6 ms·

Mega-tangent: As a host, I feel compelled to rant about Airbnb whenever they come up in a discussion. The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the

Mega-tangent: As a host, I feel compelled to rant about Airbnb whenever they come up in a discussion. The last 2 years they have _really_ moved to squeeze the hosts. The customer service has been demolished and they seem to have taken a stance of "the guest is always right". I've spent countless hours going through their customer service as a super host, so I know I have a decent amount of anecdata. My suspicion is that they found themselves with more supply than demand, so they are "improving the guest experience" at the expense of the hosts. Since they are a quasi-monopoly (depends on the market) it makes sense for them to prune supply in exchange for better guest experience, a full market approach makes less sense since they make money in proportion to the total amount of money transacted (which as a monopoly it can optimize for in the way a free market can't). But I think this will blowback sooner or later. The biggest value for an Airbnb guest is the review system that allows you to have some degree of certainty of what you are getting. The biggest value for a host is the massive global audience. But guests and hosts, pay a steep fee (17%!) for this. For well-reviewed, long-living stays (like mine :)), paying 17% is way too much to access this audience: the listing already has an online record that provides that quality assurance for the guest, and the host could spend that money on advertising. So that's what many of us are doing, moving to PMS + paid advertising / SEO to diversify on distribution channels. I think there's an opportunity for capturing that semi-pro host market and bundling them in a similar offering that 1) doesn't squeeze them, 2) offers a proper PMS software, and 3) charges a flat fee instead of a variable rate.

hbsbsbsndk 2y ago
[flagged]
- RandomBacon 2y ago
  An AirBNB host is not a landlord. Without landlords, you have no rental properties and everyone who can't afford to purchase their residence outright would have to find another option whatever that might be. (I have never used AirBNB.)
  - bavent 2y ago
    Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience.
    - RandomBacon 2y ago
      So a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience. That isn't caused by landlords, it's caused by zoning boards. Suppose you have a city with a growing population. Then you need someone to pay construction companies to build more housing. When the new residents can afford a down payment, they pay the construction company themselves by taking out a mortgage. When they can't, a landlord does it, or else who? The tenant doesn't have a down payment and needs somewhere to live. The somewhere to live doesn't exist unless someone pays the construction company. The problem only comes when the zoning board stops the construction company from increasing the housing supply. Then a landlord who wants to invest in property has to buy existing property instead of causing more to be created. This is the actual problem. It doesn't matter if landlords want to fund the creation of lots of new housing by supplying capital to pay for it. That's even good. It's only when the creation of new housing is inhibited that things go sour.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      So do you propose that e dry one buy a house and commit to a mortgage no matter what stage of life they are at?
barbazoo 2y ago
> paying 17% is way too much Have you considered increasing the cleaning fee to recoup some of that money? /s
jeofken 2y ago
PMS as in Pantone Matching System or Premenstrual Syndrome? AirBNB can be equally frustrating for users as well. Recently ended up at night in a new city in northern Japan where the host told me the listing was at a different address, where I found nothing, and got only radio silence from the host. Every hotel room in town was occupied that night. Airbnb support, seemingly in far away India, told me to try contacting the host, and that was that. Also recently stayed at a place with a dog that shat inside due to the owner not taking them out; due to politeness no one had complained in the reviews. Also Airbnb lists one price but when booking it always ends up being way more with more fees added. I’m using hotels.com with a filter for “has kitchen” these days, which was the only reason I used Airbnb in the first place
- appreciatorBus 2y ago
