20 Airbnb Host Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs in 2025 – Examples & Advice on How to Fix Them

The importance of an Airbnb host’s attentiveness and professionalism cannot be underestimated. However, it is crucial to recognize that even the most conscientious Airbnb hosts can make mistakes and compromise the guest experience.

In this article, we will explore several common mistakes Airbnb hosts make. Our goal is to raise awareness among hosts to improve the hosting experience and build trust with their guests. Fixing these mistakes does not necessarily require a large expense or a lot of time. As you read on, you will discover that sometimes, a simple solution to the problem can be found in just a few minutes.

1. Not Knowing Your City’s Regulations

With the platform’s rapid growth, many jurisdictions have implemented stricter rules to govern vacation rentals. Regulations can vary, from banning lockboxes to requiring you to register your property with local authorities.

Here’s how to avoid this mistake:

• Learn about the specific regulations in your area. Find out if you’re allowed to rent out your property, if there are any size restrictions, and if you need a license or permit to operate legally.
• Consider the tax obligations associated with renting out your property. Learn about any local or state taxes you may need to collect and pay. Review current tax laws and ensure you comply with your tax filing obligations.

2. Posting Misleading or Inaccurate Listings

It can be tempting to embellish your rental to make it more appealing, but honesty in your listing is key to getting off to the best possible start on Airbnb. Often, a misleading description that doesn’t match the reality of your home will backfire in the form of a negative review.

It’s best to ensure your guests know exactly what to expect when they view your listing. To optimize your listing writing, you could use some tools like ChatGPT.

Example with “forgetting” to mention certain details

Imagine that you booked accommodation that seemed great, well located, well decorated, clean, and a rare gem. But when you arrived, it was disappointing that you couldn’t stand up straight in the apartment without bumping into the ceiling! It was an old garage that had been converted (with quality and taste), but the owners didn’t think it was helpful to mention in their listing how low the ceiling was.

Result: you spent the whole stay bumping into things, or walking stooped like a hunchback. We’ve had better times.

Besides, the double bed you were supposed to sleep in was actually two single beds pushed together. The bed frames prevented the mattresses from touching. So the romantic weekend with your girlfriend resulted in nights without even being able to hold hands. Rather disappointing.

Remember this: when you have defects in your accommodation, mention them. It is better to lose a few reservations and have only people who book knowingly, rather than pretending that everything is perfect, disappointing your customers, and collecting a bunch of negative comments.

Here’s a structure you could follow to write your listing better:

• Accurately describe the features of your property, such as the number of bedrooms and what’s included in each, such as bed size, storage, etc.
• Inform your guests about your rental’s amenities, facilities, and general benefits.
• Don’t be afraid to set boundaries or rules for your home, such as whether guests are allowed to bring additional visitors or pets, whether smoking is allowed, whether there are any off-limits areas in the home, etc.

Here’s an example you can use for your listings:

If you are having trouble setting up your Airbnb, you may want to consider optimizing services: rating analysis, SEO optimization, analyzing Airbnb listing’s statistics, Creating a clear strategy for becoming an Airbnb SuperHost, and many other things.

3. Being Stingy on the Bedding

Just imagine that you rented a flat where you never managed to sleep in a comfortable bed. Only spring mattresses where you woke up the next day with half a sciatica and a blocked back.

Keep in mind that, above all, your people are looking for a place to sleep. You must, therefore, make sure to offer them a comfortable, quality bed. Even if the rest of your accommodation may have small defects, the bed, along with cleanliness are the two most important elements.

Tips on bedding of your listing

Mistake	Why it’s a problem	Solution
Cheap, uncomfortable mattresses	Guests wake up with back pain and leave bad reviews.	Invest in high-quality, supportive mattresses.
Old, worn-out bedding	Makes the bed look uninviting and unhygienic.	Replace bedding regularly with fresh, high-quality linens.
Insufficient pillows or blankets	Guests feel uncomfortable and cold at night.	Provide extra pillows and blankets for all preferences.
Dirty or stained sheets	Makes guests question the cleanliness of the entire place.	Always provide freshly laundered, spotless sheets.
Noisy bed frames	Squeaky beds disrupt sleep and cause frustration.	Use sturdy, noise-free bed frames.
Thin, low-quality pillows	Poor neck support leads to discomfort.	Offer a variety of plush and firm pillows.

If your customers sleep well, they will be grateful and will not hesitate to come back to your place. Otherwise, you will never see them again. Trust me, invest in a good bed, you won’t regret it!

4. Shorten Distances Voluntarily

To help your future guests choose, indicate in the description of your accommodation the nearby amenities, public transport, and distances from tourist attractions. Anything that can mislead or deceive the customer is to be absolutely prohibited. Anything that can cause them to be disappointed, even if it is small. Be honest!

