Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Let's start this episode like we do each and every week, and that is featuring one of you, our incredible listeners who's heading on over to strshare.com, sharing everything you can about your short-term rentals so we can feature you here on the podcast. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

This week we are sharing at @12southcarriagehouse again, that's @12southcarriagehouse and it is in the 12th South area of Nashville, but they also have a second property in Gatlinburg, I believe it is. Um, but what I wanted to say about this property, one thing that I love, love, love, love, love. Please take a peek at their, um, Instagram. Sorry, I said Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge. I get those confused. Are they kind of the same place? Are people like going to be probably their eyes at me? Probably right now.

We just lost all of our Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge lists.

I'm sorry, where's Dollywood? Uh, but she has these amazing, uh, custom pencils for the Pigeon Forge area, and they say the sweet retreat.

That's so cute. I've never seen a constant pencil for a takeaway.

Yes. And so, um, I just thought that they were so cute and she, she kind of gives the background here of how she had a pencil collection when she was growing up. But anyways, I, those little things. Really do pack a punch, such a small little thing, people can take them with you. And the reason I actually wanted to, to pull out and talk about these pencils specifically is because I have done this, um, if you were to come to my like pencil pin drawer, you will see that I have a collection of pencils and pins from mostly hotels because short-term rentals don't normally give them out. But I have like The Graduate in particular, like the Ritz-Carlton. Those I know I have at like pencils from, and then other places are pins. So I just encourage you, especially as we want to have our guests remember us, is what is something. A they could use during their stay 'cause I don't know about you, I'm always jotting down notes wherever I am, a short term rental, a hotel even in my own house. But those simple things that you could a, are one size fits all you can customize. And then last but not least, they're very, very affordable. So I wanted to highlight, uh, them purchasing those, having them in their property. And it's, and it's also a souvenir. So like if you can have this one thing that like packs multiple punches, why not do that? And I'm gonna help, um. 12th South Carriage House. They also gave a highlight to the @luckypencil_co. So if you're looking for the place that, uh, that does custom pencils, let's help two small businesses out. So if you're in Pigeon Forge or Nashville, go to 12th South Carriage House. Or if you need some custom pencils, go to the @luckypencil_co. Let's help. And I, they're on Etsy, so let's help some small businesses out.

With that being said, let's move into today's episode.

Yeah. You're gonna need to sharpen your pencils and take some notes.

Yeah. I was telling Annette I was kind of, so it's my job to head up the management teams to manage our properties, and Annette is a investor on some of them, and one of them I had to kinda sheepishly tell her and that we have a listing issue at one of our properties and she's just thinking like, oh, like. I don't know, frozen refresh, that's, she's like, whatever. And I was like, no, no, no, no. Like there is a listing issue that is posted in our account and it's like this new thing where if, uh, if Airbnb deems that you are kind of teetering on either being on probation or getting delisted, they're going to kinda let you know as this is like one of the first steps that will happen. And she's like, what are you talking about? So. It is called the listing issues section, and we want to talk about it today because as I understand it, talking to two or three different Airbnb support reps. And if you have heard something different or know even more information on this topic, please always email us or DM us on Instagram. We always wanting to know, but now they have a section, Airbnb has a section where they will start tracking more. I'm gonna use the word serious. But with quotations.

But wait till you hear what our listening issue is. 'cause it's not that serious.

No,

it's, it actually isn't valid. But, we'll, we'll, we'll leave that for the end of the episode.

Well actually, yeah, we, yeah, we'll leave them hanging. 'cause actually we had to, and now we have one. Uh, but it's, it's important to check this 'cause I was, I was talking to these Airbnb support reps. My understanding is, is that not all listing issues are created equal. And if you have a PMS, a lot of PMSs are now rolling out kind of like the back end, look at what Airbnb has as like demerits, we'll call them on your listing. And so maybe we have a couple of our properties on our PMS that say educate, and it's still a green light apparently on Airbnb's, and it's a green light, but it has the word educate instead of good, like good to go. And then there's yellow light, and then there's a red light. And when I say light, I mean dot, you know? Mm-hmm. My understanding is, of course we don't have anything in the yellow or the red, but that would be on our road to getting potentially delisted or just completely removed from the platform. So if you haven't checked out this listing issue section, that is what we're gonna talk about today.

