Tips for Hosts

The following are Tips for Hosts (Homeowners) to consider if you are interested in listing space in your home to Guests on iStopOver.

To ensure you have the best possible experience, please review our tips for Hosts so you can prepare your place adequately.

Ask LOTS of Questions

The system is set up for you to be able to communicate directly with your potential Guests.

To ensure you have the best Guests for your place, please don’t be shy to ask lots of questions before committing to a Guest request. They are coming to your home and you should feel comfortable with them.

(If you are unsure or dissatisfied with the answers to your questions, move on. There are bound to be Guests more suitable for your needs.)

It is not unreasonable to obtain references before committing to a Guest.

Know what to expect:

• Be sure you have enough extra sheets and blankets, seating, pillows and blankets, etc. for the number of people designated to stay at your home.
• Do a safety check. Railings, banisters, cracked or broken glass and any other unsafe situations should be repaired or corrected. Non-slip tape on stair edges will help make wooden steps safer.
• Every sleeping floor must have operating smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Wiring should all be safe and in proper junction boxes; no taped splices, uncovered wall plugs or unsafe extension cords. A fire extinguisher on each floor is a good idea. Anything that makes your property safer reduces your liability and increases the Guests comfort level.
• Make sure the heating system is adequate to keep those who aren't accustomed to the cold, comfortable in your property. Comfortable guests return.
• Take out unnecessary furniture that is crowding the main living area.
• Clean your property thoroughly, including carpets, to start fresh. Repeat this annually.
• For peace of mind, remove family heirlooms and fragile items. Remove objects of particular value and those that are very personal or special to you.
• Suggestion: hang some family pictures on the wall. We believe that guests enjoy a rental more when they feel like they are staying in someone's home.

Set policies

Think through the fact that you are renting out space in your home and you may want to set policies regarding:

• Your land-line phone
• Smoking policy, both indoors and outdoors
• Children – do you allow children?
• Identification. Do you want Guests to show ID, and which ID?
• Do you have somewhere for guests to store items for safekeeping?
• Use of your kitchen

Insurance

You may want to check that your insurance covers Guests renting space in your home. This differs from one insurance company to another. We suggest that you check with your insurance company beforehand.

Also, you may want to check how much liability insurance you should carry on your home. This may vary, depending on your individual financial assets. We highly recommend that you speak with your insurance agent to individually assess your exposure, in order to determine how much liability insurance you will likely need.

Tax Support

You may be liable to pay Rental Sales Tax, depending on your jurisdiction and number of days per year that you rent.

For properties in the USA, iStopOver has partnered with HotSpot Management, a professional home rental tax service, to troubleshoot and file your sales taxes.

HotSpot's service handles all aspects of sales & lodging tax compliance for you--including completing the forms, filing returns, registering your property and making tax payments on your behalf.

Click here for details

Checklist: Bedrooms and Bathrooms

• Quality and ample bedding. This means high-quality sheets for each bed, pillows with pillow protectors, extra blankets, and mattress pads.
• An alarm clock and reading lamp on a bedside table, in each bedroom.
• Quality towels. At least 1 bath towel, 2 hand towels, and 2 washcloths, per guest.

Your Listing

Put yourself in the shoes of your vacation rental Guest. Would the photos of your property encourage YOU to rent it?

When a Guest stumbles upon your room rental page, you have 30 seconds or less to grab their attention. Will they rent your room, or move onto the next listing? It's a simple principle. The more photos you have, the more interested a renter will become, and the more likely they will inquire about your rooms. Did you know that vacation rental properties with more than 4 photos get twice as many inquiries as listings with 4 photos or less?

A great listing:

• Clearly defines the property type
• Highlights an amenity or feature
• Describes the suitability of home for certain groups of travelers (stairs are no good for older travelers, some areas are better for business or tourists)
• Specifies the distance to a nearby attraction
• Uses correct spelling and consistent capitalization and punctuation
• Specifies bedroom info and bed setup
• Offers the nearest mode of transportation
• Describes the distance to the beach, mountain, lake, etc.
• Specifies the distance from metro cities
• Names nearby landmarks or attractions

Photos:

Here are some tips to keep in mind when taking and selecting the photos for your listing:

1. Lighting. Choose well-lit, clear photographs, taken on a sunny day. Early mornings before sunrise and late afternoons tend to be the best for taking photographs. The best rule of thumb to follow is to have the sun behind you at all times. If your home or the room you are photographing faces West, the sun will be at your back in the mornings. If it faces East, the sun will be at your back in the evenings. Avoid photos with too much light or too little light, which is also a common mistake.
2. Recency. Photos should not be more than two or three years old. Avoid uploading photos that show a date stamp. When you select your photos, you don't want to have to continually update those pictures because your date stamp is giving away the age of the photo.
3. Variety. Include both exterior and interior shots of your property. Travelers want to get a sense of the size and style of your home. Site visitors want to see accurate representations of your property. That being said, it's probably not necessary to include a photograph of your bathroom, unless it is spectacular. A toilet is pretty much a toilet everywhere. Along those lines, avoid filling space with generic nature photos. Try to feature some aspect of your actual home in each photo.
4. Staging. Help the travelers imagine what it will feel like to stay in your home. Instead of showing a bare table and chairs, add a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers. You might even set the table with place settings and wine. Sofas and other seating areas can be spruced up with throw pillows and blankets. Lamps tend to photograph better when they are turned on. However, always be sure to turn televisions off.
5. Framing. Consider what is in the frame of your shot. When choosing exterior photos, stay away from the ones that have cars in the frame as they can distract from the actual home. When selecting your bedroom shots, try to select photos that show the entire bed.
6. Format. A standard landscape/horizontal format fits best.
7. Pixels. Upload 640 pixel x 480 pixel digital originals for best results. 400 pixel x 300 pixel photos are minimum requirements.
8. Digital Images. Use digital images ONLY. If you don't have a digital camera, borrow one from a friend or hire a professional photographer. You don't want to use low-resolution or scanned photos that don't do your home justice. JPEG formatted files are preferred, but we can accept PNG, GIF and JPG.
9. Camera Settings. Use medium to high quality settings on your digital camera. Don't over-compress your photos.
10. 10 Photos. iStopOver allows you to upload 10 photos. You don't want to sell your home short by only uploading a portion of the available photos. Even if you have a small home, take pictures of your rooms from different angles to make the most of this space.