Often, when people book an Airbnb, they don’t know the city they’re going to. So they rely on the “map” tool to search for accommodation in the area that interests them, with one unknown factor: the actual distance from the city center. For instance, it can be supposed to be a 20-minute walk from the city center. In reality, walking at a good pace will take 40 minutes. It’s not the same music!

It is from this disappointment that the bad comment will then come. It is a bit like when a friend tells you about a great movie that you absolutely have to see: your expectations increase, and finally, when you leave the cinema, you are disappointed because it was not so great. If the friend in question had not said anything, you would probably have felt better about the movie.

In short, keep this in mind: it is all a question of expectation. The more you raise your customers’ expectations, that is to say the more you make them believe in a palace, the more they risk being disappointed with what they will actually discover.

Even tend to behave oppositely: remain modest in the description to give your customers a pleasant surprise. From there will come the good comments, and the virtuous circle of reservations will begin.

5. Neglecting Professional Photos for Airbnb Listing

Images are crucial in convincing guests to choose your rental over another. However, it’s important to emphasize that the goal is not to misrepresent your property, but rather to present your rental in the best light.

Here’s how to avoid this Airbnb mistake:

• Include photos of activities and/or the neighborhood. If your property’s location is one of its strong points, your future guests will want to know what they can do in the area. Highlight the beautiful views, beaches, theme parks, and attractions nearby.
• Avoid showing a cluttered space. Clear kitchen counters, coffee tables, and desks of clutter. The less clutter, the better. Show your guests how they’ll find your place when they get there: clean and spotless.
• Make sure you have good lighting. Turn on the lights or open the blinds to make your space appear bright and welcoming. Try to take photos on a sunny day for better natural light.
• Write inspiring captions for your photos. Avoid purely descriptive captions and instead, create sentences that describe the experience your guests will have in your rental. For example, instead of simply captioning a photo of the balcony “Balcony,” you could write: “Relax and enjoy a glass of wine on our balcony after a long day of sightseeing.”

The better the photos, the more likely you will get more Airbnb reservations. It is also essential to prepare the property before taking photos. You can read more about this in our article with 10 tips on it and book a pro photography & videography for real estate.

6. Not Having a Pricing Strategy

To maximize your revenue, staying informed about industry trends and adjusting your prices is important. Monitor market fluctuations and change your rates to attract guests at the right time.

• Check out AirDNA. Airdna collects and analyzes data from the Airbnb platform, such as rates, occupancy rates, listing performance, guest reviews, and more. This data is then presented to hosts through intuitive reports and dashboards. With this information, hosts can better understand the market in their area, assess the competition, adjust their rates based on demand, optimize their listings based on market trends, and more.
• Consider your competition. Research other similar rentals in your area. See which ones have the best reviews and compare their prices and availability to yours. Create a comparison chart to estimate the maximum annual revenue for your listing.
• Think about special events. Festivals, marathons, conferences, and other special events can bring more guests to your area. Take advantage of these opportunities to increase your rates, sometimes by up to five times your average daily rate. For example, during the 2024 Olympics in Paris, many hosts adjusted their property rates upward to take advantage of this unique opportunity and maximize their revenues.

7. Offering Accommodation With Questionable Cleanliness

You will probably tell us that offering clean accommodation to your guests is the basis of any vacation rental owner, and you are right.

Problem: out of 10 Airbnb accommodations, one is really disgusting (some guests even cancel their reservations because the smell is so unpleasant and the bathrooms are filthy), and two others are far from spotless (you don’t want to clean everything again before putting your bundle down, do you?).

The level of cleanliness expected can vary greatly from one person to another. What is clean for you will not necessarily be clean for your neighbor, and so on. To avoid any risk of getting a bad review, focus on cleaning. Don’t forget to check the cleanliness of the dishes you provide your customers.

If you don’t like cleaning yourself, hire a cleaning lady to avoid such mistakes and pass the cost on to your Airbnb bill afterward, applying the appropriate fees.

8. Not Leveraging Guest Review Generation

Guest trust is key on this platform, and guest reviews are important in their decision-making. When potential guests view your listing, they value the feedback left by other guests who have stayed with you.

Here’s how to avoid this mistake:

• Write a review for each guest, and it will encourage more guests to leave reviews in return. Not only will this build trust with future guests, but it will also give you better visibility. Your name and profile will appear more frequently on the platform, allowing more people to discover your property. Ultimately, this will improve your search ranking.
• Encourage reciprocal reviews (guests and hosts must write reviews for each other to appear on their profiles). When your listing starts to accumulate reviews, you’ll see bookings come in faster. This will positively impact your bookings and build your profile and reputation as a host.

