Julian Sage:                         00:00                     In this episode, we’re talking about pre-screening guests and what are the things that you should be doing if you have things like instant book on. So stay tuned.

Julian Sage:                         00:07                     Vacation rental machine helps hosts just like you learn how to start, grow and scale your short term rental business. The show’s all about creating systems that help you automate your business, give any more time and money freedom. If you’re ready to start living the vacation rental life, then subscribe to this podcast today, come and join us on our Facebook group, the host nation, where we’ll be talking about starting automating and scaling a short term rental business. Now onto the show.

Julian Sage:                         00:34                     Hey, what is going on host nation? To another episode of vacation rental machine. I am with Jon Bell, I’m Julian Sage, and we’re talking about pre-screening guests and the steps that you should be doing to prevent certain types of people from coming into your unit. Now we’ve probably heard a lot about with Airbnb and this mass shooting that happened and a lot of people were injured and now Airbnb is talking about verification and this process, but we can’t just depend on Airbnb to make sure that the guests that we’re allowing into our space aren’t these wrong types of people. We only want certain types of people into our properties, but it can be challenging and scary when we do put instant book on because we’re just allowing a certain type of person into our property to assure they do have to have these certain criteria and we’re going to talk about that.

Julian Sage:                         01:16                     But as a professional, when you are allowing lots of people into multiple properties, that’s a lot of people and it can be overwhelming if you’re trying to get IDs from every single person. There has to be a streamlined process for this. So in this episode, we’re talking about that process, about how professionals scale when pre-screening guests and the things that you can be doing to make it easy on you in an automated process. So Jon, what has been your experience with pre-screening guests? What were you doing when you first started off with prescreening guests and now what is your system look like?

Jon Bell:                               01:43                     You know, when I first started off one, I did start off instant booking, right? So that automatically eliminates a lot of pre-screening of people that you could do. I mean, that automatically just cuts down the people that you get a chance to screen by at least 70%.

Jon Bell:                               02:02                     So the people that I did get a chance to screen, they were either people that didn’t meet a certain criteria or two criteria that you really have with an Airbnb are to have a government ID or basically a verified profile. For me, this one box is mandatory, right? I need them to have some type of government ID somewhere. Whether I have it or Airbnb has it or whatever platform, they gotta be verified. The second option that you have that you can to pre-screen tenants would kind of come down to, if you want them to have a previous track record of being good or recommended by another host. Those two options you can enable at the same time. Everybody that does not meet those criteria, they’ll come in and as a request to book. Our request to book is when a guest wants to book with you. They’ve already kind of loaded up the payment method. They’re just really waiting for you to hit accept, but at this point, this

Jon Bell:                               03:00                     Is when you can actually go into their profile. You can at least see why they are not able to book in most cases. For me it’s because they don’t have a verified profile, which then I’ll kindly send them a message saying, Hey, can you verify your profile about uploading your government ID? This also might mean that you have to upload a profile photo. Once you do those things, we can then approve the reservation and now look back in about 30 minutes or so and then I’ll see if they’ve done those steps. If so they get approved. If not, I’ll technically let the clock run before I send another message, which you have 24 hours to do so as long as they didn’t ask to book at an inconvenient time, you have really a good long day before you have to message them again. I stay on top of this just because I want somebody to have somebody’s ID.

Jon Bell:                               03:53                     Whether you’re the first of 10 people coming this day, I just want the person that made the reservation to be held accountable in some sort of sense.

Julian Sage:                         04:01                     So Jon, there’s lots of people that are booking these reservations that they don’t have a verified profile then don’t probably have any reviews. They don’t have any experience. So it can be maybe scary to people when they are maybe approving these people that they don’t know anything about them. How do you screen these types of people or should you just not allow them to book with you?

Jon Bell:                               04:19                     Oh, 100% you shouldn’t. You should have let them book as long as you’re not turned off. Sometimes you got to go with the gut feeling but your gut feeling should be backed up by either your questioning back and forth to the guests. Remember, this is a platform where people are home sharing.

Jon Bell:                               04:36                     If somebody wants to book, you have 100% of the right to ask them, Hey, what is the purpose for your trip? So you can ask them those questions, they can give you responses. If you’re comfortable with them, you can accept them. If you’re not comfortable with it, then you don’t have to accept the reservation. There are some dings that you’ll get by not accepting the reservation, however, by the platform. Because now you’re denying people. They want to know why you denied them, so they don’t send you those people anymore. So you want to make sure that you’re only really accepting the people that you really want. But you want to put other parameters in place that deter the people that you really don’t want. This goes back to how you book. This goes back to also price point in some cases.

