Top 8 Riskiest Airbnb Parties to Host: What Every Host Needs to Know

Welcome back to the show. I'm happy you're here again. Today we're talking about a topic that might scare some of you, but I want to just remind you that if we have the right measures in place, we can really protect our properties and we can make sure that our operations with our short term rental properties are nice and smooth. And so we've talked about a lot of those things before. We've talked about house rules. We've talked about having cameras. We've talked about having different digital locks and digital contracts or rental agreements with our guests. We've talked about deposits and deposit waivers. And then we've also talked just about what a sketchy reservation looks like. And so if you're new to the show, you can check out all those past episodes at str.

But today we're going to talk about the eight most riskiest parties or events that you could have in your property. And so let's go ahead and start with the number 8. A music or a concert after party. And so again, this is really going to depend on the type of concert. Let's just compare a classical concert, for example, versus an electronic concert that might end at 4 in the morning. So you've got to just keep that in mind. Of course, we're not always going to know this information about our guests. They're not going to tell us, hey, exactly what type of concert they're going to or even if they're going to a concert. But that is one of those first steps in mitigating some of these potentially risky reservations. That's finding out more about our guests and why they're coming to town. Of course we want to do that in a hospitable way. And if someone tells us they're going to a concert, well then we want to wish them an excellent time. So I don't want to generalize with concerts, but there are some types of music that, that might attract more parties than other. And so this is something you want to be aware of in your town. If Taylor Swift's coming, well, that's probably an okay bunch of people to have. So keep that in mind. The more we know, the more we can help mitigate these risks. The other thing, and this is the reason why this is number eight on the list, one, because not all concert types are potentially risky, but a lot of times people are doing the partying at the actual concert, right. And there's not always an after party. So moving on to number seven, weddings and wedding reception. So we're not talking about Bachelorette Parties or the pre wedding festivities. We're talking about the actual event. So again, this is going to depend on the type of property you have. Not all properties lend themselves well to a wedding reception. So it's going to be a bigger property. And the reality is is that a lot of times the actual weddings are not that rambunctious. And I should know. I worked in weddings for years when I was finishing high school and in the beginning part of my college days I worked as a banquet server for weddings. I must have been in hundreds of weddings. And yes, some rowdy things happened, some people got drunk, sometimes there was yelling, sometimes it was really loud. But in general they were pretty well behaved. And so again, this comes back type of property you have. If you're hosting weddings or receptions, you're most likely the briskiest thing might be a noise complaint. Moving on to number six, birthday parties. And so these are across the board, right? A riskier birthday party is certainly going to be 21 years old in the US that is the moment of freedom for a lot of people where they can legally drink alcohol. And so what happens at a lot of these birthday parties? Well, people drink a lot of alcohol and they also invite people that might be underage. And so this is definitely a more risky one. Compare that with someone that's celebrating their 60th birthday party. You're probably not going to have them there doing keg stands and all those types of things. And so this is again one that we just need to know a little bit more about our guests. We need to know how old they are, for example. And if you're not already collecting IDs from your guests that are staying at your property or. Well, I'd highly recommend that. It's going to help in a lot of ways. It's also going to help you combat potentially having a chargeback with the credit card company if you're charging the guests through your direct booking website, for example. Okay, number five, moving on to football parties. So football parties often happen during the day. Right. And this could be a Super bowl party, which we know those are notorious for gatherings and drinking and a bit of rambunctiousness that could be loud, you could get some noise complaints. So keep an eye on those dates. And if college is really big in your town or your city and you have a lot of guests coming there after the games, well, you gotta be a little more careful with this one because again, those games often finish during the day and if someone won, if their team won, well, they might keep on celebrating. Well into the night, and your neighbors might not like that. Moving down the list, number four, we're getting a little bit riskier here. College graduation parties. So this is a big one. This is a party where you're going to have young people at your property, often with a lot of drinking, potentially with some other things going on. This is a type of party where noise could get a little too loud. So again, we've talked about a lot of ways to combat these in the past. In fact, recently we talked about the 15 riskiest holidays to be accepting reservations. That was episode 241. So if you missed that one, go back and check it out. Episode 108, we talk about red flag reservations. So these are red flags that come up before your guest has checked in your property. Again, we want to do as much as possible up front to make sure that we're not having some challenges on the back end. Episode 149, we talked about security cameras, so go back and check that one out if you don't already have a security camera at your property. And coming up, I'm really excited to be interviewing the Leo Walton. He's the founder of Super Hog. This is a company set up to help you ensure that you're not accepting potentially unwanted guests. So stay tuned for that one next week. So number three, spring break events really depends on the market. But all colleges have a spring break, right? So you want to mark those dates. Make sure you're paying a little extra attention to the reservations coming in at that time. No, Number two, we're almost there. Halloween parties. So Halloween parties can definitely cause some issues. First of all, they're pretty much always at night. And so if you have a property that's near other properties, if you've had noise complaints from your neighbors before, accepting guests that are planning on having a Halloween party might not be the best idea. There's very often alcohol involved. People are dressed up in costumes, so they're. They're not themselves, really. It can also cause a bit of mess with your property, too. So if they have decorations, if people are dressed up with face paint and all this stuff, they can rub off on your furniture and on the walls. So keep an extra special eye on Halloween. One other suggestion with Halloween in particular is that you may consider not allowing one night stays. Maybe you're not allowing one night stays already, but if you are, just double check on this date. You may want to bump it up to two nights so that you don't attract someone that just wants to have a party. Okay. Number one, the riskiest type of party that you could have in your short term rental. And this is with the caveat that if you're doing everything properly, you shouldn't have a lot of risk on the back end. And it's also with the caveat that some of these events and parties can, can be huge moneymakers for you. And I know this one is for a lot of people in Nashville, Tennessee. And so number one is bachelorette and bachelor parties. So Nashville is the winner in the United States for the most bachelor or bachelorette parties, I think very closely followed by Las Vegas. And so bachelor and bachelorette parties are really one last hurrah before someone ties the knot. Right. So if you're hosting these types of parties, you can expect a lot of towels to get ruined with makeup. Now I want to generalize here, but that's probably going to come more from the bachelorette side of things. There's going to be some rowdiness. There's probably going to be a lot of drinking. Again, this depends on the size of group that you allow at your property. And this also assumes that you're monitoring the amount of people that check into your property, which you can do with, with a camera at your entry door, making sure when they check in, they're not checking in with 20 people instead of the eight people on the reservation. So there we have it, the eight most riskiest parties or events to be accepting at your property. Again, we can eliminate most all this risk if we're doing and taking the right measures up front. Again, this is really going to depend on the type of property you have, the group size you allow. And these can also be really good money makers. So I don't want to discourage anyone out there. The reality is that after managing over 40,000 guests, my team and I have had very, very few parties. Very small percentage because we're handling these things up front. So I hope that gave you a little bit of insight. If you need help with some of those protections and things to put in place, like your house rules, we'll head over to our website strictly and until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week.

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