Industry Conversations

I’m struggling using Buildium for Long Term Rentals and Hospitable for Short Term Rentals. And have to manually enter receivables for short term stays into Buildium for owner payouts. As many of the short term owners both own STRs and LTRs, and some properties will move in and out of both STRs and LTRs.  Curious what other managers are doing to successfully operate a business that has both STR and LTR! Thank you!

Is anyone using Happy Guest? My STRs are smaller, single family properties (both 2 bedrooms). I am considering using Happy Guest so I can list on VRBO and have accidental insurance coverage as well as a rental agreement. My concern is Happy Guest requires me to purchase a policy on all guest, including my Airbnb guests. I worry about getting pushback from Airbnb guests on the two options to either 1) purchase the coverage for $37 OR 2) put a $1000 hold on their cc. $37 is a lot to add on considering what my price point is and some may not have $1000 room on a credit card.  I have reviewed two properties that use Happy guest and looked through their guest reviews and BOTH properties had an unfavorable review due to having this pop up after making their reservation. Both properties clearly state this requirement prior to booking but as we all know most guests do not read all the info prior to booking.  For those using Happy Guest, what has been your experience? 

During the off-season, my cleaners have trouble getting staff who are happy to work on Sundays. If I wanted to configure my calendar between now and March, such that if there is a booking that ends on a Sunday, then block off Sunday night (so it can be cleaned on Monday)… and if there is a booking that starts on a Sunday, block off Saturday night (so it can be cleaned on Saturday)… How would I go about that? In other words, “No same-day turnovers on Sundays”, but only for a certain range of dates. I’ve been blocking nights manually for now but I’m curious if it can be done systematically.

I’m looking at switching over from Remotelock to Jarvis. Does any one use Jarvis for lock management? Do all of the locks that Jarvis supports also work with Hosptiable? Are there group door or common door features available on Jarvis?

I cannot figure out how to get the payout or revenue number with all the other variables.  I’ve tried it so many different ways and even asked Claude a few times.  Claude can’t figure it out.  Also is there anyway to make the cleaning fee and the administration fee be pass through to the owner.  For some reason its getting put into the total and Its adding it and I only get 20% of it because thats my comission.  I need to get the whole cleaning and administration fee.  Thank you

I'm trying to think through how to block off one of our units for a half-day of maintenance, that needs to be done on a specific day.The work is being done on May 12 and will be done inside of our normal turnover hours (10 am to 4 pm).So it's fine for a guest to check OUT on May 12 (10 am)...And it's even fine for another guest to check IN on May 12 (4 pm).I just can't have a guest who would be in the MIDDLE of a stay on May 12, because they would be there during the day, and the maintenance cannot be done with a guest inside the property.Any solutions to this, other than blocking the night of the 12th from being booked AT ALL? Seems like a shame to lose a night for work that’s being done during the day. 

Hi everyone,I wanted to see if anyone else has run into this or has found a workaround.I recently had a direct booking guest who, on day 2 of a 4-night stay, orchestrated a full-on brawl outside the property and streamed it live on social media. Police were called, and this was a clear violation of our rental agreement (no parties, disturbances, etc.).Because of that, I made the decision to terminate the stay. My cancellation policy is no refunds, especially in cases where house rules are violated.However, when I went to process the cancellation in Hospitable, I only saw two options:1. Host cancels → guest receives a refund2. Guest cancels → no refundThis created a problem because there was no option for a host-initiated cancellation without issuing a refund due to a policy violation.In situations like this, I would expect there to be a flow where:-The host can cancel for cause (rule violations, safety issues, etc.)-The payout follows the host’s cancellation policy-The guest can disput

We launched Inndirectly 6 months ago (based out of Seattle) with 3 properties, vision and determination and have hundreds of properties across the US and 6 countries so far. We're so thankful for the support of the Hospitable community!We built Inndirectly.com as a central hub for all booking options, to help make direct booking sites searchable and avoid all the review and algorithm games and ever changing policies while working towards platform independence!  😊 On Inndirectly you can link your properties with all their booking options including direct and social media and have direct connection with your guests outside of any platform. It's $7 per property per month or $50 per year and since it's a listing site, not a booking site, there are no commissions, algorithms or micromanagement.  Hospitable hosts use coupon: HOSPINN45 to make your first year only $5 per property. 💕  

I would like to be notified if a guest does not check into the home by the morning of their check out date. This way I can inform the cleaning team there will not be a cleaning today. Is this possible? 

