Tim Hubbard breaks down the 15 questions short-term rental guests ask most often before booking, drawn from his team's 160,000 messages and 9,000 reservations. Guests want to know about Wi-Fi speed, pet policies, parking, check-in flexibility, neighborhood safety, and whether they can see the place in person or virtually. He recommends having saved responses ready for each one.
Questions this video answers
Over 160,000 messages.
Almost 9,000 reservations.
About 16–18 messages per reservation (speaker states ~16; derived from ~160,000 messages / ~9,000 reservations).
Chapters
Airbnb and VRBO and all the OTA platforms do a fabulous job of allowing us to advertise our properties very effectively. We can put everything in there. But guests still ask us a lot of questions. And after reviewing some numbers I totaled up, our team has sent over 160,000 messages. We've had almost 9,000 reservations. So I want to break down the top 15 questions you are going to get asked at some point, but most likely with the majority of your guests. Let's jump right into it. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches, where we'll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals to help you build wealth faster with as little headache as possible.
I've been diving into our numbers recently. Our numbers in terms of guests that we've accommodated, numbers in terms of messages that we've sent. And I want to break it down here. We've had almost 9,000 reservations. That is a heck of a lot of reservations. And on average, each of those reservations are receiving about 60, 16 messages. Now, a lot of these messages are automated, but a lot of them are not. So I want to break down this week the most commonly asked questions before a guest checks into our property. So at the inquiry stage, I've got 15 for you. You will undoubtedly get asked these questions, so it's best that we're prepared with answers going forward. So let's just jump right into it. Number one, how fast is your WI fi speed? It is super important, isn't it? This is a very important question for me when I go to stay somewhere and it is for everyone else. It's almost important than like having a place to sleep these days, isn't it? And they might frame this in a different way. You know, is your WI fi good? What exact speeds you have? So we've talked about the ANSWERS. All these 15 questions I'm going to go over in other episodes. I just kind of want to touch on the surface of them just so that you're aware and just so you have these answers prepared. But quick, easy shortcut for this one is that we have a screenshot of our Internet speed and all of our listings. But still, these are the questions guests are asking no matter how much info we put on our listing. So you will get asked that. Number two, can I check in or check out late to your property? Can I have an early check in? Can I have a late checkout? You are going to get asked this question all the time. Up to you, whether you want to accommodate it or not. Just know the more you scale, the harder this one is to accommodate. Really, the only time that we allow this now is if our housekeeper's there on site and they already have the unit cleaned and the guests showed up early. So other than that, we're pretty much it's a no for that one. We would like to bring our golden retriever or our dog or our pet or our cat. Do you allow pets? Even if you have this listed in your listing, they're still gonna ask you. You're still gonna get asked. And of course, this policy is up to you as well. Now, a lot of people might say that the animal they're bringing is a service dog or a therapy dog or emotional support dog. However you want to frame it, be careful if you say no to these guest inquiries because they could potentially file a discrimination claim with Airbnb against you. So just be careful on that one. But that is a very, very common question you will get asked. Number four, is your property in a safe neighborhood? Again, we can put all this information in our listings. They can read our reviews. It says it is, but it's another question you'll probably get asked. Make sure you've got a good response for that one. How far is your property from blank location? People are going to ask this all the time, too, because of course on Airbnb, we don't get to see most of the time the actual address that we're booking. So we have the general idea, but we don't know exactly where it is. So you will get asked that one a lot as well. Another question that comes up, and these are kind of in order of how often you're going to get asked them, and they're just going to kind of trail off. Number 15 might not be so common, but I will promise you that the longer you operate short term rentals, you will get asked all these questions. So can I make a reservation for someone else? Can I make a reservation for my grandpa or my mom that doesn't have an Airbnb account? In other words, they want to make what's called a third party reservation. Third party booking, third party making it for someone else. Now, this might also be an insurance company or a company looking for a place for some of their employees to work for. So up to you. Again, how you want to answer this. Just know that that question will come as well.
What floor is your unit, house, property located on? Again, all these things we have in our listings. We can be very detailed with our listings, but people don't read much. That is a sad Truth. So these again are the pre inquiry questions. These are the questions you're going to get before someone actually books your property. Do you have elevators in the building or is it accessible for handicap? This is going to be a little less common, but it will pop up at some point. I was wondering if you have any policy against bringing infants or children under X age. Of course, again, this is in our listings. We have policies on this. But people will ask you and people will also bring their kids and their infants even though they don't tell you as well. So that's going to happen too.
And they might ask, they might be a little more honest about it and say, well, my son who's 7 years old or my daughter who's 5 years old, will they count as extra guests? So you might get that as well. That's all kind of bundled into one question. Does your property have a security system or are you monitoring activity of any sort? So of course not inside our properties, right? That is a big no. No, we can't do that. We don't want to intrude on anyone's privacy. And we have to be explicit with that in our listings that says these are exterior cameras only. I do highly recommend having exterior cameras because they will help with security and you can monitor guest count and all those things. Some people will ask that, would you be open to negotiating a discount if I stay for X amount of days? So people will definitely. You'll definitely get this question. Especially for the longer stays, you'll get it a lot more often. So make sure you know what you want to offer when that question pops up. Do you have parking on the premise? Again, this is in our listing. All these things are in our listing. Right? These are like pre inquiry questions before someone staying at our property. My top 15 that we pulled out of almost 170,000 messages that we've sent. A lot, A lot of messages.
So do you have parking on the premise? Is it free? Is it paid? Do I need a parking pass? Very common questions, especially if someone's staying longer. And if you're in an urban area where parking is difficult to come by, do you have any minimum stay requirements? So this one, most of the time people are gonna figure out when they're trying to book because if they try to book one night, they can't if your policy is only allowing two nights plus it won't allow them to on the calendar. But you might still get that question popping up as well. Another common one for someone that might want to stay longer at your property. Is can I see your property person before I book it? This can be challenging. If you're operating properties remotely. There are lots of good ways to get a real visual idea of the property to your guests. Before of course we have our pictures, but maybe think about having a 3D virtual video that you can send to someone in lieu of having them look at your property for long term stay. So you might get asked that one as well. Actually you will get that. You will get asked all these questions the longer you operate. Short term rentals. And number 15.
What kind of coffee maker do you have?
Okay, so I bundled this into an appliance type question. You know, what kind of oven do you have? Is it gas or electric? But coffee people, we love our coffee, don't we? And so people will ask you about your appliances before they book a property, especially if it's in a, you know, a bigger home where someone's planning on cooking up a meal and things like that. So be prepared. These are the top 15 questions that we get asked most frequently at the inquiry stage before someone's actually checking into our property. This will be part of like a three or four part series. I'm going to do other episodes on this, probably not in order, but at different stages of a guest reservation. So when a guest is actually at the property, there's lots of common questions we get. When a guest checks out of the property, there's lots of common questions we get. So in future episodes I will bring those out to you guys. So review your responses to your questions. If you have a lot of saved ones, make sure you save responses for all these questions because you're gonna get asked these, I promise. So hopefully that helped a little bit and hopefully you guys are all doing very, very well out there. Until next time, have a wonderful day.