9. In Case of Conflict, Blaming the Guest

Let’s suppose you rented a penthouse and wanted to use the washing machine offered by the landlady of the apartment. An old thing, a part of the drum, came off during the wash and tore up half of your t-shirts. You informed the landlady who, instead of sympathizing with my clothes and helping you find an amicable solution, attacked you by saying that you didn’t know how to use a machine, that hers had worked fine so far, etc.

This is a behavior that we advise you to avoid at all costs: if your tenants are unfortunate enough to suffer damage or harm in your apartment, show compassion. Show that you understand what is happening to them and that you will do everything to fix things.

It doesn’t matter who is responsible, whether it’s you or them. Be human and show that you care about them. This is your golden opportunity to project an excellent image of yourself and, therefore, minimize the risk of getting a bad review.

10. Poor Communication With Guests

Every interaction matters, from the first contact to writing a review after their stay. The speed of your response, how you communicate, and the accuracy of your responses can make a real difference in your guests’ experience. It is, therefore, essential to show your guests that you care about their stay and are there to support them.

Here is how to avoid these Airbnb mistakes:

• Use message templates. Airbnb property management software, such as Hostify, Smoobu, or Eviivo, offers pre-defined message templates to speed up your communication with guests. These automated templates allow you to save time and provide consistent responses. Every message received or sent on Airbnb will automatically appear in your account, providing centralized communications management.
• Use a unified inbox. Opt for a unified inbox for your rentals, where you can view all your guest communications from all your channels (Airbnb messaging, emails, etc.) in one place. This will allow you to stay up to date with the latest guest messages and respond without delay.
• Hire a professional property management company. If managing guest communication becomes overwhelming, a professional Airbnb property management company can ensure 24/7 guest support and high-quality interactions. These companies offer instant guest response services; seamless booking & check-in coordination; conflict resolution & issue handling; multilingual support.

We have a big article about the importance of communication with guests, which includes advice on how to improve this skill, what is important to pay attention to, what barriers exist in communication, etc.

Examples of Airbnb message templates by CHM Inc. (clickable)

Download examples

11. Showing Up Late to Check-In

Put yourself in your travelers’ shoes for five minutes: they’re coming from far away, to a city they don’t know, with their big bags under their arms. They’re tired from the road, and all they want to do is put their things down and take a deep breath. Make sure they don’t have to wait.

We simply recommend that you agree with them on an approximate arrival time (be lenient if they’re late, they’re coming from far away!), and arrive on site about half an hour before their arrival. Take a good book and be patient. If you really are late for a reason beyond your control (it happens), let them know, apologize, and, above all, keep them informed so that they don’t worry.

12. Allow a One-Day Minimum Stay

Setting a minimum stay for your Airbnb rental is crucial to avoid mistakes with unauthorized parties, unwanted guests, and other inconveniences. Depending on the features of your property, it’s recommended to set a minimum stay of two nights to seven nights, unless you only offer long-term rentals.

A good strategy is to maintain a longer minimum stay (e.g., four nights or more) for bookings made more than 60 days in advance. This helps target longer, more desirable stays. As booking dates get closer, you can lower the minimum stay to two nights to maximize occupancy.

Here’s how to set a minimum and maximum stay for your listing:

• Go to your Calendar and select the calendar that matches your listing.
• On the right side of the screen, click on your Pricing and Availability settings.
• Choose the “Availability” tab.
• Next to “Length of stay”, you can update the minimum and maximum length of stay.

It is important to note that you can create custom rules for each day of the week. For example, you can set a minimum length of stay of 2 nights for arrivals on Friday, while for the other days of the week, a minimum of 1 night is enough.

13. Delays in Responding to Messages

Booking on Airbnb can be anxiety-provoking for tenants. Especially because Airbnb works on a peer-to-peer system, and that means in the minds of many users that there may be shortcomings, errors, or scams.

When the guest sends their payment, they receive a confirmation from Airbnb, but they are mostly waiting for a response from you, a reassuring and cordial message to tell them, in a way, “Don’t worry, I’m preparing a royal welcome for you, everything will go well, you can count on me”.

If you delay responding to guests’ messages (or if you don’t respond at all), you worry them, you put them in a state of stress, and they risk not having a good start to their stay with you. Don’t make mistakes like this when doing business on Airbnb!

14. Responding or Acting in an Impolite Manner

In the same vein, remember always to be courteous, polite, and even sympathetic in your exchanges. Only imagine that the person who will host you will simply respond with “Yes”, “No”, or “Ok”, while you systematically make the effort to be polite: “Hello Jack, …, Sincerely.”.

These short responses give the impression that the owner doesn’t care about their tenant, that they’re just waiting for the money to come in, and that’s it (especially if their responses always come 24 hours after your messages and it honestly feels like I you are bothering the host).

Always act as politely as possible, and never let your annoyance show when faced with questions that seem stupid to you or that you’ve already answered 200 times before. Make the best possible impression about your Airbnb, and don’t make basic mistakes; that’s the golden rule.

