The Airbnb Superhost

Would you invest £1,000 in a sofa bed if you knew it could generate £50,000 in revenue? It's a question I regularly ask audiences when speaking about Airbnb hosting. But this week, I've found myself putting that principle into practice all over again! With every bedroom occupied, my neighbours fully booked, and guests wanting to extend their stays, I've run out of beds — but not ide...

Episode 138 — Airbnb's Dirty Dishes: Have We Lost Our Common Sense? Should Airbnb guests be expected to wash their own dishes? Or has common courtesy become an unreasonable house rule? Airbnb's latest changes to its house rules have sparked a storm in a washing-up bowl! From 20 November 2026, Airbnb's updated policy generally prevents hosts from requiring guests to wash and put away...

Can your house tell you what's going on without you seeing a thing? After eleven years of welcoming strangers into my home, I've developed something rather like a sixth sense. I can often tell who's arrived, who's gone out, which rooms are occupied and even when something isn't quite right — without seeing anybody! But when I recently started training a new helper, I disco...

Episode 136 – Does Anything Ever Get Broken? What happens when your Airbnb guests break something? And what if the thing they break is actually your way of thinking? After eleven years of hosting and around 19,000 guest-nights, I've come to accept that things occasionally get broken. It's part of welcoming strangers into a working home. But when a mysterious broken fridge door turns up w...

Get rid of what you don’t want to make room for what you do want. What does throwing away a 60-year-old armchair have to do with making more than £300 from Airbnb the very next day? Quite a lot, as it turns out. In this episode, I explore something I first learned many years ago called the Principle of Vacuum : Get rid of what you don't want to make room for what you do want. It's a prin...

Episode 134 — Airbnb: The Entrepreneur’s Training Ground What if the best place to learn how to run a business isn't in a classroom, on a course, or by risking tens of thousands of pounds? What if it's your spare room? In this episode, I explore why I describe Airbnb as a “business in a box” —and why becoming a live-in host can teach you many of the skills every entrepreneur eventually n...

Episode 133 Show Notes The Dome at the bottom of my garden has witnessed rather a lot of romance over the years. Marriage proposals. Newlyweds. Candlelit pathways. Engagement rings hidden inside fruit. And then... there was the Viagra. In this episode, I share five very different stories from my years of hosting guests in the Dome — some genuinely touching, some wonderfully unexpected, and one tha...

What happens when your Airbnb is full — but one of your regular guests still needs somewhere to stay? You send them next door! In this episode, I explore something I rarely hear mentioned when people talk about running an Airbnb: the importance of having great relationships with your neighbours. It starts with a young Malaysian student arriving in the UK for the first time. I'd promised to co...

Episode 131 – The Unexpected Joy of Strangers “I couldn't have strangers in my home.” It's probably the number one objection I hear when I talk to people about becoming a live-in Airbnb host. But here's the thing: every guest starts off as a stranger. And over the years, some of those strangers have given me experiences, friendships and memories I could never have anticipated when t...

Episode 130 – Never Forget the ‘Mint Sauce’ What does a dollop of mint sauce have to do with being a great Airbnb host? Quite a lot, as it turns out. This week, a new guest paid me a wonderful compliment. Having stayed in countless Airbnbs around the country, he told me there was something about staying in my home that just felt... different. So different, in fact, that he immediately booked anoth...

Episode 129 – When Archie Refused to Pay After ten years of hosting, thousands of guests and pretty much every situation you can imagine, there was still one thing I'd never done: escalated a payment dispute to Airbnb. Until Archie. And it was over just £35 . Archie booked my Dome for a romantic night away with his fiancée and asked to use the hot tub — an optional £35 extra clearly stated in...

Episode 128: Every House Rule Has a Story House Rules can easily become a long list of DON'Ts. Don't smoke. Don't make noise. Don't bring visitors back. Don't eat in your room. But what are House Rules actually for? This week, I've been writing a set of Extended House Rules for a potential long-stay guest — and realised that almost every rule I've included is the...

