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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello. Welcome back for another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:04] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:00:06] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting

[00:00:07] Sarah: And this is the–

[00:00:08] Both Annette & Sarah: Hosting Hotline.

[00:00:09] Sarah: If you’d like to get your hosting questions answered here in the Hosting Hotline, it’s super simple. You just have to go to hostinghotline.com, ask your question, just like Vanessa’s doing today, and if we don’t have the answer, we will tap into our network of experts, but oftentimes Annette and I have enough experience and know how. We can certainly set you on your way. And then you help so many of their hosts in the meantime, learn from your question. And today, Vanessa has an excellent question, and the answer might surprise you.

[00:00:40] Question: Hey, Sarah. Hey, Annette. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is Vanessa from Whidbey Island. We run a short-term rental on Whidbey Island in Washington state called Bells Beach Lookout. And thanks to you, it’s been going really well. We are in the process of purchasing our second short-term rental, and the seller of this house, she also is an Airbnb host and has done very well.

[00:01:05] She has great reviews. It’s 4.93. I learned from Airbnb that those reviews can’t be transferred. Darn it. What tips do you have for me to make this transition very effective to make it easy for past guests that have stayed there to want to come back. How can I connect with this seller, and what questions or requests should I be making of her in a win- win collaborative kind of way? I thank you very much for your answers, and thanks again for all you do.

[00:01:41] Annette: I’ve actually been encountering this often with hosts wanting to either have the listing, keep the bookings, keep all the ratings, and it just doesn’t work like that. The listing stays with the host, not the address of the property. And understandably so because that host is no longer hosting.

[00:02:05] So what if the new host doesn’t host the same way or makes changes? I understand Airbnb is built on trust, and so just transferring reviews to a new host, can’t really trust that. We want to share right now, for everyone out there, this is why it is so important to, and on the up and up, don’t go around Airbnb’s terms and conditions, but to collect information from your guests so you can reach back out to them.

[00:02:34] So Vanessa, if this host has any sort of contact list from those past guests, email, phone numbers, whatever that may be, that would be the first request that Sarah and I would make of that owner as any guest information that you could tap into.

[00:02:54] Sarah: First of all, I want to make a comment, Annette, because actually this past year has been the year of me learning and understanding selling and buying operating short-term rentals. And it blows my mind that people think just because it’s currently an operating short-term rental, but if it’s not run as a business, it’s just run “as an Airbnb” and only on Airbnb that they think there’s all this value baked into it.

[00:03:18] And so I had a buyer who liked a property with a seller who, yes, had great reviews on Airbnb. She was booked all the time. And this seller thought, like, I’m going to add X amount of dollars to this sale because this is an awesome– and when I told her as the agent of the buyer, I was like, “Technically Airbnb’s terms and conditions state that you can’t transfer.” Now, have people done it?

[00:03:44] Both Annette & Sarah: Yes.

[00:03:45] Sarah: Yes. But if you get caught–

[00:03:48] Annette: Mm-Hmm. It’s not worth it.

[00:03:49] Sarah: I don’t think worth it.

[00:03:50] Annette: It’s a short-term win for potential long-term loss. You just got to start fresh.

[00:03:55] Sarah: You do have to start fresh. And so when I shared that with her, I’m like, “I can’t advise my client to do something that’s against this platform.” You don’t have any contact information. You don’t have a business. You know what I mean? You’ve got a great listing in Airbnb that I or my client can’t own.

[00:04:11] So Vanessa, you said win-win. We don’t know if your seller has an actual book of business or if they just have this Airbnb listing. So you could explain this to your seller. Let’s just pretend the seller is only listed on Airbnb and they don’t have their contacts. Depending on under what pretenses you purchase the property and at what price, they might think that they’ve got this awesome opportunity for you, but you’ve got to build this thing back up essentially from scratch because there is no website.

[00:04:42] There’s no book of business in terms of email lists, phone numbers, and full names of guests. Let’s just assume that. We don’t know that, Vanessa. We only know from Vanessa what she shared. So for win-win Vanessa, we’re going to give you some other things too. And I think what you could share with this seller is like, “Hey, because you don’t have, I can’t take on this listing in Airbnb. You got to start from scratch.”

[00:05:02] You’re selling it as an operating “Airbnb”, but I’m getting some furniture along with it. Here’s what you could do for me to sweeten the pot with this sale. Because, listen, one buyer is no buyers. So when it comes to win-win, she wants this sale to go through, I would assume. If you’re a qualified buyer, and you know that it’s a short-term rental and you want to keep running it as a short-term rental, we’re going to give you some ideas too on what else you could ask of her.

[00:05:30] Annette: Yes. So I would first want to look at historical data in Airbnb. So even though she can’t transfer the listing to you, she could get you reports. Because we want you to be armed with data, at least from the last 12 months, what her average daily rate was, what the booking window was for her. Because we want you to beat her baseline.

[00:05:55] We want you to be like you versus her, essentially, in 2025. So historical data, reporting, I would definitely get that from the seller. And they can get that for you because it would be from their account. We would also want you to mine her current reviews. And all of those reviews, we want you to take those.

