What is your unpopular STR hosting opinion?

Category: Off-Topic & Lounge

By: Ingrid Svensson

Posted: 2025-12-15T19:48:54.947Z

Let's hear your STR hot takes. The opinions that get you downvoted on Reddit or argued with on Facebook. I'll start: **My unpopular opinion:** Superhost status is overrated. It drives maybe 5% more bookings but the effort to maintain it (especially the review score) causes hosts to make bad business decisions like over-refunding and under-charging. What's yours?

Reply by Olivia Laurent:

Oh this will be fun. You don't need a professionally designed interior. I see hosts dropping $20K at Pottery Barn when a well-curated $5K setup from Facebook Marketplace and Target gets the same reviews. Guests care about clean, comfortable, and functional. They're not judging whether your throw pillows match the accent wall. The ROI on premium furnishing is terrible in most markets. 5-star reviews are not the goal — profitability is. I watch hosts refund $200 to avoid a 4-star review. That's $200 in profit gone to protect a vanity metric. A 4.85 listing performs basically the same as a 4.98. Stop hemorrhaging money over meaningless decimal points. Airbnb is not the enemy. I get tired of the constant complaining about fees and policies. Airbnb sends us guests we'd never find on our own. The 3% host fee is absurdly low compared to any other marketing channel. Try running Google Ads to get the same volume of qualified leads — you'll come running back. Most "passive income" content about STR is dishonest. Having 3 Airbnbs is not passive income. It's a part-time job that happens to be flexible and well-paying. Just call it what it is. Raise your cleaning fee. Most hosts undercharge out of fear it'll reduce bookings. The data shows cleaning fees have minimal impact on booking rates up to about $150-175 for standard 2-3BR properties. Use the cleaning fee calculator at https://strspecialist.com/tools/cleaning-fee-calculator and actually charge what it tells you. And my spiciest take: hot tubs are overrated as an amenity. Yeah they increase bookings. But they also increase maintenance ($100-200/month), insurance premiums, liability, guest complaints, and operational headaches. ROI is positive in mountain/cold weather markets but borderline or negative in beach/warm weather markets. Nobody wants to talk about this because hot tub content gets clicks.

Reply by Michael Thompson:

Here are mine: **The Airbnb arbitrage model is a ticking time bomb for most people doing it.** It works when the market is hot, but you're building a business on someone else's property, with someone else's rules, and zero equity. One landlord not renewing, one city regulation change, or one bad month and you're holding the bag on multiple lease obligations. I know people making great money with arbitrage. I also know people who lost everything when COVID hit and they couldn't cover rent on 8 units with zero bookings. The risk/reward doesn't justify it for most people when buying is an option. **Professional photography is actually bad for some listings.** Stay with me — professional photos that make a property look AMAZING set unrealistic expectations. When guests arrive and the place is "nice but not as good as the photos," you get 4-star reviews. Meanwhile, accurate photos set realistic expectations and guests are pleasantly surprised. I've A/B tested this. My "good but honest" photos outperform my "professional and aspirational" photos in terms of review scores. **The best STR investment right now is mid-term rental, not STR.** Furnished Finder + traveling nurses + 30-day stays = 80% of the revenue with 20% of the work. The future is hybrid: STR in peak season, mid-term in shoulder/off season.