With 2022 coming to an end, we want to take a look at the blog posts that our readers enjoyed the most. We covered all the latest industry news, from Airbnb updates to emerging trends, and we analyzed what it meant for hosts.
We also shared our favorite tips to help you grow your business and we interviewed the industry’s most renowned experts, giving you exclusive access to the valuable insights they offered.
The short-term rental industry expanded again and we were there to make sure you made the most of any opportunities that arose. Based on views, clicks, likes, and shares, here’s a recap of the year’s most loved blog posts.
Most popular blog posts of 2022
20. Writing the Perfect Offer Letter to Buy a Property (Free Template)
Short-term rentals generated an average annual income of $56,000 in 2021. This encouraged more people than ever to consider investing in vacation rentals. Noting this trend, we created a free template for the perfect offer letter to buy a property. Clearly, our readers were inspired as this post heads the list at number 20.
19. Beach House Rules: Encourage Your Guests to Respect Your Home
If you’re one of the lucky hosts to own a beachside vacation rental, you probably have a number of excited guests desperate to soak up the sun and swim in the ocean. However, you’ve most likely also dealt with excess sand and wet floors in your home.
To ensure your property is treated well and left in pristine condition, it’s a great idea to send guests your rules in advance of their arrival. To ease this process, we put together this beach house rules template along with suggestions and advice to encourage guests to respect your home.
18. There is no Time for Piña Coladas on the Beach as a host!
If you like Piña Coladas…then being a vacation rental manager is not for you, according to Superhosts Annette Grant and Sarah Karakaian. The “hosting biz besties” duo who present the popular podcast “Thanks for Visiting” spoke to us about mess-ups, hosting myths, and wallpaper magic, as well as sharing their experience and knowledge with our readers. This interview was so well-liked, it makes our list at 18.
17. How to Create an Effective Vacation Rental Marketing Plan
Whether you want to list on Airbnb, Vrbo, or just on your own website, we wanted to help hosts separate themselves from the pack by sharing our vacation rental marketing plan. Covering an array of factors, such as your goals, audience, and brand voice, our readers found this post extremely useful. You clicked its way into number 17.
16. Top Trends & Tips for Marketing Your Family Vacation Rental in 2022
Many hosts prefer to welcome families to their vacation rental homes rather than large groups of friends. In order to achieve this, it’s important to make your listing visible to the guests you want to attract. Our post on top trends and tips for marketing your short-term rental to families was so popular it made our list at number 16.
15. Matt Landau: “Hospitality gestures are the new marketing” | Lodgify Interviews
Highly respected vacation rental guru Matt Landau spoke to us about the biggest threat to the industry, how to impress your guests with little surprises, and how to avoid burnout as a host. Our readers clearly appreciated these valuable insights as they made sure this post entered our list at number 15.
14. Airbnb Checkout Instructions: What to Include? (Free Template)
Although the idea of checking out of a hotel might sound easy, it can be a little different than a vacation rental. It’s important to make sure that the procedure is clear and convenient for you and your guests. From encouraging guests to leave the property as they found it to returning the keys, we covered everything you need to know about what to include in your instructions.
13. U.S. Vacation Rental Forecast: ADR to Rise 23% Before Summer
We encourage our users to keep up to date with industry trends as we believe it helps them adapt for the future. We analyzed more than 400,000 bookings of internal Lodgify data, including direct and OTA bookings, to bring you these essential stats and tips on how to prepare for changing industry patterns.
12. Vacation Rental Franchises: Should You Start (or Join) One?
Coming in at 12th place is our post on vacation rental franchises. We delved into how they work, the advantages and disadvantages, and whether or not you should consider joining one. We looked at growth opportunities within them and what the alternatives are. We even threw in some extra tips and ideas to help scale your business.
11. Investing in Airbnb Properties: Pros, Cons and Best Cities
We wanted to help our users and potential new hosts make the best choice for their business when it comes to investing in an Airbnb property. Using the latest industry data and our own expertise, we explained everything about the pros and cons, as well as the best places to put your money – and where to avoid.
