Part 2 of 3: How to Attract the Best Guests with Strong House Rules

This week's video is the 2nd part of my 3 part series about how to avoid the worst guests while attracting the best ones on Airbnb. This video uncovers why strong house rules are so important to avoiding the worst guests. Airbnb allows hosts to upload their own set of unique House Rules. All too often I see that Airbnb hosts have left this field blank. Leaving this field blank creates opportunities for problems to arise - even when hosting the best guests. To help you get started with your own set of unique house rules, I share my must-have rules in this video. 👨‍⚖️📖🙏

This video is based on my Ultimate Guide to Avoiding the Worst Guests where I go through my entire method for avoiding the worst guests and attracting the best ones. You can download the guide 👇👇👇here 

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TRANSCRIPT

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Welcome back to my channel! I’m Matt the creator of Airbnbuncovered and Airbnb super host. On this channel I uncover some of the best kept hosting secrets as well as share with you everything that I’ve ever learned after hosting over 3000 guests. It’s the perfect channel for brand new hosts - who have yet to host a guest, those of you who are thinking about starting an Airbnb in your home or hosts who have a hosted a few guests, but still have questions.

This week’s episode is the second part of my 3 part series about how to avoid the worst guests and attract the best ones. In this series I’m sharing with you exactly how I do it on my own listings. To help you along, I’ve created the Ultimate Guide to Avoiding the Worst guests. You can download it for free on my website. I’ll link to in the description below. Last week I talked all about key hosting stats and how they can put your listing front and center for the best guests. Today, we’re going to look at house rules and the role that they play in avoiding the worst guests and how they set the expectations for your best guests.  Next week, we’ll look at the final part of my two step method to avoiding the worst guests where I’ll show you some strategies for dealing with inquiries and requests from guests you aren’t comfortable hosting. 

Airbnb provides some basic house rules within the listing setup screens. You can check off whether you allow pets, smoking, parties, children etc, but right below this area there is space to add your own house rules. And I strongly suggest that you do. What to put in here is what this video is all about.

Do you have a unique rule for your listing? Let me know in the comments below.

As I was saying your house rules are the first part of the two step method for avoiding the worst guests. The house rules are the base that you are going to use when dealing with both good—and – bad guests. They clearly outline what is acceptable in your home and what is not.

Good guests are going to want to follow your house rules. And they are going to appreciate knowing upfront, what they can and—can not do in your home over their stay. They’ll likely reward you with a 5-star rating for clearly outlining what your expectations are of guests staying in your home.

You’re also going to use your house rules when dealing with inquires—and – requests from potentially problematic guests. And I’ll tell you exactly how to do this in just a moment.

I’ve developed a comprehensive list of house rules that YOU can use in your listing. The list is broken down between rules I think all hosts should adopt, ones specifically for stand-alone listings, ones for shared accommodation and some specifically for condo or apartment buildings. You can get this list on my website in a guide called “The ultimate guide for avoiding the worst guests” and I’ll provide a link in the description below. 

But I do want to take a minute and go over some of what I think are essential and must-have rules. The first is NO PARTIES. And I know there is a checkbox for this on Airbnb, but I think this one merits repeating in the house rules. Another must-have rule is that all guests must be registered with the reservation. You want to know if a guest has booked for 1 guest and there are 4 planning to stay in your home. You also need a rule about smoking – if it’s allowed and where and depending on where you live, you also want to specify whether or not your smoking rule includes cannabis or not. The legalization of cannabis has certainly given complexity for smoking rules. The last one that I think is essential for shared accommodation is a rule about quiet hours. You’re also going to want to go a bit deeper about the rules needed specifically for your home.

Perhaps there are unique rules that you need to include: for example, maybe you’re on a septic tank and only human waste and toilet paper can be flushed. Maybe you don’t want guests using metal utensils on your pots and pans. Maybe there’s a gate that needs to be locked at all times or maybe there’s a part of your home that is not available to guests. As you can there is some preparation involved in order to avoid the worst guests…. but trust me, it will be worth it. Next we’re going to look at the second step in the 2-step method to avoiding the worst guests which is how to deal with inquiries and requests from potentially problematic guests.

At this point, I hope that you’ll agree that you need to have additional rules detailed on your listing. These additional rules clearly outline what’s allowed in your home and what isn’t. Remember you don’t have to come up with these all on your own. I’ve written a handy guide that lists all my must have rules and you can get for free from my website. The link is in the description below.

Over the next 24 hours, I encourage you to log into Airbnb and create your additional rules. I want you be avoiding the worst guests and attracting the best ones ASAP! The best guests are waiting for you!

Plus, you’re going to need to have these rules to make next week’s episode work. And next week is all about creating standardized messages for dealing with guests you’re not comfortable hosting. So be sure to tune in.

Thank you again for watching. I’m tuly hoping that you’re enjoying the content on my channel and if you are, please give it a thumbs up! As you probably noticed, I’m just getting started with this channel, so let me know in the comments below if you have a specific topic you want me to cover. Oh and finally, please subscribe if you haven’t already and click the notification bell so you’ll be notified when I upload a new video. I’ve been working on lots of great stuff for the channel that I hope you’ll enjoy. So until next week! Bye for now.