Airbnb built a co-host network. Read the ratings line.
Airbnb's 2024 Winter Release landed a couple of weeks ago and the headline feature is a Co-Host Network — a marketplace inside Airbnb where an owner can find a local person to run their listing. It launched with more than 10,000 co-hosts across ten countries.
Buried in the announcement is the number I actually care about. Airbnb says listings run by co-hosts on the network average 4.86 stars, compared with 4.62 for listings run by large property managers (Airbnb, October 16, 2024).
Airbnb has every incentive to make that comparison, so take it with the appropriate salt. But it matches what I see on the ground, and the reason is not mysterious.
Why the gap exists
A quarter of a star does not sound like much. On a platform where search placement, Superhost status, and Guest Favorite badges all key off review scores, a quarter of a star is the difference between the first screen and the fourth.
Here is what produces it.
Response time. A guest messages at 9:40 p.m. because the code for the lockbox is not working. A local person answers in four minutes. A national call center answers in forty, from a queue, from a script, from a time zone that is not yours. Both of those guests get into the house. One of them writes a different review.
Ownership of the problem. When something breaks in a home I manage, there is one person whose name is on it — I own this company, and I own and run Nashville rentals of my own on the same systems. In a large management company the guest issue, the maintenance ticket, the cleaner's schedule, and the owner relationship live in four different departments with four different queues.
Local knowledge. "Where should we eat near the house?" is a review-affecting question. So is "which side of the street can we park on during a Titans game?" You cannot outsource that to a knowledge base.
Scale pressure. A company managing thousands of homes has to standardize. Standardization is genuinely good for consistency and genuinely bad for the twenty percent of situations that do not fit the template. Guests remember the twenty percent.
What the launch means for owners
Two honest reads, and they point in different directions.
The good: Airbnb just made it dramatically easier to find a local operator instead of a national one, and gave that choice its endorsement. If you have been self-managing and burning out, you now have a supported path to hand it off without signing with a brand you have not met.
The caution: a marketplace of 10,000 co-hosts is a marketplace of wildly variable operators. A badge on a platform is not a business. Ask any co-host the same questions you would ask a management company: who answers the phone at 11 p.m., what happens when the HVAC dies in July, how do you price my home and how often, what do you charge and what else do you charge, and how do I leave if this does not work.
The right answer to that last one should be short and specific, and it should cover what happens to the bookings already on your calendar.
The Boost part: you get me
Here is the operating detail behind how we actually run a home, and it is the reason I run this business the size I run it.
Every owner at Boost has my number and uses it. Not a ticket portal, not an account manager who rotates every eight months. When something goes sideways at your home, the escalation path ends with the person whose name is on the company. I answer texts on Sunday. That is not a marketing line, it is a structural choice, and it puts a hard ceiling on how big this company can get before it becomes the thing on the wrong side of that 4.86-to-4.62 comparison.
The other half of the same choice: you are month to month. Our agreement runs 30 days' notice, no fixed term, no exit fee. If the work stops being worth it, you leave, and I would rather lose an owner cleanly than keep one with a contract. An operator who needs a long lock-up to keep your business is telling you something about the work.
What I would ask a co-host before hiring one
If you are shopping the new network — or shopping me — here is the list I would use:
How many homes do you manage, and how many people are on your team?
What exactly do you do to my listing in a normal week?
Who physically goes to the house when something breaks, and how fast?
What is your total fee, and what is billed on top of it?
Do you mark up maintenance and supplies?
What is the notice period if I want out?
Get the answers in writing. The ones who do this well will not mind.
If you own a Nashville short-term rental and you want to have that conversation with somebody local, get a revenue estimate from Boost Rentals. You will be talking to me, not to a queue, and I will answer all six of those questions before you ask them.
— Chris Hetzner, Boost Rentals