Hometime Revenue Management Team always ensure that the total cost that guests see for their reservation is competitive in the marketplace for your property, so we are not hindering demand for your property.
It is a balancing act for property managers on how to price a property's cleaning fee and the nightly rate for bookings.You'll notice that some managers price their properties to have a higher cleaning fee and a lower nightly rate, while others will have a lower cleaning fee but a higher nightly rate. The key metric that guests care about is always the total cost that they see for a booking.
Hometime Revenue Management Team always ensure that the total cost that guests see for their reservation is competitive in the marketplace for your property, so we are not hindering demand for your property.
Also of note, there is currently a huge shortage of professional cleaners and linen providers across Australia. Professional cleaning companies are continually increasing their fees as there is a lack of supply and sufficient demand to absorb the fee increases. Unfortunately, this is a nationwide issue across this industry that we are having to contend with and is largely out of control.
The cleaning fee includes the professional labour of cleaning the property, a property inspection for any damages or concerns (with photos/video provided to your Hosting Partner), linen hire and the replenishment of all consumables at the property.
There is also a significant amount of time and effort from your Hosting Partner that goes into coordinating these cleaning companies and ensuring they are maintaining a high cleaning standard for your property. It is only fair that there are margins also within the cleaning fee to compensate for this.
There may be examples on Airbnb where the cleaning fees you see for a property seems low (eg. $100 or $150 etc). These are generally independent hosts who are cleaning the property themselves and not employing professional housekeeping companies as we do that charge high hourly rates.