously Going down a route of bedding into more AI It. The problem with AI is that it doesn't take jokes. And you know, this guy is obviously joking, but that one little slip of a tongue, it's hit the algorithm. They've suspended your listing. And what happens if you hadn't have seen it? What happens if you were just on vacation or a member of your team hadn't seen it and that listing had said suspended for X number of days? That's not just one listing, that's your whole account. Right, exactly. It's crazy. And you know what? There are so many people, good people like you that this is affecting. I've seen Danny Roustein, who was an ex Airbnb employee. This exact same thing happened to him and his account was shut down because of an emoji in a title. And you know, he had to go through all the rigmarole of calling and, you know, doing all the things to get it back. But right, we're gonna, we're gone a little bit off topic. So, super host. 56% of all hosts are super. So what's so special about that? But you're right that anything that is filterable will give you a bump.

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Let's move on to the Guest favorite badge. Now. What do you know about that? Obviously it's been around for a while now. And what are the stats sort of showing you from. From STR Insights back end.

Yeah. So the guest favorite badge actually represents the top 20% of Airbnb properties based off of ratings and reviews. So not money, not performance, but ratings and reviews. So the average to be top 20%, you have a 4.85 rating and you need to have about 10 reviews to get a guest favorite label. We've seen a few like below that, but everybody else is pretty much above that to be a guest favorite. It is a toggle as well. And so we have seen an 11% increase in average revenue for those who are deemed guest favorites.

Is that done every quarter as well as the superhost?

Nope, it's updated systematically. So it's just literally top 20% rolling as time goes on. So they don't say, it doesn't say, oh, your top 20% just says guest favorite. But we did the math and we, and we realized that all the ones that were guest favorite, it was represented 20% of all listings. And then we looked at the characteristics of the ratings and reviews and saw like, okay, cool, you need to have a roughly this and that. So, and that's, it's the same thing for top 10, 5 and 1, which is actually labeled top 10, 5 and 1.

Crazy. But again it's, it's. Anything that is fillerable obviously is going to be a benefit to you. And I think like a little side note when it comes to it. And again, we see these posts all the time. Always be checking your amenities and always be checking the, the things that you can add in, onto, onto the Airbnb backend because they're adding them and changing them all the time. You've got to be sharp on this. And whether it's you or a VA or a member of your in house team, you've got to always be on it. So I guess the best way to sort of conclude what we're talking about, bearing in mind the amount of years that you've been doing this now, the amount of listings that you look at all the data that you view, if, if there's A host that's watching this and they're going, right, what should I be looking to tackle next? What. What should I be looking to do on this platform, on this Airbnb platform next? What would be like some little quick tips that you could just give to somebody that they can go and implement after watching this video?

Yeah. So Airbnb is really trying to force you to be on their platform. Right. So, like, if you are split between two platforms, like brbo, Airbnb, maybe even you have your own direct booking site, and you're not getting reviews and ratings in Airbnb, they're going to punish you, they're going to ding you in the, the rankings and also, you know, like the algorithm and things, and they're just not going to promote your property because it's not considered reliable. So the biggest thing that I tell people when it comes to those kind of issues is you need to prove yourself your worth essentially to the algorithm. Prove that you can make Airbnb money. So the best thing that you can do to do that is to get as many reviews as you can from your every single stay. So try meaning including your messages asking guests to leave your reviews. I even started, and here's a secret hack on how I got to 90% of my guests leave me reviews now. I even started text messaging my guests. So a lot of people don't use the app, they don't communicate through the app. And I'll see guests that I'll send all these messages and they'll never respond, they'll never say anything. They come and stay and go and great, but they'll never get a review from them. I started texting them, hey, do you mind leaving me a review? Here's a link. And they leave me the review, making it more personable for them. And so my advice is make you know, if you're going to be on multiple listing sites, you're going to have a direct booking site, that's great and you should do that. But Airbnb will punish you. So you got to reverse that by trying to get as many reviews as you can as possible when you do get a booking in Airbnb.

