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Tell your neighbors you’re operating a short-term rental at your property while away and give them a number to call if any problems or concerns arise. 311 is not currently routing calls to hosts so this helps until a better solution can be put into practice.
Airbnb provides the below guide. Click the image to enlarge the copy.
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A Story of Economic Success
Joyful Soul
www.joyfulsoulcleaning.com
Owner: Kayla Darling
Year opened: 2017
Number of employees: 12
Denver is home to some incredible vendors who work hard to ensure that home-sharing can be an excellent experience for hosts, guests and the community at large. One of the key players in your home-sharing success is the cleaning company you choose to hire. Joyful Soul Cleaning mainly employs single mothers. Their team is skillfully trained to pay attention to the unique details of your property, send you important reports as well as make your home beautifully guest-ready. Joyful Soul Cleaning’s hard work is reflected in the 5-star reviews they consistently help to generate for their customers’ listings.
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A Step in the Right Direction
Since conception in 2008, Airbnb properties have taken on many shapes and sizes, from renting an air mattress on a living room floor to full homes that can sleep large groups. More recently the talk of the town has been ‘party houses’, which have unfortunately been the scene of open-invite parties and gun violence.
In response to these recent events, including deadly shootings in other cities, Airbnb announced at the end of last year that they would be banning party houses including parties in condos and apartments. Airbnb has created a Neighborhood Support site with contact info to report parties or disturbances: https://www.airbnb.com/neighbors. Additionally, Airbnb says it’s opening a dedicated hotline for mayors and city officials. We are eager to see these steps taken in order to protect not only our guests and hosting community, but our city at large.
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Functional Complaints for a Functional System!
Before changes to the current definition of primary residence are put into place, why not focus on creating a system to service concerns and complaints effectively? The current system is broken.
When a neighbor calls 311 to file a complaint, it’s logged but isn’t communicated to the license holder, host or property manager. Imagine a world where a host recieves a text notification and email when a complaint is filed against their property. The host could immediately address the issue and make adjustments to the house rules/quiet hours, etc. If the issue is noise levels, they could install a decibel reader system like NoiseAware or Minut to send a notification when noise levels surpass the set threshold. This technology should be mandatory.
Complaints in 2019 equated to less than .01 percent of total reservations that took place in Denver.
The complaint system could be streamlined for the benefit of all parties:
The best way to get ahead of a problem is to address it head-on. At the Good Neighbor Summit, David Pardo introduced the “Lend an EAR” approach to having difficult conversations with our neighbors when using our homes as a short-term rental.
A vacation rental property can be a great financial investment and can grow your wealth significantly. Like any business though, your profits will depend heavily on your ability to keep your rental property booked. Booking sites benefit your vacation rental property by allowing you to reach a larger audience and automating the booking process. You can have your property listed on every booking site online by listing your property with Effortless Rental Group. We harness the power of every booking site from Airbnb to Expedia to maximize your vacation rental property.
The popularity of booking sites for short-term rentals has grown increasingly over the past few years. Sites like Expedia and Airbnb allow millions of hosts and guests connect now easier than ever. According to iPropertyManagement, there are over 150 million Airbnb users worldwide. VRBO/HomeAway boast 40 million monthly users, and Expedia boasts 37 million rewards members worldwide. Effortless Rental Group places your site on those and more to ensure that your property is seen.
Apart from advertising your property to millions of users, booking sites benefit your vacation rental property by automating the process of booking guests and receiving payments. The time you save by not having to micromanage your property allows you to spend time growing your business in other ways.
Booking sites have cornered the market on vacation rental properties. The return on investment from posting your property on booking sites exceeds the ROI from traditional listing sites like the local paper or Craigslist. Your listing reaches millions of users and automates many of the administrative processes. Anything that saves you time and money will benefit your vacation rental property. Effortless Rental Group can maximize your vacation rental property
The last decade has really seen a boom in the “share” community with companies that really facilitate the way that homeowners can rent out their spare bedroom or home to potential guests. Companies like Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway have made it easier than ever to take your getaway to the next level of comfort. You can literally stay in a Home Away From Home! It’s also made keeping your investment properties and spare bedrooms booked easier than ever because there are over a hundred million users worldwide. But what’s the difference? Is Airbnb or VRBO better for vacation properties? What about for guests? Well, when you list your short-term rental property with Effortless Rental Group your properties automatically gets listed to to both Airbnb and VRBO/HomeAway as well as on every single one of our partners which include some of the largest booking sites in the world like Expedia and Booking.com, but let’s break them down.
Since their inception in 2008, Airbnb has become a household name for both travelers and hosts seeking to make a profit by providing that “home away from home” experience. Airbnb generally charges a Host fee of 3% of the subtotal. This depends on how strict your cancelation policy is or if you live in Italy. Airbnb charges guests anywhere between 0% and 20% depending on the subtotal, cleaning fees, and length of the stay.
Airbnb has an extensive network of users all around the world and has really sought to create the entire end-to-end travel experience in a single, easy to use app. Airbnb acquired HotelTonight in April which signals that they are interested in growing and have the means to do so. In addition to booking everything from shared rooms to entire mansions and everything in between, Airbnb provides guests with option to book experiences such as classes, workshops, and dinners all from the app. Through partnerships they even put on some once-in-a-lifetime experiences like letting guests stay the night in the Louvre.
VRBO has been around longer than Airbnb, created in 1995, and was acquired by HomeAway in 2006. The HomeAway network is also extensive and this is good for Hosts because their properties are shown to millions of potential guests. One of the main differences between VRBO and Airbnb is that VRBO doesn’t rent out the smaller listings (shared bedrooms, spare bedrooms, home’s where the host resides, etc.). Instead, VRBO focuses on larger properties entire homes, condos, and apartments. It makes for a more conventional stay. While there can be a certain charm to trips where you can crash with strangers like a Hostel, it is really nice to have privacy when you vacation.
The fees on VRBO are a little different than Airbnb in that there are two packages for hosts to choose from: a $499 fee paid annually (recommended for hosts who rent year-round) or a 5% booking fee. Guests can expect to pay between 5% and 15%.
So which should you choose to list your property on? Trick question, the answer is both and then some! With Effortless Rental Group, we show your rental property on Airbnb, VRBO, and a slew of other booking sites. We’ve even harnessed the power of Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, Obitz, TripAdvisor, and many more to ensure that you you’re getting the most out of your short-term rental property.