Tim Hubbard explains how to avoid bad reviews by setting clear expectations in your listing. A guest booked a lakeside cabin expecting a private Jacuzzi but found a small two-person spa in the front yard. Better photos, specific captions, and house rules prevent these mismatches.
Chapters
Have you reviewed your listings recently to make sure that your guests are getting exactly what they expect? Expectations are the name of the game. It's what allows us to have really good reviews. So we got to make sure that we have set our expectations properly and that's what we're going to chat about this week. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. Quick, actionable ideas to help you along your real estate investment journey, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. How is everyone doing? I hope you guys are doing really well. We're going to talk about expectations this week and expectations are the name of the game when it comes to our short term rentals. If we set them too high and they don't meet a guest expectations, well, you can guess what's going to happen. You're going to get a negative review. Right? So I've been traveling quite a bit actually, even with all the COVID stuff going on. I flew back from Columbia to visit my family in California. I went to to Tennessee to check on some properties. Actually went to a conference in Texas and then back to Columbia. Now I'm actually in Brazil. So I've been moving around a little bit. But at the same time I've been staying in some Airbnbs. And so I want to give you one that didn't really meet my expectations. And then I want to give you another one where I kind of dropped the ball with one of my properties and what we did to fix that. Okay. So recently I rented a Airbnb in top California. My family lives in Sacramento, so it was nice to go up there for a couple days and rented a cabin, you know, next to the lake. And one of the things I put in there was Jacuzzi. You know, I like spas in the winter. It's just, it's nice with the snow outside, but then a nice hot Jacuzzi. Especially after some skiing or snowboarding. I was fortunate. I was able to sneak a day of snowboarding in which I love, love, love. So I was excited for the Jacu right now. When I booked the place, I didn't realize that the Jacuzzi was like a two person Jacuzzi. Probably the smallest Jacuzzi I've ever seen that wasn't built into a bathroom or something. And on top of that, it was actually in the front yard. There's no privacy, nothing like that. So on arrival, that was the first thing we saw, was this Jacuzzi in the front yard, essentially. I mean, this is kind of a little cabin in the woods, but it was In a neighborhood. So next to neighbors, that was the first thing we saw. So that was a bit of a letdown. And that really can set off a guest's whole experience is the arrival. Because if something doesn't fit what they expected, well, then they kind of start looking for other things. Or maybe it could really affect their whole stay. And depending on how long the stay is, if it's really short, if it's just a night or two, well, then that first impression lasts longer. Right. But if it's a month long stay, then that host or that property has time to kind of make up for a not so good first impression. Right. The longer it goes, the more time you have to make up from a bad first impression. But for us, you know, a lot of our stays are one, two, three nights. So if we drop the ball in the beginning, then we're probably not going to receive that great of a review. Unfortunately. Now, after we've done this for a while, we can usually work all those little things out. Right? Now, I'm sure that this host has received this complaint before about the spa because it wasn't accurately depicted on his listing. You know, I went through the pictures and I wasn't expecting that. That was a recent one. You know, it's just something really simple. The reality is, is you guys are dropping the ball somewhere or not meeting your guests expectations, you're going to hear about it. And we need to fix those things. We need to correct them. So this owner, for example, could have put a much more clear picture in there with a note under that says, please note, this spa is for two people or it's in the front yard or it has, you know, no privacy. Or if you think that it's something that you really need to get their attention, you could put it in the house rules. Even if you want it. If we're on Airbnb that says before reservation, guest has acknowledged that. So and so, you know, whatever it needs to be. So take a look at your listings again and see if there's anything that's maybe not super clear that someone might not like because it's going to affect your reviews and it's going to ultimately affect your occupancy and the amount you can charge. And so it's better to correct these things in the very beginning. Now, one example where I kind of dropped the ball and I didn't realize this until later on, but we had a guest book for a month, actually. In a property, multifamily property that has eight units, there is a shared balcony for the building. Now this guest thought that the balcony was private for his unit. I had pictures in there and I had comments in there, but obviously it wasn't enough. Right. So this guest was really furious because he booked it for a whole month and he was expecting to have that. So we had to work with them. You know, we made it right and we discounted his stay and until he was happy, really. And I understand, you know, I understand that he was expecting something he didn't get. So afterwards I made it much more clear I didn't want to take that picture out of the listing because I think that it's still a benefit, it's still a nice thing that the property has. But there's other ways to make it more clear. So make sure the text in your photos really describes something if it's a common area space. So you've got, you know, I've got it in bold letters, I've got it in the special notes section or the other things to note section of Airbnb. There's other places where we can put these things. So just do a review of your listings. If you're not getting great reviews, it's likely because you're not meeting your guests expectations and something needs to change. So just a couple quick examples. Real short this week. Just wanted to reinforce how important that is. Hope you guys are doing well and until next time, have a great day. Want to get on the fast track to financial freedom through short term rentals? Well, it all starts with the properties you acquire. But you want to make sure that you acquire the right properties. I want to give you my ebook that will show you how to do just that. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. Just go to restmethods.com that's R E S T methods dot com.
