Originally Posted by
stephem
I find with VRBO and Airbnb that sometimes there are no reviews and other times there are deeply conflicting reviews. For one property in London that I was looking at, one of the reviews said “this place doesn’t actually have air-conditioning” and another one of the reviews said that it was “comfortably air-conditioned”. Really?!
I’ve found that Airbnb guests tend to be quite generous and a bit overly-positive when reviewing. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a listing with anything lower than 3 stars, which is remarkable given that I tend to shop among the lowest-priced Airbnbs. I cover my take on
the subtleties of guest reviews at some length in an
Airbnb how-to I wrote (a few months prior to the "7 for 7" trip to France I mentioned in an earlier post to this thread).
Unless you have some bookings under your belt, you should probably stay away from listings with no reviews. However, they can prove to be great bargains. I have a trip to the American Southwest planned for the fall. Finding affordable lodging within "close" proximity to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon can be really tough. At first, I had booked a stay at a well-reviewed mobile home for the two of us. But then I noticed that the host had freshly listed what appear to me to be some converted office trailers in the same vicinity. All of them had few to no reviews. But, given the track record of the host, I went ahead and booked.
I just went back and took a look at those listings and they both have 30+ reviews, with no obviously shocking complaints. I'm hopeful that it'll turn out well.