  PMS - Property Management System, aka what actual hotels use to manage room inventory, bookings, etc. IMO most of the things that people like about AirBnB vs hotels is downstream of the failed experiment of urban planning. If we want hotel operators willing to "spend" floorspace on kitchens and other niceties, then legal floorspace can't be scarce or special, but most of the current planning regime is oriented around enforcing limits on floorspace. Ditto for having options of places to stay that aren't tourist traps or commercial areas.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I suppose hotels can have a few rooms with kitchens but I'm guessing a vanishingly few people care about kitchens when traveling outside of maybe a microwave and a small refrigerator. AirBnB that are larger (e.g. houses) can also be nice for groups but that's more outside of cities than in a city center. Hotels tend to optimize for the 90% case. Where I'm staying at the moment is a "serviced apartment" and does have a couple burners but that's unusual and I mostly stay here because I like the location in London.
    - secabeen 2y ago
      A large fraction of families traveling value the kitchens (leftovers, kid breakfasts, not having to eat restaurant food for every meal, when all the kids want is Kraft Mac&Cheese, etc.) and the common living spaces (kids go to bed early). I hate traveling with my family and being stuck in a hotel room (or two!). When I'm traveling alone or with just adults, I can be out all day and only use my hotel room for sleeping, but with a diverse set of ages traveling, we often hang out in the living room while someone naps, or my kids will be done with touristing by 3pm and we need somewhere to be until dinnertime. You see this in vacation destinations like Hawaii and Ski towns; there is a significant fraction of accommodations that are Condos, because you need a place to hang. AirBNB brought that to urban areas by sub-letting apartments, when hotel operators only provided maximally-dense sleeping-focused options; multi-bedroom hotel rooms with living rooms and kitchens largely did not exist in major city centers.
mtlynch 2y ago
>So that's what many of us are doing, moving to PMS + paid advertising / SEO For those of us not in this space, what does PMS mean?
- lurk2 2y ago
  > Property Management Systems (PMS) or Hotel Operating System (HOS), under business, terms may be used in real estate, manufacturing, logistics, intellectual property, government, or hospitality accommodation management. They are computerized systems that facilitate the management of properties, personal property, equipment, including maintenance, legalities and personnel all through a single piece of software.
- gsempe 2y ago
  PMS as Property Management System
9283409232 2y ago
I would love to not use Airbnb as a consumer but there is no real alternative here. I hear a lot of people say that Airbnb is just as expensive as hotels but I just don't see it. I'm looking at traveling and a hotel in the area is $900 to $1200 while Airbnbs are $500 to $800.
carlosjobim 2y ago
You are yourself in the business of squeezing, so any company that will be willing to deal with you will have the aim to squeeze you.
gregorymichael 2y ago
AirBnB and Uber both have a dynamic where the host/driver has often taken out a loan and modified their lifestyle to depend on this income, which makes them the easier party to squeeze.
bickfordb 2y ago
I have a smalltime Airbnb and I feel the same. Their only value is in their marketing distribution and they take 30%+. Their hosting tools could be worse but are not particularly great. Usually things work fine, but they have zero / hostile customer service on the host side on the random exceptional occurence. Hopefully more marketplaces show up
hintklb 2y ago
Surprised to hear this because I had a very weird experience on my last stay. (and it will always be last as I will never stay at an Airbnb again). Airbnb sided with the Host for some fabricated damages because the host was mad we told them the place was unclean. They put the burden of proof on us to prove we didn't destroy one of the sinks. Absolutely ridiculous. We had to fight it for 3+ hours on the phone and message and start a chargeback and only then did support drop the fabricated charge. And to top all of this, Airbnb deleted our bad review from that place (but left the review of the host). So, never, absolutely never again. Too bad because I was spending 2k+$ on Airbnb before that incident and only got great reviews from other hosts.