10. How to Find Private Lenders for Short-Term Rental & Real Estate
Many people assume that applying for a conventional loan at the bank is the best option when investing in short-term rentals and real estate. This post looked at the various ways you can obtain the finance you need for your business, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each one. We also provided you with the top private lenders for short-term rental real estate and how to find them.
9. Airbnb Welcome Basket: Best Gift Ideas for Your Guests
Imagine arriving at your vacation rental after a long day’s traveling to find a beautifully hand-written note, a cheese platter, or a bottle of wine. The little things make vacation experiences so special, as guests can tell when a host has gone above and beyond for them. These best gift ideas for your guests will help you receive even better reviews and encourage them to return.
8. How to Obtain a Certificate of Occupancy for Short-Term Rentals
It may sound obvious but it’s essential that your short-term rental property meets certain safety standards and complies with all area building codes. A certificate of occupancy proves that your home is legally allowed to be rented out to short-term guests. The criteria may differ depending on your home’s location; therefore, we put together this detailed post on how you can obtain one.
7. Airbnb Summer Release: What it Means for Hosts
Airbnb’s Summer Release introduced an array of new features for the platform, which affected both hosts and guests in various ways. The introduction of the OMG! and Design categories were highly discussed, especially by hosts who saw their listings appear in fewer searches. We examined all the updates and explained how they may affect your business while providing tips on how to use the new features to your advantage.
6. 101 Vrbo Guest Review Examples for Every Host (Good and Bad)
Although it’s common practice for guests to leave reviews about their stay, Vrbo hosts are also asked to leave reviews about their guests. There are a number of reasons why this is important, from ensuring that guests behave and treat your home properly to warning other hosts of potential problems.
However, leaving appropriate reviews is key to their effectiveness. Our readers loved this post on guest review examples, both good and bad, and made sure it finished the year in 6th place.
5. How to Write Up an Airbnb Business Plan: Free PDF Template
Airbnb welcomed 14,000 new hosts each month to the platform in 2022, increasing competition for guests with an ever-expanding inventory. To help your vacation rental business grow sustainably and successfully, we gave you our tips and tricks on how to write up an Airbnb business plan and a free PDF template. Our readers made the most of it, making this post come in at number five.
4. 11 Social media stars inspiring hosts in 2022
As much as we all secretly (or not so secretly) love videos of cats doing funny things on TikTok and Instagram, social media is also an incredibly easy-to-use educational tool. You might not have known that there are lots of excellent accounts that provide free tips and ideas on how to improve your vacation rental business. We put together this list of our favorite social media stars to follow for daily insights. You liked it so much that it made it into 4th place.
3. Best Vacation Rental Property Management Agreement Template
If you own several vacation rentals or simply don’t have the time or experience to run and manage the one you have, you may consider hiring a property manager or management company. This is often the best solution for many hosts as it takes away a lot of the hassle and stress.
However, there must be an agreement between the landlord and agent to ensure it’s managed smoothly. We created this template for vacation rental property management agreements to help you get started. You loved it so much that it gets the bronze medal on our list.
2. Website Branding Checklist for Vacation Rental Professionals
The most successful hosts have nailed their branding when marketing their vacation rental business. They have a clear message and style of voice that helps potential customers recognize who they are and know what they stand for.
We understand that not every short-term rental owner is a marketing expert, so we created this comprehensive checklist to make sure that your guests can identify with your business.
1. Lodgify raises $30M in Series B funding to ramp up global growth
We are humbled that the news of Lodgify raising $30 million in a Series B funding round was our number one post of 2022. The funding will further enable us to improve our product and the services we provide so that we can continue to help and inspire both small and large hospitality firms to scale up. The news was a huge win for our customers and we can’t wait for what will be a hugely exciting 2023.
Takeaways
2022 has been a challenging yet ultimately successful year for the short-term rental industry. Both supply and demand grew for vacation rentals, and more and more property owners listed their accommodations on OTAs.
We hope these blog posts helped both experienced and newbie hosts grow their businesses successfully, and we’d like to thank all of our readers for taking the time to check them out. We can’t wait for 2023 and the further successes it will bring.