And this is one of our quick, um, reactions when someone will come to us and say, I have not, I mean, obviously there is a triage, there is a long list of things that we always advise if someone is coming to us and say, I'm not getting any bookings, and I just wanna share that. The first one is they normally say, I'm not getting any bookings on Airbnb. And our first point of triage is. Where else are you listed? And the conversation comes to a screeching halt. So diversification is number one because you're putting all of your eggs in that one basket. The next thing that we ask is like, have you checked your listing issues section? And we get mixed, some people are like they, they have no clue about it. They look at it and they're like, oh my gosh, you're right. I do have a listing issue. And we're like, we would take care of that. Absolutely. First. So how can they, we're gonna, we're gonna walk you through exactly how you can find, if you have a listing issue.

Yes.

Well, a, an Airbnb listing issue.

Right. And I'm gonna, yeah. We we're using a lot of air quotes here because when we tell you the ones that we've seen, it's just like, oh my gosh. But if you don't have your Airbnb professional host tools turned on, you'll need to do that. And what I'll do is I'll put a link in the show notes that give you instructions on how to do this. This unlocks analytics, an analytics section, your listing performance section inside your Airbnb account. And you want that for many reasons. You wanna know how your listing is performing and instead of guessing or having feelings, you can actually see your click through rate your conversion rates right from someone going from a looker to an actual booker and track those metrics. And that is what we, we teach and talk about that all the time inside of our private community. And now at the very bottom of this list is listing issues. So if you go to your host profile, there are three lines in the top right. You're gonna go to Insights, and then on the left side of that new screen, you'll see the listing issues area. And this area is now Airbnb rolls out these features to different hosts at different times. So you might have your Airbnb professional host tools turned on, you have your analytics, but you don't see this yet. That could be just because they haven't rolled it out to you yet, but I assume it's coming to all of us if you don't have it yet. But as I was chatting with Airbnb support when I first discovered this several months ago, they are starting to, I mean, they probably have been doing it, but now they're giving us insight into demerits that we're getting on our, on our listing. And it doesn't necessarily mean that the guest has reported us to Airbnb. It could be something that they flagged with their AI bots mm-hmm. That are crawling exactly our conversations, our listing, uh, it, uh, patterns in a reviews left by guest, whether they mentioned something specific or not. And so finding this section. Tracking it. I have a reoccurring task on my calendar every week to make sure I'm responding to Airbnb reviews. And now I do that and I check my listing issues section.

Did you go through step by step how to find it?

I did.

You did? Okay. And we're, we do the, um, the, uh, host professionals tools. Sarah will put that link and we have a YouTube video about it too, if you're a visual learner. That way you can follow along that way.

We actually have a YouTube video on this, on this topic too.

Yes. So you can go watch both of those.

Yes.

And make sure you are good to go here. Here's why they are giving you visibility to to this we think. All right. Of course this is gonna be impacting your ranking in the algorithm and of. Bottom. Bottom line is it will affect your bottom line because as they should, Airbnb wants listings that deliver consistent guest experience. Alright? So if they are getting most likely repeat complaints, they're going to start flagging you in, you know, in these listing issues. And maybe that's, um, public reviews and or private feedback. Sarah, why don't you dig in there? 'cause that's one of the important things I think with the listing issues is that that private feedback. Yes, it's private, but obviously Airbnb is paying attention to that.

Right?

You might think feedback that, oh, that's, that's between us, Airbnb's letting us do that, so it's not gonna impact anything.

That's not right anymore, right? That's not correct anymore. That is not the case anymore. Mm-hmm. So, obviously this is, you know, we will still tout that, oh my gosh, everyone stop calling yourselves. Airbnb hosts, stop only being on Airbnb. Diversify. If 2025's updates from Airbnb rolling out in May and in June, and who knows what's to come is not waking you up. Let this be your wake up call 'cause when I tell you the listing issues we've had and that this is like a demerit on our beautiful, beautiful little town home, you're just gonna be like, what the heck? You feel like, because it's true. You have very little control. Now we all Annette and I tout extreme ownership, okay? Mm-hmm. So when you get a listing issue. Even if it feels ridiculous, still listen, even if it was a guest from a direct booking and they like leave that review that that was left privately, they leave it for you publicly on Google. Or even if they tell you we are here to serve, we are here to be hospitable. And so we would, we don't guess to have inconsistent experiences. But that being said, it's just another way that we, we just, that we are just, uh. What is it? Inventory to Airbnb?