[00:06:16] What are the common themes that people love in the home? Make sure that you keep those. What are the common themes of maybe could be improved, and improve those ASAP. The photos, depending on what those look like, see if you could have access to her photos if they are awesome. You might be able to use, like you’re saying, some of those past guests might recognize, some of those.

[00:06:39] So that might be a way. We always encourage everyone to get brand new photos whenever there’s a change in ownership. Hopefully, you’ll probably do some tweaks of your own. But if there are some knockout photos that would identify a past guests that could see it visually and know, oh, that’s where we stayed before, that could help you.

[00:06:58] Sarah: Those are all really good tips, Annette. I also might ask her because, Annette and I say this all the time, every home is a snowflake, and every operator is a snowflake, and every guest is a snowflake. So if you can get any current SOPs for the house, so standard operating procedures that maybe the seller has learned that just works really well for that house, I’ll be the first person to stand on my high heel and be like, “But my cleaning standards are best in the way I do things.”

[00:07:24] And that might be true, but still, to get the way that she does things would be helpful. So from cleaning to check in, to check out, to stocking supplies, to getting deliveries. Anything that it takes to run that short-term rental, if she can equip you with the back of house details of how she gets that done, even if it’s not the way you want to do it, you at least know that way.

[00:07:45] Annette: That’s value too, is like, what was the team helping her get that 4.93? So if you can have access to that book of her Rolodex there, I think that is extremely valuable of who’s been to the home, who’s been maintaining the home, who knows the home. They’ll probably actually know the home better than you.

[00:08:05] So I would definitely lean in getting those phone numbers, those connections of the team that has been helping her currently operate. And lot of times, we have seen that as actually very, very common where people create relationships with past cleaners, past maintenance, and you can actually give them access to more properties since you have yours. So I think that is a win-win. And a lot of times owners, they want to help who’s currently helping them with the home. So give you their team list.

[00:08:37] Sarah: Next up is Annette already shared with you to get the stats of the listing, but above and beyond, like, what was her length of stay, average daily rates, and all that. Ask her the current listing copy and the current listing photos. Has she changed them around ever? Have they been the same for years?

[00:08:59] Because that way you can learn, okay, she hasn’t changed them for years. So maybe if I do change the hero image, I can at least track the difference is there. Could I push a higher ADR during these seasons if I actually feature the hot tub or the fire pit? Whatever it is. The copy, has she ever changed that?

[00:09:15] Did she have a practice for adjusting it with the seasonality or what have you? If she hasn’t, that could be really good for you. You could optimize it for different times of the year. Does she have guest communication templates? Again, I’ll die on my hill of like the way I say things is best. But what I need to learn for myself is, no, sometimes when someone has been operating a specific property to a specific guest avatar, they actually might know what’s best when it comes to guest communication.

[00:09:40] So if she could share with you any of those templates that work really well so that guests don’t have any questions when finding the place or checking in or checking out. And of course, Annette already mentioned the review analysis. Really diving into what contributed to the high rating. If it’s all guest communication, that’s tied to the seller. And so that’s good to know.

[00:10:01] If it’s amenities and location, and I know you already know it Whidbey Island pretty well since you already have a property there, maybe that’s where you can like, oh, they actually loved the guest communication. I can probably add to the amenities and maybe try to, like Annette said, compete with her as the operator and turn it up a notch, essentially.

[00:10:19] Annette: And it sounds like it could be cool because you’re now going to have two homes on the island. So a great opportunity for you to upsell guests for both properties. And heck, see if you can throw into the sale a few nights stay for yourself before it closes so you can get a feel for the property.

[00:10:35] Sarah: That’s a good tip. I didn’t even–

[00:10:37] Annette: And that’s for everybody out there if you caught your eye on a property. You want to buy it. Maybe the place isn’t even up for sale. Go stay there, make them an offer after you stay there. You might be surprised on who’s ready to sell their property.

[00:10:52] Sarah: And let’s say they can’t reach out to guests on Airbnb and give them the new listing URL for the new listing on Airbnb. I would also caution them from sending them anywhere else. That’s not advisable. But let’s say that seems like a lot of work or she’s not agreeable to do that.

[00:11:09] Maybe there’s a handful of repeat guests that are super valuable. Maybe she can at least agree, the seller, to reach out to those repeat guests and give you that information or at least let them know that it’ll be transferring ownership. But again, like Annette said, if you’re even thinking about selling your short-term rental in the near future and you really want to make extra money on “selling it as an Airbnb,” just know that the value of the furniture can only go so far to that buyer.

[00:11:39] Really, it’s the book of business. And so if you can take everything we mentioned today to advise Vanessa and create your own little handbook to pass on to a buyer, that would even be a little bit more valuable. But nothing is as valuable as a website, as Google Analytics tied to that website, as guest information. That is where the real value is.

[00:12:05] Annette: Absolutely.

[00:12:06] Sarah: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:12:08] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we are–

[00:12:10] Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:12:11] Both Annette & Sarah: Talk to you next time.