Jon Bell:                               05:19                     So if you don’t allow one day bookings, you cut out a lot of the riffraff that you could have just for the people that want to come through a party and they’re out. Reason why they want to book a one day is because they know they run the risk of getting put out. And if they are allowed to just go for just a few hours, they have served a purpose of their reservation. You don’t want that type of guests granted, in times like this where it’s slow and you’ve got somebody that wants to book one night, you know, you can kind of reconsider those things. Or you have a gap that you want to fill and there’s one night reservation does fill the gap. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t book one nights at all, but I’m saying that across the board you should primarily be two days or more.

Julian Sage:                         06:05                     So Jon, you said that it’s a good thing that people are actually booking with you one time. You said that when new people are coming onto the platform then that’s good growth. That means that Airbnb, it’s growing. More people are interested in booking in this space. So it is a good sign for us to see new people that are coming onto the platform. But like you said, Airbnb does make it a little challenging when they are hiding a lot of information. Like now you can’t see pictures of the people before they are booking. And one of the issues that was that I remember was that people would have different photos than what their profile is. And even after they book, sometimes maybe their photo doesn’t match up or it might not be a legit photo. So Jon, you were talking about some of those rules that you set in place to be able to prevent certain types of people from coming in.

Julian Sage:                         06:46                     You said that instant book is something that a professional does want to use because Airbnb does have their vetting process when people are uploading their ID, their verified profile, and they also maybe have some reviews in order for them to be able to instant book with you. So that is a verification process on Airbnb side, but on your side to make sure that people are not, let’s say taking advantage of the system, you do also have some rules set in place to be able to prevent those types of situations. One of those rules you said was blocking off those one day bookings and only using it during potentially gaps or slower seasons, but what are some of the other rules that you also use to be able to pre-screen guests and make sure that you’re keeping the right types of people at your units?

Jon Bell:                               07:26                     It’s definitely within the house rules, right? You know, in the house rules I pre-expose all the rules that I want them to know to include that there is external cameras, to include that there are internal noise monitors. The smart person that wants to come throw something at my place would actually read that and actually say this probably isn’t the place for me. At the same time there’s some people that aren’t that smart, that don’t even read those things that do book. I mean it’s not impossible for these things to happen, but if you have external cameras to the property, you kind of see things kind of developing. One thing that I know is that if I got a three bedroom place and somebody books for one guest, there’s something wrong there. Either they didn’t put the right amount of guests in or they’re looking to do something that they don’t want me to know and I’ve been able to stop a few things just by looking at the reservation, looking at the details that the guests provided. At the same time, taking a look at the front camera as they’re trying to check in and I see five people with bags getting out. That tells me that Hey, these five people are looking to stay. Maybe the place can accommodate five, but there was a reason why you put in one guest and I asked and maybe you didn’t respond.

Julian Sage:                         08:39                     With a lot of new hosts though, they may feel anxious and I know that some of the apps such as like Your Porter, they even allow you to be able to collect guests identification and there are some locations where you have to collect that type of guest identification just for verification purposes because Airbnb does withhold that type of information. Are you not concerned about taking let’s say a driver’s license or passport for someone or are you just trusting that Airbnb is going to be able to maybe potentially provide that info if something does happen?

Jon Bell:                               09:09                     So for Airbnb, like I said, I want them to have the information. I’m okay with that. When it comes to other platforms, let’s just say booking.com I do want to know at least who’s coming in, especially if there was an issue processing their credit card. And it’s not uncommon for booking.com for there to be issues processing somebody’s credit card. There’s a lot of fraud going on out there. So yes, you want to get an ID for those people, that book externally to that platform. Again, as I’ve said it a couple of times before, Airbnb is the most user-friendly system or platform for hosts that are just starting out that they cover everything that we need to cover and make things a lot easier than we’re exposed to on other platforms that were really built for hotels where they go in and they check in at a desk and you give them an ID. Those things are put on the actual building, not necessarily just on the host. So as these other platforms start to curve things and make it easier for hosts to host their properties, look to see some of those changes come in. But yes, when I book externally, I do want something,

Julian Sage:                         10:23                     I think you brought up a really good point, Jon, and especially with all the stuff that is happening with Airbnb and they’re tightening their policies, people are also looking at other platforms to be able to start advertising on. So people that would just traditionally just rent on, let’s say Airbnb, now they’re looking at other online travel agencies like booking.com, Expedia, and these places. What is your verification process for guests on there? Because with Airbnb, we have instant book and we have their own verification process, but like you said, there are potentially more scams. So is your process the same on these different platforms or is it different?

