To think airbnb prices are insane?

[DottyLS]

Hundreds of £ a night for places that are fine but not spectacular- who pays these prices??

I find many AirBnB prices are crazy low.

It's good you can find what you want for a price you like at Centreparks, OP.

£350 to clean a 4-bed house?

It's probably a bespoke airbnb service so will be a lot more than cleaning; bed changing, tidying, buying supplies, staging etc to make it perfect for the next guest. However in my opinion that's a business cost and should be included in the total price or absorbed by the owner, not passed to the guest.

I used to use airbnb alot but I have stopped completely now. I am finding hotels so much cheaper, better facilities and offer earlier check-in and later check-out times.

They're ruining my city, putting huge pressure on local housing and shattering community spirit. Got at least five on my small street, houses that would be perfect starter homes for couples and young families. I live next door to one, so have to cope with the noise and mess.

We're not short of hotels and B&Bs. But we are extremely short of houses for local people to rent, let alone buy.

Airbnb is not an ethical choice. Get a hotel or a local indie guesthouse.

I dont understand their response, what are they actually saying?

We are a family of 5, don't eat gluten or dairy so food is always a challenge. It is much easier for us to stay in an airbnb, use the space as we wish and cook what we like to eat when we are hungry (usually starts with a bowl of carrots and cucumber in front of the children while DH and I cook) and play games, do our own thing on our phones and hang out together without having to be formal in any way. It is always far cheaper than a hotel especially when you take meals into account.

Airbnb is great when you have to stay somewhere for a week or so and need multiple rooms. My son went to a stage school in London for a week and renting a flat for 6 nights was great. We had separate rooms and a kitchen for £500 all in.

When you have teenagers and need multiple rooms for more than a night then hotels are cost prohibitive. Also many hotels won’t let under 18’s have their own room or don’t guarantee twin beds. I can’t share a bed with my teenage son.
Airbnb becomes the default.

I read it as a flowery version of yep you read that right, we know it's a lot but we can't get cleaners for any cheaper because of the local labour market. The 'bear with us' part is a bit confusing though. Are they saying they think there's a realistic possibility they might be able to find cheaper cleaners?

Even so - that's an absolute rip-off. My house is the same size and I pay £60 a week for cleaning. My cleaners change all the beds (although I wash the bedding myself) and they obviously don't have to 'stage' the house or clean the fridge, but the difference between £60 (and I live in an expensive place) and £350 is ludicrous. I know it's supply and demand and that finding cleaners in, e.g. a small Cornish fishing village, is going to be really hard and so they can charge pretty much whatever they want, but still.

I find them so useful. We've used Airbnb in this country and Australia. As a family of 5 city breaks involve 2 hotel rooms which is just expensive and challenging. With dietry requirements as well we love Airbnb homes. They just work really well for us. We can enjoy a city break without the huge expense of 2 rooms and having to consider food options.
I get if you are a single or only a couple travelling then they prob do work out more expensive. We've never had an issue with them. Got another one booked in a European country next year with great reviews. It's really opened up our ability to travel as a family

I've stayed in some amazing, quirky and beautiful properties across Europe and have never had a bad experience, which I hope I've not jinxed now as I have a few booked for next year. There is no way I would have been able to travel as much as I have paying hotel prices. Even if I went budget hotel it then means having to eat out for every meal. I do see some properties for £100s per night and they are way out of my budget but they mostly seem to look absolutely amazing and as if they'd be worth it for those who can afford it. I've stayed in various cities across Europe and never paid more than around £200 per night and have been happy with all properties and some I have absolutely loved!

I would guess the fact that yours is a regular and reliable weekly arrangement makes all the difference. Your cleaner can factor the existence of the job and the income into her budgeting and life. I'm also guessing you could probably give a little bit of flexibility, like if your cleaner normally comes on a Wednesday morning but has a GP appointment you'd be fine with her coming in the afternoon instead. None of which applies with Air B and B cleaning. There's no regularity and it often has to be done in very tight timeframes between guests.

£350 does sound like a lot, I was initially surprised when I read it. Equally, there are a lot of structural factors that have made irregular yet inflexible work in usually high cost of living areas harder to fill. I imagine even the admin part of cleaning agency work is much harder than it was 5 or 10 years ago.

If you can find the same property on another site (particularly the owner's), it's usually much cheaper. I'd never use Airbnb unless it's got to be one particular property and it isn't advertised anywhere else. I don't understand how 'Airbnb' has become synonymous with 'self catering', it's like people have lost the imagination to look anywhere other than multinational companies.

We used to use air BnB a lot as it was often very reasonably priced. It feels like prices jumped after COVID came to an end. Could be a combination of reclaiming lost earnings and cost of living?

