If you are wondering if you can give your airbnb listing with all of its photos, past history and reviews to a new owner, you’re one of many! The way airbnb is naturally designed is that the host is the one who owns the airbnb listing. The host is an intricate part of the airbnb platform because to airbnb, the host is the person who creates the hospitality element of the hosting a reservation.

For this reason, airbnb has not designed a tool for owners to use, to transfer existing airbnb listings to someone else. You cannot have one airbnb owner simply send the listing ownership to another account. There is no option for this with airbnb. If the host shuts down their account, that listing goes away completely.

Remember, airbnb is running a small business. So the host has associated with the account their tax information that airbnb uses when collecting taxes on their behalf and reporting to the IRS and state/local municipalities. For this reason again, it’s not conducive to give your log-in and password away along with your airbnb listing when you are selling your airbnb property.

Plus, that airbnb listing is probably under an e-mail address you use all the time. Un-gluing yourself from your existing airbnb listing to give it to another person just isn’t practical.

So, what can you do if you’re buying or selling a home and the listing itself, with its history, reviews and bookmarks is at stake?

– FRANCESCA HAMILTON, REALTOR, SHORT TERM RENTAL SPECIALIST

Ultimately, after doing dozens of google searches you are going to find out that you cannot transfer an airbnb listing and there’s no way around it. If you see any “hacks” out there, they are a short term resolution to a complicated problem so it’s better to start fresh! Next up- looking on the bright side…

The positive side of starting fresh with a listing is two-fold:

  1. The new owner of the property has the opportunity to take what they like about the old listing and combine that with their new ideas/ photos or changed design. It’s a great time to make things better!
  2. Not only does the new host of the property get to take over possible reservations onto their new listing, but they get the BOOST. When you are a new listing on airbnb they automatically boost your listing to the higher tier of search results because they want to find out which listings get the most traction and bookings. Airbnb also doesn’t want a new host to get discouraged, so they include you in e-blasts and other positioning’s that you don’t get once you’re listing is seasoned.

Becoming a Superhost

To be a superhost you have to uphold certain standard of response rate, review rate, and number of reservations. The good news is that if you have to start a fresh listing, if you are able to receive outstanding upcoming reservations you’re starting off with some days booked that will help you achieve superhost faster! Can you transfer existing reservations to a new listing? Read more about transffering existing reservations to your new listing.

Francesca Hamilton, Realtor
Short Term Rental Specialist

And if you are a fresh listing, combined with the BOOST, you’re going to hopefully achieve that Superhost status pretty fast. As I last checked, airbnb evaluates for Superhost status every three months.

If you are interesting in buying or selling a short term rental in the Phoenix or Scottsdale area, contact me today at (480) 382-8514. As an experienced realtor and short term rental specialist I would love to help you!