Jon Bell:                               10:56                     It’s a tad bit different. It’s because you almost have to send them a rental contract. During that phase, you’re able to collect whatever information you want to collect. You’re going to be collecting a signature from them. If you’re really good at it or you have a system that in place, you can collect a pre-authorized credit card that you can use for extra services or just to hold your security deposit. Those things are important with the other platforms, but again, those other platforms are getting a more host friendly, so they’re starting to incorporate some of those things for us.

Julian Sage:                         11:30                     I think that those are all really good points, Jon and I wanted to highlight something that just going back to the very beginning of VRM when we were talking about branding is that your branding is also going to attract a certain type of client. And when you are catering to a higher end type of client to someone that is going to be spending a little bit more money for property, you’re going to be vetting out a lot of those people that maybe are just looking for a cheap place to stay, that may be would want to cause issues. Have you with your properties that the cheaper places typically have more issues and that the expensive ones are a little bit easier to deal with. What has been your experience with your types of properties?

Jon Bell:                               12:04                     Not really. I mean it’s no different than anything. I mean if it’s a group of people and they’re staying at a bigger property, normally they’re pulling money. The same things that can happen at that property can happen at a smaller property or cheaper property and vice versa. It just really depends on how many it accommodates and how many people can split the bill. It’s the level of something happening. The percentage of something happening is not necessarily that high. I don’t have a high number of parties or people that come in and damage my place or anything like that at worst which this just happened not too long ago is somebody smoked inside of my unit. So it’s few and far in between. There’s really no way to kind of vet against that particular thing, especially if the person is brand new to a platform. No other hosts has said anything about it. You’re just kind of wing it in a bit.

Julian Sage:                         13:02                     I think what Jon was saying and that having over 30 properties and dealing with a lot of different types of guests, there are these systems that you can put into place and you don’t have to be afraid of the guests that you are allowing to stay at your rentals. Because we do hear about this stuff that is over publicized like these guests that are causing shootings and, and you know, causing all these issues. The media does try to attach onto this idea that Airbnb is bad and really as a professional host, you do you find these types of situations where maybe someone does smoke in your unit or maybe someone does try to allow extra people into your home but these types of situations where people are getting shot and killed, it’s not like a daily occurrence. It isn’t part of your just everyday hosting experience.

Julian Sage:                         13:46                     These are one off types of situations but it is important how you are setting up your units. Before that, like Jon was saying, how are you pricing your unit? What is your branding? What is the type of client that you’re trying to attract? Do you have security features in place? Do you notify guests that you do have security cameras, noise monitoring devices? We say these things not because we just want to add on all these extra fees. These are important parts of the business and that’s why professionals use them because they prevent these types of situations from happening. I’m sure that the homes that do have these situations where there are these unruly parties and there are these shootings, it’s because they didn’t have the types of verification processes in place to be able to prevent these sorts of situations from happening. Having security cameras, having noise monitoring or devices. These are all important parts. Having these house rules that state locals must contact before booking. One last thing that we should probably hit on Jon is that you did say that you are going into the user’s profile and looking at them when they are inquiring. What is it that you’re looking when you do have an inquiry?

Jon Bell:                               14:48                     Well, first off, I mean I want to look at and see where they’re from. If they’re not from the area, that’s a good thing. If they’re from the area, sometimes I’m like, Oh this, this is somebody looking to do something a little malicious. I then go to the phone number and if I recognize the area code, that might affirm that first thought, but it’s not uncommon for somebody to be from an area and put that as their home town and they’re just coming back to visit family members. That’s not a dead giveaway, but you want to look there. You want to look, see if they’re verified. You want to see if they have other forms of ID, like have they connected their email, have they verified their phone number or a government ID, like I said, is most important for me. You could have maybe five or six other things without a government ID and still don’t have a verified profile. That is very, very, very important to me.

Julian Sage:                         15:41                     All of these things are meant to be able to help you so that you can keep these types of situations from happening and allowing you to be able to use things such as instant books so that you don’t have to manually go in and check everybody’s identification. We are building a vacation rental machine. So these are important things that you do need in your business.

Julian Sage:                         15:56                     And with all that being said, keep on hosting. Hope you hosts found value in this episode. If you did, please go on over to iTunes and leave us a review, that would greatly support the show. If you’d like to connect with Jon, the community, and I, then go on over to our Facebook group, the host nation, talk to you hosts in the next episode keep on hosting.