hbsbsbsndk 2y ago

[flagged]

RandomBacon 2y ago
An AirBNB host is not a landlord. Without landlords, you have no rental properties and everyone who can't afford to purchase their residence outright would have to find another option whatever that might be. (I have never used AirBNB.)
- bavent 2y ago
  Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience.
  - RandomBacon 2y ago
    So a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > Without landlords we wouldn’t have a chunk of the housing supply held captive as investment, driving costs out of reach for most of the non-HN-reading audience. That isn't caused by landlords, it's caused by zoning boards. Suppose you have a city with a growing population. Then you need someone to pay construction companies to build more housing. When the new residents can afford a down payment, they pay the construction company themselves by taking out a mortgage. When they can't, a landlord does it, or else who? The tenant doesn't have a down payment and needs somewhere to live. The somewhere to live doesn't exist unless someone pays the construction company. The problem only comes when the zoning board stops the construction company from increasing the housing supply. Then a landlord who wants to invest in property has to buy existing property instead of causing more to be created. This is the actual problem. It doesn't matter if landlords want to fund the creation of lots of new housing by supplying capital to pay for it. That's even good. It's only when the creation of new housing is inhibited that things go sour.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    So do you propose that e dry one buy a house and commit to a mortgage no matter what stage of life they are at?

barbazoo 2y ago

> paying 17% is way too much Have you considered increasing the cleaning fee to recoup some of that money? /s

jeofken 2y ago

PMS as in Pantone Matching System or Premenstrual Syndrome? AirBNB can be equally frustrating for users as well. Recently ended up at night in a new city in northern Japan where the host told me the listing was at a different address, where I found nothing, and got only radio silence from the host. Every hotel room in town was occupied that night. Airbnb support, seemingly in far away India, told me to try contacting the host, and that was that. Also recently stayed at a place with a dog that shat inside due to the owner not taking them out; due to politeness no one had complained in the reviews. Also Airbnb lists one price but when booking it always ends up being way more with more fees added. I’m using hotels.com with a filter for “has kitchen” these days, which was the only reason I used Airbnb in the first place

appreciatorBus 2y ago
PMS - Property Management System, aka what actual hotels use to manage room inventory, bookings, etc. IMO most of the things that people like about AirBnB vs hotels is downstream of the failed experiment of urban planning. If we want hotel operators willing to "spend" floorspace on kitchens and other niceties, then legal floorspace can't be scarce or special, but most of the current planning regime is oriented around enforcing limits on floorspace. Ditto for having options of places to stay that aren't tourist traps or commercial areas.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I suppose hotels can have a few rooms with kitchens but I'm guessing a vanishingly few people care about kitchens when traveling outside of maybe a microwave and a small refrigerator. AirBnB that are larger (e.g. houses) can also be nice for groups but that's more outside of cities than in a city center. Hotels tend to optimize for the 90% case. Where I'm staying at the moment is a "serviced apartment" and does have a couple burners but that's unusual and I mostly stay here because I like the location in London.
  - secabeen 2y ago
    A large fraction of families traveling value the kitchens (leftovers, kid breakfasts, not having to eat restaurant food for every meal, when all the kids want is Kraft Mac&Cheese, etc.) and the common living spaces (kids go to bed early). I hate traveling with my family and being stuck in a hotel room (or two!). When I'm traveling alone or with just adults, I can be out all day and only use my hotel room for sleeping, but with a diverse set of ages traveling, we often hang out in the living room while someone naps, or my kids will be done with touristing by 3pm and we need somewhere to be until dinnertime. You see this in vacation destinations like Hawaii and Ski towns; there is a significant fraction of accommodations that are Condos, because you need a place to hang. AirBNB brought that to urban areas by sub-letting apartments, when hotel operators only provided maximally-dense sleeping-focused options; multi-bedroom hotel rooms with living rooms and kitchens largely did not exist in major city centers.

mtlynch 2y ago

>So that's what many of us are doing, moving to PMS + paid advertising / SEO For those of us not in this space, what does PMS mean?

lurk2 2y ago
> Property Management Systems (PMS) or Hotel Operating System (HOS), under business, terms may be used in real estate, manufacturing, logistics, intellectual property, government, or hospitality accommodation management. They are computerized systems that facilitate the management of properties, personal property, equipment, including maintenance, legalities and personnel all through a single piece of software.
gsempe 2y ago
PMS as Property Management System

9283409232 2y ago

I would love to not use Airbnb as a consumer but there is no real alternative here. I hear a lot of people say that Airbnb is just as expensive as hotels but I just don't see it. I'm looking at traveling and a hotel in the area is $900 to $1200 while Airbnbs are $500 to $800.

carlosjobim 2y ago

You are yourself in the business of squeezing, so any company that will be willing to deal with you will have the aim to squeeze you.

gregorymichael 2y ago

AirBnB and Uber both have a dynamic where the host/driver has often taken out a loan and modified their lifestyle to depend on this income, which makes them the easier party to squeeze.

bickfordb 2y ago

I have a smalltime Airbnb and I feel the same. Their only value is in their marketing distribution and they take 30%+. Their hosting tools could be worse but are not particularly great. Usually things work fine, but they have zero / hostile customer service on the host side on the random exceptional occurence. Hopefully more marketplaces show up

hintklb 2y ago

Surprised to hear this because I had a very weird experience on my last stay. (and it will always be last as I will never stay at an Airbnb again). Airbnb sided with the Host for some fabricated damages because the host was mad we told them the place was unclean. They put the burden of proof on us to prove we didn't destroy one of the sinks. Absolutely ridiculous. We had to fight it for 3+ hours on the phone and message and start a chargeback and only then did support drop the fabricated charge. And to top all of this, Airbnb deleted our bad review from that place (but left the review of the host). So, never, absolutely never again. Too bad because I was spending 2k+$ on Airbnb before that incident and only got great reviews from other hosts.