Well, let's, let's tell them exact, that exact, uh, we thought we were being clear on a pet allowance.

You wanna tell the story.

Yeah. Let's give them a little, like, we're, we're not really telling them like when we saw like a listing issue, what that was and that this was private feedback and then how it, how it came through. Just to kind of give them some narrative.

We've got two listing issues and that's, and that's something else too, is. One of them dropped, the other one didn't. The one is still there. And I'm trying to get clarification from Airbnb why that is, and I haven't gotten a clear understanding. But one of the issues was we had a guest book instantly, and in our house rules and in our listing description, we say that we are dog friendly on a case by case basis. So to chat it out with us to make sure that everything's good to go. They booked instantly. And then after they booked, they told us that they are gonna be bringing kittens.

Like a litter of kittens.

Like, like they said, kittens, plural. And of course, in our best hospitality voice we shared with them. Oh my gosh. How exciting for you that you, that you're traveling with kittens? That must be, that must be, um, an experience. However, that being said, our property isn't a good fit for kittens. We allow dogs on a, on a case by case basis as stated in our house rules in our listing description. Uh, since you, you have plenty of time before your stay starts, it's probably best that you find a property that best aligns with your needs. And they didn't, they didn't fight back. They weren't, they didn't appear upset. Then we said, and I had my, my team, we're gonna change this, but the guests, we said, if you cancel your stay because we don't allow kittens, we will offer you a full refund. Not a problem. This was plenty of time for us to rebook. Right. And for them to rebook and for them to rebook. Okay. So they cancel, everything's fine. And then I, I'm checking my analytics and I notice this listing issue of we forced a guest to cancel. I look in the reservation. Then of course I go through the messages and it's this guest who wanted to bring kittens. So I reach out to Airbnb support and instead of getting frustrated with the support person, I said to them, do you mind looking at my house rules and my listing description and seeing how I write that we are dog friendly on case by case basis, and let me know how I should have handled this differently. We learned. They let, we let them instant book, and then we discovered they're going to bring kittens. We don't allow kittens. So we wanted to encourage 'em to find a place that would allow kittens. What would you have done differently? Airbnb support. And of course they said nothing. You did everything correct and that, uh, that was it. That was it. And it's just like, okay. It's, then I asked, I was like, so this listing issue is this affecting my visibility on the platform? And that's when they told me that it's not a high level issue. It's just like a, Hey, you might, this was brought to our attention.

Yeah.

Which could mean that either the guest brought it to Airbnb's attention that they felt like we were forcing 'em to cancel.

Or the AI picked it up.

That's right.

We we're, we're kind of leaning on the AI picked it up.

And if AI picked up the word cancel,

it doesn't matter what the context.

I told my team, let's not use the word cancel anymore, let's say to the guest. When you find a new place to book, we will issue your full money back. Right, right. Like, don't use the word cancel

or refund money back. You know, it's like, what are you having to refund people?

Correct.

Correct. Yes. So again, really do think about your le so there's kind of like two lessons in that, right There is number one, if you are pet friendly, be clear in your house rules. Um, what kinds of pets. I know we've, we've heard everything from birds, kittens, um. I think, what else have there? I'm no, I'm sure snakes, we've heard like so many different animals that people have wanted to bring to the short term rentals. So you might wanna say specifically if you're dog friendly or Right. Not just blanket Yeah. A pet, because then everybody could have a certain type of pet.

Uh, we, the other issue we had when, this is the one that dropped, this lady was upset that. She didn't realize we weren't a shared space, short term rental. She wanted, she wanted to share the space with someone and that upset her.

Yes.

And that the fact that it is a investment property, that we were a detriment to our neighborhood. And she didn't like that she was supporting a, an investor. And I was like, why is this a listing issue? I am, I am licensed, I am allowed to operate this way. And so that is the one that dropped though. So I brought it up to Airbnb support and, and I asked them, what could I do differently? And she, of course, opt- That woman also left us a low review, which is really frustrating.