I followed the instructions given on the Townhall to go to my Mogul business page to find the banner to take me to my profile to prepare to be matched to potential owners BUT my page doesn’t have a banner.  Can anyone else see a banner on their owner page?  I think this sounds like a great service and I am eager to be considered.  

Um...Grocery delivery taking up valuable real estate on our listingsI had heard talks in other STR groups about this, but had not seen it for myself until now.So instead of highlighting something about your listing, Airbnb is now highlighting 3rd party services. This is not something you have to opt into. Grocery delivery is just something a guest can do while staying at an Airbnb. It is not a huge deal or any big-time extra thing to advertise, as everyone knows about Instacart / DoorDash, etc.How do you feel about losing the valuable real estate section and Airbnb replacing it with "Grocery Delivery" advertising?(Not my listing, so I am hiding the host and link) 

On Monday April 14th (Pacific Time), Airbnb accidentally re-enabled the option for PMS-connected hosts to change their pricing structure.The bug remained active through Thursday, giving a window of a few days where many of you were able to switch back to the split fee — and a lot of you did (alongside some truly fantastic memes).Airbnb has confirmed with us that this was a bug. They do not intend to re-offer the ability to switch pricing structures. In fact, Airbnb is moving toward enforcing the host-only fee (15.5%) as the global standard — including for non-PMS-connected hosts across additional geographies. The split fee will be going away, the host-only fee is going nowhere. What we've heard from AirbnbI want to be transparent that some of this is based on what Airbnb has communicated to us, and is subject to unilateral change by Airbnb. Take it as informed context, but I am not in the room where the decisions are made, and there may be some lag before Hospitable hears about somethi

With Airbnb switching soon to fake phone numbers for guests and us how can we capture phones and emails so we can continue to communicate with our guests going forward? 

I think something just quietly changed… and I’m not sure if this is a glitch or a major rollback.I came across this reel:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXFWGrRkdw-/?igsh=NGYyMXV0OThhbmRlThen checked my own settings in Airbnb…👉 I’m PMS-connected via Hospitable👉 And I STILL have the option to switch back to split-fee pricingThat shouldn’t be possible… right?I was under the impression that once you’re PMS-connected, host-only (simplified pricing) was mandatory. No going back.I’ll drop screenshots below, but this raises a much bigger question:Did Airbnb just quietly remove the requirement?Or is this:A UI glitch? A phased rollback? An account-level exception? Something that hasn’t “fully enforced” yet?More importantly…Has anyone actually flipped back to split-fee while PMS-connected?If yes:Did it stick? Any impact on conversion or ranking? Did Airbnb push you back to host-only later?This feels like one of those “if true, this changes strategy” moments.Because if split-fee is back on the t

TL;DROn April 13, Airbnb quietly completed what appears to be a final migration wave for remaining PMS-connected split-fee hosts — and simultaneously surfaced an opt-back option letting already-transitioned hosts switch back to split fee. No announcement. No host communication. It spread on social media. Six months into a transition that cost many of us real money in rank drops, ad spend, and pricing re-architecture, this post is an attempt to take honest stock of where we are: whether the host-only model actually delivers on its theoretical advantages in a market that still isn't fully transitioned, what the competitive and guest-perception risks look like on both sides of the choice, and what those of us who've been living with it have done to adapt. Questions at the bottom — especially keen to hear from anyone who has toggled back, anyone who wasn't migrated in October, and anyone tracking value sub-score shifts since the change.  Host-Only Fee at 6 Months: Time for an Honest Commun

