A Short Guide to Becoming a Top-Rated Short-Term Rental Host
Want to elevate your short-term rental property earnings? Becoming a top-rated host on platforms like Airbnb, VRBO, and Tripadvisor is one of the best ways to boost your revenue.
This quarter, AirBnB shared that owners have earned a cumulative $180 billion since the site’s founding. Many property owners are jumping on the bandwagon to become top-rated to improve their visibility on short-term rental sites, allowing them to get a piece of that revenue and strengthen their real estate investments.
Today, we’ve broken down some of the most important aspects to becoming a top-rated vacation rental host. Our guide will help you make an impact on short-term rental sites and earn more revenue from your real estate investment in just a few steps.
Create An Effective Marketing Plan For Your Vacation Rental Listing
The first step to becoming a top-rated rental host is creating an effective marketing plan for your property listing. It’s not enough to just write a short description of the home that will appeal to guests anymore–the game has changed, and there’s a lot of competition out there. In order to break out from the competition, it’s important to work hard on your property listings to ensure that they stand out.
Write a list that focuses on the unique appeal that your property gives, and create your listing description using those list items. Nowadays, your property listing should be more a work of art than just an offering of a place to stay for the night, filled with gorgeous photos that show off the property’s best features.
The Vital Importance of Guest Vetting and Services
One important consideration to keep in mind when working towards becoming a top-rated short-term rental host is that the quality of your guests also determines the quality of your guest reviews. This is why it is vital that you implement some type of guest-vetting system to ensure that your guests are high-quality and aren’t trying to scam you or damage your property.
Another thing that will improve your guest reviews is providing hotel-level service and communication to your guests. Even if you are not on-site or near your property at all times, ensure that you have a system in place to take care of all guest issues–the quicker the better. The better service you provide to your guests, the better that they will rate your property and the more likely they are to book a stay again.
Maintaining Your Property The Right Way
Property maintenance and inspections are another vital consideration to keep in mind when working towards becoming a top-rated host on sites like AirBnB. No one wants to stay in a run-down property that’s falling apart, and the state of your property will heavily affect how your guests rate you as a host once their stay is over.
A way to prevent this from happening is by implementing regular property inspections to keep an eye on the state of the home. However, an even more effective way to ensure that the property’s value is preserved is to implement inspections after each and every guest. This strategy can be tough if you’re not in the area to handle maintenance considerations, but it works well to hold guests accountable for damages. Property inspections after every guest stay also give you a chance to observe wear and tear on the property, so that you can prevent it from worsening and causing bigger issues down the line.
Handling Cleaning and Turndown Service
Hiring a spectacular cleaning service for your short-term rental can be a tough task, but finding the right one that will provide white-glove cleaning and laundry turndown services for your property is an essential step towards becoming a top-rated host.
Your guests will expect a higher level of service from you if you become top-rated, and preparing for this eventuality by choosing a stellar cleaning service can help ensure you reach and keep your status as a top-rated host on short-term rental sites.
Let LocalVR Help You Become a Top-Rated Host
Let’s face it: becoming a top-rated short-term rental host is not an easy feat. With so much competition out there and so many properties to choose from, standing out can be difficult and fraught with a lot of trial and error. But by implementing these simple but effective solutions, you’ll see both your bookings and ratings skyrocket, allowing you to earn more revenue from your property investment.
If this sounds like a huge task you’d rather outsource to a knowledgeable team of local experts, let LocalVR take the reins on your vacation rental. Our all-inclusive property management services include all these steps and much more to take your short-term rental investment to the next level. Not only do our owners earn more, but they deal with less hassle, turning their property management woes into passive-income dreams.