£350 is crazy! I have an Airbnb, a 2 bed annexe attached to my property (so no I’m not taking housing stock off the market!) my cleaner charges £60 and that cost is passed on to the guests. I charge £95 a night no matter what time of year, yet other airbnbs charge upwards of £200 a night because of our location which is by the beach. I find people initially book via Airbnb but if they want to return they book direct, so in that respect I find it great for advertising but if I’ve every used it I’ve googled the property to see if they have their own website and book direct because of the fees Airbnb add on. Some people will Google us and book direct but others like the security that Airbnb seems to offer!

I don't understand how 'Airbnb' has become synonymous with 'self catering', it's like people have lost the imagination to look anywhere other than multinational companies.

The website is much better than others, you get lots of photos displayed attractively and the search facility is better than other sites, but you're right if you can find the same property elsewhere it's usually cheaper. And self catering is better than hotel for families because of the space (and looking st the recent thread about a stranger walking into the OPs hotel room, the security).

Vinterior is the same, excellent for searching for things but can often find the exact same thing cheaper on other sites. You pay more for the work that has gone into creating a good search engine.

It is a shame that it's turned into a business thing. Just that ridiculous cleaning charge shows that- if AirBnb was being used as it was initially set out as, then the owners would just clean it themselves! However, I doubt AirBnb care, as they're making plenty out of the bookings. I'm all for people renting out their own home whilst away, for a bit of holiday spending money, but I think homes being solely rented out as AirBnbs should be illegal. There should be some kind of law which states that a property can only be put on airbnb or similar if it has a regular inhabitant most of the year round. In Barcelona, whole property lets on AirBnb is banned (or was, when I lived there), and yet there were plenty of them, visible on the website.

I love Airbnb. Travelling with two young teens and my husband we would need two hotel rooms anyway and hotels don’t come with a separate living room and kitchen normally. We’ve stayed in them all over Europe, Australia and some in the U.K. and I have found them well
priced and generally good value for what you get.
And to be honest I’d prefer to be paying a landlord, owner etc than a big multinational anyway. But basically I stay in them because hotels just don’t cater for families in an affordable way.

We want three bedrooms so renting a house/apartment through a platform such as Airbnb makes more sense for us as a family. As soon as it’s just the two of us going on holiday I’d probably opt for a B&B or hotel. But any time I’ve stayed in a hotel with kids it’s been a much less good experience - expensive and sharing rooms.

Still think the number of holiday rentals should be limited by local licensing authorities though - to whatever works for the local market.

Exactly.
its a lot of money but it fits the business model of airbnb. If you want an occasional bespoke job doing from a business who can be responsive and short notice then it's going to cost you. It's not the same thing as a regular weekly clean.

£350 is a crazy amount for cleaning! I have a 4 bed and my cleaners charge £175 but you have to remember it’s not like a normal clean. That includes changing beds/towels (plus I rent the linens from them) and things like cleaning the oven/fridge/bbq every time.

Airbnb don’t set cleaning fees. It’s entirely up to the individual owner what they charge. The only charge that goes directly to Airbnb is the ‘service charge’. Airbnb are just a platform to advertise owner’s properties. I don’t charge a cleaning fee as I know it’s what most people hate about Airbnb. But I do absorb it into the nightly fee and have a minimum 3 night stay. I can understand why owners need to add cleaning fees if they accept 1 or 2 night stays though.

I also don’t leave a list of jobs to do when people leave. I just ask if guests could take the rubbish out. These jobs are again set by owners and not Airbnb so when people complain about the company, really it’s the individual host they should be aiming that at. And at the end of the day if people think that host is overcharging cleaning fees and leaving ridiculous job requests at the end then I imagine that owner won’t be getting as many bookings, so it’s the host that is losing out through their own greed and lack of hospitality.

Just to add, I use airbnbs myself as a family with teenagers as it’s great to have the extra space and kitchen but it doesn’t seem as good value for a solo traveller compared to a hotel. In a group, when you divide the nightly cost per person (so mine sleeps 8 in 4 bedrooms) compared to 4 hotel rooms per night it often works out cheaper.

Especially if, like a lot of the places where holiday lets tend to be, it's not near a big working population centre. The agency could have a captive market, which again is going to mean clients paying more.

There might be a big difference between even quite similar properties in similar towns if eg one has a lot more retired people and/or remote workers than the other. You'd also have to take into account things like availability of more regular local cleaning jobs. If the let is within easy travel of lots of holiday camps, for example, local workers might well prefer the more predictable hours over something more ad hoc.

Air BnB has become a scourge on society. Rich greedy folk buying homes, pushing area prices up just to make themselves more money.

Cunts the lot of them.

I have seen a few places that are ridiculously high priced, but on the whole they are much better value than a hotel. It's the price of hotels that shocks me now. Premier inns are still good value, and we recently had a night in a holiday inn which was good too - but we've also paid £250 per night for a very ordinary room in what was more of an inn (stunning views though).

We often find the same properties on Airbnb, vrbo, booking etc and just book with whoever is cheapest .

I am assuming that the poster who says they hoover the holiday rental before leaving has very small children who are messy eaters - because otherwise, why on earth would you do this ? We wash up any cooking/eating utensils used and wipe the surfaces but no more than this .