15. Not Responding to or Addressing Bad Reviews

Reviews play a crucial role in your listing’s ranking on the platform, with a bad review being costly in the long run. It’s normal for guests to express concerns. Some of these complaints will be perfectly justified, like a broken dishwasher, while others may seem more questionable, reflecting very strict expectations.

It’s important, especially early on, to act quickly and take a generous approach by providing refunds for legitimate issues, and even consider refunding the guest in more questionable situations. As you gain experience and reputation, you can take a more conservative approach when providing refunds in highly questionable cases.

By carefully evaluating each situation and prioritizing refunds when warranted, you demonstrate to your customers that you care about their experience and are willing to be flexible in resolving issues.

16. Not Setting Clear Rules & Expectations For Guests

By setting rules and expectations, you can maintain a harmonious environment for your guests and avoid disturbing neighboring homes. Additionally, strict and well-defined rules will deter unwanted guests from the start. By clearly stating the consequences of non-compliance, you encourage ill-intentioned people to choose a less restrictive alternative.

These rules, which are an integral part of the rental agreement, should be specific and detailed, covering aspects such as quiet hours, occupancy limits, and other relevant details.

Airbnb house rules (clickable)

Download free template

17. Lack of Flexibility on Schedules

Imagine that you come across a particularly picky Airbnb host about check-in and check-out times, and he doesn’t accept any mistakes. He asks you for a specific arrival time in front of his apartment, with a tolerance of 10 minutes under penalty of a “fine.” For your part, while traveling through the country, you are arriving from a foreign city, 450 kilometers away, and by public transport. You have no idea what time you will arrive. You try to explain it to him, but to no avail: stubborn and inflexible host.

Result: to avoid the fine, you give a very late arrival time to be sure that you will be there. You have to wait for him for almost 2 hours in front of his house before being able to collect the keys. You find his behavior completely idiotic, especially since he then tells you that he lives a hundred meters from the apartment.

It’s up to you, but we sincerely advise you to be flexible with your guests.

18. Being too Expeditious

When your seasonal rental business is going well, you will realize that the most annoying thing is, ultimately, the repetitive side of welcoming. But be careful: the mistakes, by being too expeditious, are to forget to show how certain objects or mechanisms in your Airbnb work and that the guest then damages or breaks them because they will not know how to use them.

Also, if you are too hasty, you risk making your guests think they are bothering you. Take the time to greet them calmly, with a big smile, and show them around the place. Answer all their questions, and before you leave, make sure they will not hesitate to contact you if they need anything.

19. Lingering too Long

This is the opposite of the previous point: be careful not to linger too long with your tenants. Often, they have just traveled a long way, come from far away, are tired, and are just waiting for one thing: to be able to sprawl on the couch and take a deep breath.

Even if mistakes like this are probably the least serious of all (because if you linger, it means that you sympathize with them), be careful not to become invasive and annoying for your Airbnb guests because they will never dare to tell you clearly.

Know how to slip away at the right time, while showing your availability throughout their stay with you.

20. Underestimating the Decoration

And finally, one of the most common mistakes Airbnb hosts make. As a host, we imagine that a good home has a good bed and is clean, tidy, and functionally equipped. We reason pragmatically: “Isn’t there anything missing?”.

Guests, on the other hand, have a different point of view when they are looking for a place to live. Beyond a roof over their heads, they are looking for a warm, cozy place where they will enjoy cocooning themselves when they come back from their walk. And that is achieved through the decoration, through the atmosphere.

For example, don’t install absolutely empty and large bookcases in the living room. The idea is good on paper, but it will be better if you fill them with books or decorative objects. Your guests will simply have the impression of being in an empty apartment and only want to go out.

If you decide to put furniture (and we highly recommend it), then fill it. No need to go overboard, a few books here and there on the shelves, a flower pot, a candle or two. A frame here and there. In short, act as if you were going to live in this accommodation, make it warm and welcoming without overdoing it. Your tenants will appreciate it!

As a conclusion

It is better to lose reservations by being honest and transparent, even if it means mentioning defects, rather than trying to convince people that you are offering a 3-star suite at a low price and that the customer ends up in a barely equipped maid’s room. The disappointment effect generates negative comments, while the “wow” effect, that is to say remaining humble in the description and offering something great, generates excellent comments and mass reservations.

If you recognize yourself in one of these Airbnb mistakes, it is not too late to correct it.  The most important thing to understand when you do vacation rentals is that you should never disappoint a customer. Pay attention to all the little details we mentioned in this article, and you will be a hit!

Frequently asked questions about
Airbnb mistakes to avoid

Updated on: 2025-02-21. Author: Mark Vasiliy Smetanin

Tags: Airbnb Airbnb management