It was interesting to learn from this exercise that our nightly rate is less expensive than the local hotels. But more interesting was to discover how the prices of short-term rentals in our area are all over the place. Our price is the one highlighted in black; $793.

This course helped me think of every detail to running an airbnb. We've been renting now for 11 months, and have had great success. I mostly attribute it to the following things:

*Our location of Mystic, CT gets a great deal of publicity. Lots of influencers publish stories about the area, and magazines feature the shipping town. We've got 2 popular attractions: Mystic Seaport and Mystic Aquarium. Mystic is also known for dining.

*Airbnb put us on the map! We are also on VRBO, but we only get a few renters from that platform. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I followed all the directions from this class 😀.

*Our cleaning person is reliable! She gets in and cleans as soon as each guest leaves. That is a great comfort to me, but, I do have to go in after her to make sure everything is perfect. Some things get missed. Many of our guests note how clean the place is, and I know it's because I go over everything before each guest arrives. If I can't do it, I ask (and pay) a neighbor to do it for me. 

*I also leave a box of cookies from the famous local bakery and a personalized note welcoming each guest. I know it was mentioned in this course that I shouldn't do that. But I love it when other hosts leave goodies, so I do the same for our guests. That's actually how we set up the rental. We thought of everything we like, and made sure we set that up at our place.

Thank you for this course! You included everything I needed to know to get started, and I really appreciate it.