Are you thinking about hosting?

Airbnb
Currently makes up around a third of our inbound bookings. This is the best site to sign up with initially as it is the easiest and you have the most control over who you let stay. Plus, once you have set-up on airbnb, the other major sites can replicate your listing details and photos which makes it easier to set up the others afterwards (if you choose to).

The popular holiday rental site is a great place to first list your property. Airbnb makes it easy to create and manage your listing, with ability to set pricing, minimum stays and option to choose between instant booking or requests to stay - this is a great feature when first starting out  to help build your confidence with hosting.

Sign up to airbnb using our referral link and Airbnb will give you £30 after you have completed your first booking:
sign up to airbnb here

Booking.com (BDC)
Currently makes up the majority of our inbound bookings.

BDC is far more customisable than airbnb but this added functionality does mean that some people  find it a little harder to set-up. Once set-up, BDC is a great source of bookings. You can also choose to enable request to book function instead of receiving instant bookings.

If you sign up with our referral you will receive some commission free bookings, a great way to save money while you try it out. Sign up here:
signup to booking.com here

Direct
The best way to reduce your commission costs is to take bookings directly.

We created and host our website on Google Sites. This is simple to use and easy to maintain. Our booking platform is from Smoobu and is simply a copy & paste of some code provided by Smoobu.
This means any bookings generated from your website synchronises directly with Airbnb and BDC. 

Other
We also list on various other sites, these generate a small amount of bookings, these can be useful outside of the main holiday season.

The single best thing we have implemented to save time and ensure consistency across numerous platforms.

Listing across multiple channels can be made easy using a CM. We use Smoobu to manage our bookings across all of our channels.  This is a central tool that ensures all channels are updated whenever there's a change in availability or pricing. Also acts as our CRM where we manage all guest comms. This has a number of benefits:

- Synchronises availability across all the platforms (Airbnb, BDC, etc) almost instantly, to avoid any double bookings.
- Set pricing and minimum stays consistently across the main portals.
- Manage guest communications (you can send the same messages and info to guests irrespective of the platform they have booked on).
- Manage guest booking info - all our bookings are listed together making managing and accounting far easier!
- Check-In details and ID captured for all guests and managed in one place (it is a legal requirement to obtain and record guest details).
- Guest Guide - provide a comprehensive digital Guest Guide, customised to all guests automatically.
- We send ours along with confirmation of booking as soon as a booking is confirmed.
- This gives our guests important information up front, to help guests plan their journey and stay.
- It also updates on the day of their stay to include further details, such as access information, wifi, etc.
- After a stay is completed the guest guide also shows direct booking information, to encourage direct bookings for repeat customers.

Using our link to sign-up to Smoobu will get you a 10% discount:
https://smoobu.cello.so/y984vsojHK8

We use Beyond Pricing to manage our dynamic pricing so that we charge fairly for high-demand dates and during popular events when demand peaks while retaining occupancy levels to achieve Furnished Holiday Let (FHL) status.

Pricing can be adjusted to reduce the closer you are to a date,  minimum stay length can also adjust dynamically (to favour longer stays, while maintaining high occupancy by making shorter stays available as the date approaches). We set minimum pricing and adjust minimum stays dynamically to preference longer stays, this generates a better return for us.

Minimum stays can also be set to dynamically update to fill the unbookable gaps - this is a great way to boost occupancy and revenue.

This updates availability, pricing and minimum stay durations across all the channels. The cost of this is vastly exceeded by the uplifted pricing for events we did not even know about.

Signup to Beyond Pricing here

Bookings made via airbnb and BDC are processed by the OTA.

Booking.com gives you the option to handle payments yourself or you can get them to process these - we found the costs are broadly similar but removes all the associated admin if left to BDC to arrange. They take between 7-14 days to transfer the payments after the guest has departed.

Airbnb process the payments themselves and initiate the transfer after the first night of the guests stay.

For other sites, direct bookings and other guest fees, we use Stripe to take online payments directly. This integrates with Smoobu so that guests can either pay online when booking, and are also are automatically notified and sent a payment link when a payment is due.

This works seamlessly and also enables us to send guests payment links and invoices should they request any additional services.

We also take deposits via Stripe for bookings made directly.

These change and vary according to your accommodation, but the best single guide and 'must read' is The Pink Book published by Visit Britain.

If you require funding for your holiday let then the right type of mortgage is essential. We used the broker London & Country to find our specialist Holiday Let mortgage.

We picked L&C as our broker as  they do not have fees (they receive commission from the lender), and are whole of market, meaning that they can search across all the lenders. We have used L&C a number of times now and always find them timely, professional and offering great advice.

Find out more here L&C Mortgages.