I’m not too confident of Smarty’s answer to this. But it’s not worth a support ticket, so I thought I’d pose the question here.I’m not able to find any documentation about the “AI Summary” that gets generated when a guest inquires or books. I haven’t found it to be very helpful, and it often raises more questions than answers, because it seems to “make stuff up” in the absence of facts and evidence.Example, here’s an Airbnb guest with 3 glowing reviews, and I use the AirReview extension to be able to see what reviews the GUEST has left for other hosts, and he’s left only glowing reviews for other hosts, and there is no indication whatsoever that this guy has any aversion to “Mold, unclean bathrooms, pests, and lack of cleanliness.”This AI Summary actually raises red flags when it shouldn’t. Is this a guest that complains? Are they going to be a problem? As far as I can tell, no. So where is the AI getting these assumptions from? Smarty says it aggregates info about the guest from other

Has anyone tried integrating OpenClaw to Hospitable via API for managing their STRs? It seems like there’s potential good synergy in responding to guest inquiries and provide assistance when necessary. Open for discussion and would like your input.

After all that big announcement and chaos, Airbnb has not made it so that you can switch back to the old host fee model of 3%!  Very interesting as they made such a big announcement for this change, yet there has been no conversation about this option to switch back.  

I just saw on a FB post  that the split fee option is back for all listings. Anyone else see this and made the change back? What does this mean for the Hospitable AIRBNB Markup? 

I manage $1.3 million in bookings  and 2200 reservations a year and I’m on many platforms. Booking.com is by far the absolute worst. I do everything you’re supposed to do, we require a deposit, we require ID verification all that kind of stuff through charge automation but somehow we still just get absolute nightmare guests. Anytime I have to interact with Booking.com‘s customer support. It is a joke. Case in point, a guest recently Booked for six people at my house, paid the damage deposit, gave the names and ages of the guests, and then 30 people showed up at my house. When I contacted Booking.com about this, they said that they cannot cancel this guests reservation without their consent, which is just incredible. Does anyone have any contact with people that actually work in Booking.com like some kind of higher level rep or someone in the PR team or something? I just don’t understand how their service offerings can be so bad.

Had our best December ever this year, with all 31 nights booked for $17.5k in total revenue. This is in the Disney market, the most saturated market in the country, and #1 on almost every guru list of "worst markets to invest in".Airbnb friends, the problem here, like most markets, is supply (in both quantity and quality), not demand. If you can operate at the top, there is still money to be made. And you don't have to have a tippy top property necessarily to operate at the top. It has to be marketable, but there are much better properties than mine in this neighborhood.It comes down to 3 basic pillars, and I'll give one example of each here, and will go into more depth on each when I have a bit more time.1) Listing Optimization - Bullet points, color. Ditch the superfluous wording (yes I'm aware of the irony) and skip to the important parts in bullet points. If you don't have color in your house, add it in your images (example in comments). Did you know you can use colorful emoticons

Hi everyone, I’m curious — what is currently your biggest challenge when it comes to managing turnovers? Is it:• Finding reliable cleaners• Timing issues• Quality consistency• Communication I’ve seen all of these come up in different properties. Would love to hear your experience.

Hi.  Does anyone know how to get pet fees to be findable on VRBO?  We have two pet friendly rentals, but there is no clear way when guests are booking to select the pet reservation, and then I am stuck pestering guests for a pet fee.   It is noted in the property description, and is set as a fee on the listing, it just never seems to pop up as an option when people book.   

Has anyone ever gone to the trouble of asking Vrbo to turn OFF the syndication of your Vrbo listings to Google Vacation Rentals (GVR)? Any luck in doing that?The reasoning is that when multiple booking sites syndicate to GVR, it can cause duplicates if GVR isn’t able to match and merge the listing from its various sources. Another reason would be to give guests fewer choices when looking at your listing on GVR, to steer them toward your Direct site rather than Vrbo. I’ve wasted a couple hours so far trying to get support from Vrbo on this. They keep telling me random things such as I need to turn off Instant Book (bogus), or that GVR is picking up my Vrbo listings organically (also bogus). 

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