When we are clearly not a shared space.

We're not, we are not.

So the, the reason that we're bringing this up, however, though, is, is there, we always want you to take extreme ownership. Is there anything that you could be responsible for? Look at that. See how you could change it in your listing? Even this person thought it was a shared space, like, Hey, how can, is there something anywhere that could have alluded to that? Let's fix that, but we want you to be on. Like on, on high alert and not in a bad way, but like take these things seriously. If there is something to replace or repair, if you have not updated your listing description, like it needs to match the reality. You know, you need to make sure, like if people are starting to say, um, in your reviews over and over, maybe it's uncomfortable beds, your photos are misleading. Maybe there's noise complaints, like really. Don't just flippantly think that there is a problem with the guest. Like we want you to always look at yourself first. Is there something that you could be improving on? Because I'm telling you, every time we look in the mirror, it's like there's a lot of work that we can all be doing all of the time and we just want to make sure whenever Airbnb adds something, IE the listing issue, pay attention like that. That section, they haven't really like brought it to everyone's attention. Like Sarah said, have it on a regular cadence to check it and make sure that something hasn't popped up there. And if something has popped up there, let's take a ca, let's take care of it immediately. And then if once it's taken care of, I reach out to them, let them know. And then secondarily, if you are on a property management system that has the, a little bit more visibility, keep it, keep in. Keep on top of that too, and make sure that you are, you know, like Sarah said, green, yellow, red, where you're falling there.

But again, also in a, I, I love our belief system that you should take extreme ownership. Mm-hmm. Always, you're always wrong, and I don't mean that in a bad way or in a, not a self-destructing way. I just truly mean it. Like when something comes up, a challenge or someone says something about you, or mm-hmm. Just assume it's something that you could improve on. That being said. Just 2025. In general, this listing issue thing, the, the payment processing thing, the all of Airbnb,

Airbnb experience, experiences.

It, it is just a wake up call to all of us. Let's stop catering to them. All right. And the And yes. Know that you have a listing issue. Yes. Reach out to the Airbnb support. See how detrimental it is to your listing. Is there anything that you could do to improve? Yes. Do all that, but don't spend too much time there.

Absolutely.

And instead, spend your time diversifying. This is the year to get your direct booking site. This is the year to explore OTAs. This is the year to explore connecting your calendar to other OTAs and that you wanna see on your calendar a diversification of where your leads came from 'cause if they're all on Airbnb, you are, we've said this before, but I I, I mean it now more than ever. You are building your business a really expensive business on the front end. Think of how much your property that you invested in costs to get it set up, to purchase it, to run it. On rented land that is getting harder and harder for you to control. Okay? This lady didn't like the, the fact that she was staying in a place that wasn't a shared space, where I had clear rules about pets and it was being broken and it was a listing issue. There are other listing issues. We've seen our members have listing issues of misleading photos, uncomfortable bed slow, consistently slow wifi. So there are times this listing issue section is probably very helpful. Like, you know what? It is a wake up call. I need to fix this situation. But I think of all of this. Guys, we need to diversify. We need to stop calling ourselves Airbnb hosts. We need to stop saying, I host on Airbnb. I need to get an Airbnb. All that really needs to slow down and stop anything else Annette? I got a little bit of soapbox there, but yeah, I'm just gonna be quiet. It's just okay. It's all, it's frustrating.

It's very, the last though, actually, the last thing I wanted to leave everyone with is. After this episode, just think about how you can improve your business today.

Yeah.

So I wanna kind of flip this whole issue on the head and instead of saying listing issues, let's really think about. What business issues do we have right now that we could remedy for ourselves? So Airbnb has their listing issues section. Let's create a list of our own issues and our business that we need to be working on.

Yeah.

Things that we can control.

Absolutely. But I hope you this shed some light on this section in air media.

Yeah, go check it out. Let us know if you, if you find anything.

We will put the show notes, uh, some links to YouTube videos that we've created. So if you're more of a visual learner, like Annette said. And with that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for Visiting.

Talk to you next time.