So one of the cool things with the SMS, and that's a really cool tactic and tip is that there are some property management software tools, PMS is that give you the ability to send an SMS. Some even give you the ability to send a WhatsApp, and it can all be set up automated because you're right. I know, personally speaking, when I booked a stay on On Airbnb, I don't even look at any of that information. Like, I know where we're going to be. We're going to time, we maybe we'll check it for gate codes, etc, but for the most part, we're not checking any of those. But if someone was to send me an sms, I'll go, oh, that's cool. That's different. Again, when everybody zigs, you zag. And that's a real cool way. But again, I think it all depends on where you are in your journey. If you're literally watching this right now, one property just on Airbnb, just focus on getting really good on that platform. And then as you grow and you expand in your career, then obviously you're gonna branch out, get, you know, direct bookings into your world. Multiple platforms, start to get the solid foundation in place. But, you know, we, we always say, we say it a lot here is, you know, you can't just bet on one thing. You can't just bet on one product like Airbnb. You can't just bet on direct. You got to have multiple revenue streams coming in. And as you're getting going, you got to do where people are going to start off with. But by watching this summit, by hopefully tuning into more videos and checking out the quality content that Kenny puts out yet the start of that journey where you can start to get more bookings coming in from different platforms. But really interesting. Any other interesting stats that you've seen with Airbnb over the last year? Year. Seeing it coming to the end of 2024 at a point of recording is a. Is there anything else that you have noticed, not just this guest favorite badges. Is there anything else that you're sort of keeping an eye on for yourself, your own properties or just for SDR insights?

Yeah, I'm always tracking the amenities, you know, and seeing like, okay, they've added these particular amenities to the checkboxes. Once they add in the checkboxes, we can then really start seeing the data and the correlations. We run regression models and a bunch of nerdy data crap to see, like, what's going to, you know, what are the results and what are we going to get. And so I've really been. All the unique amenities they're adding is really fascinating. And to see, like, what impacts they have on revenue. And so it's, you know, like things like bowling alleys and outdoor bowling alleys and things like that are actually really positive. And obviously there's a lot of other things that can impact revenue And I get that, but it's the amenities and saying, I like what you said earlier, staying on top of those things because they're, they're adding more and more all the time and they don't tell anybody. So it's all sudden there, it's mad.

In it because you know, all of a sudden and you just see so many people on social media and in Facebook groups that are just adding in pickleball courts or they're adding, you know, mini golf courses in the back and it's, it's hard for a host to be able to focus on wherever attention lies. Especially let's just say you're in the management game. You go and add just a ton of properties or do you look at quality at the moment? It's, it's, it's a really hard sort of place to where you put your attention to. And this is obviously where a tool like SDR Insights comes in because then you can, you know, you're not just going to make assumptions. You've got the data behind you that can prove it, but not just like on an overall USA level. You can dial it down to a state, a town, city, which will give you some, some really good data that will be able to make help your decisions. So before I let you go, just give us a quick pitch, 1 minute, 2 minutes, however long you need, just to tell us about STR Insights, what you've got coming up in the future and where can people go and find out more information?

Yeah. So I'll say this. If you are a US based investor or if you're even in the uk, I've actually, I've helped a couple of people from the UK and Europe invest in the United States. We have a service and this is really where we've pivoted to recently Mark, where we help people find actual deals. Because that's, that's the real crux of the issue is great, I've got the data, but how do I take that data and find things that are going to make sense? And so I'm kind of pitching our services here and saying like we can help you. Whether that's getting you connected to our data or actually walking you through the entire process and helping you find deals or just doing it for you, 100% for you. So if you're interested in that, you can check out our website, you can message me, DM me. We've got a solid team of deal finding experts who can help, you know, like what amenities, add what, where to look, what markets, what markets aren't saturated. That's a whole nother topic to dive into. So where to. Where to stay away from? Man, that's a. That's a fun reel to put out. People get offended on that one every time I do that stuff. So anyway. Or where to actually go to? So that's our services kind of wrapped up there. So if you have any questions, feel free to DM me at Kenny Underscore Bedwell on Instagram. Or Kenny. Or Kenneth. Kenny Bedwell on Facebook.

So amazing. Brilliant.

And that's strinsights.com that's strinsights.com yeah.

Perfect. All right, Kenny, thank you very much for that.