After more than 2,500 guests , 18,500 guest nights and over ten years of hosting, I finally encountered a guest I genuinely didn't like. If you're thinking this episode is going to put you off becoming an Airbnb host... think again. In fact, quite the opposite. This story reinforced just how rare serious incidents really are, how supportive Airbnb and the police can be when something doe...

Episode 126: Six Words You Must Never Say Have you ever wanted to help someone who was clearly in crisis… but had no idea what to say? In this deeply personal episode, Neil shares the remarkable story of Simon – a guest battling alcoholism, homelessness and suicidal thoughts – and the six words he was taught to never say to someone in emotional distress. What began as a hosting decision became one...

Every host has received that phone call. "Hi... I can't find your house." Or perhaps even worse... "I'm outside... but I can't get in." In this episode, Neil shares the journey he's been on over the last ten years to eliminate those frustrating calls by continually refining his arrival instructions. From understanding why postcodes and sat navs aren't a...

What does an Iron Maiden concert have to do with being a better Airbnb host? Quite a lot, as it turns out. When more than 50,000 music fans descended on nearby Knebworth, the ripple effect stretched far beyond the concert itself. My house was completely full, not just with concert-goers, but with wedding guests, birthday party revellers, football fans and  people whose original accommodation had b...

How many times have you asked a guest, "Do you understand?"... only to discover later that they didn't? In this third and final conversation with helicopter paramedic Vito, we explore why people often find it much easier to say "yes" than "no" —and how changing just a few words can dramatically improve the quality of the answers you receive. From lifting critical...

What do helicopter pilots, paramedics and Airbnb hosts all have in common? More than you might imagine. In this episode I'm joined once again by Vito, a helicopter paramedic working on North Sea wind farms. Every day he works in an environment where mistakes can have life-changing consequences, and one of the biggest lessons aviation has taught the world is the value of checklists. As hosts,...

What does a German helicopter paramedic working on North Sea wind farms have in common with an Airbnb host in Hertfordshire? Surprisingly… quite a lot. In this slightly different episode, I welcome back one of my regular guests, Vito, who has travelled over from Germany and joined me to discuss something that sits at the heart of both our worlds: communication. In his profession, ambiguity can hav...

What if your biggest obstacle to becoming an Airbnb host isn't Airbnb at all? For years, I've described myself as an Airbnb Superhost, speaker and mentor. But this week, while refreshing my LinkedIn profile, I had a realisation that completely changed how I describe what I do. Because if Airbnb disappeared tomorrow... everything I teach would still exist. So perhaps I don't teach Ai...

What do a wood-fired hot tub, a helicopter paramedic and a Tokyo train guard all have in common? Checklists. In this episode, Neil shares a recent hosting mishap that occurred while he was away from home. Despite seven years of experience managing his wood-fired hot tub, a delegated task didn't go quite to plan, resulting in disappointed guests and a valuable lesson about systems, routines an...

After hosting more than 2,000 guests and living through over 18,000 guest nights, you might think I’ve seen it all. Trust me, I haven’t. In this episode, I explore one of the most fascinating aspects of hosting: the fact that every guest arrives with their own unique interpretation of how the world works. What seems obvious to us may be completely unfamiliar to somebody else. Using a series of rea...

What if the reason guests return year after year has very little to do with the room… and everything to do with how you make them feel ? In this episode of the Airbnb Superhost Podcast, I share the fascinating psychology behind why the same festival guests keep returning to stay with me every May Bank Holiday — and why many of them now feel more like a temporary tribe than Airbnb guests. From fire...

What does it really mean to welcome someone? In this episode, I explore a lesson I’ve been reminded of while travelling around the UK speaking at property networking events: when we arrive somewhere unfamiliar, we all ask the same silent questions. Am I expected?  Am I welcome?  Do I matter?  What do I do next?  Am I in the way?  Have I made the right decision? And whether you’re a guest arriving...

Episode 115 – When a Guest Makes a Suggestion What if the things holding your Airbnb back are the very things you’ve stopped noticing? In this episode, I explore one of the most important lessons hosting has taught me over the last decade: fresh eyes see what familiarity hides. From a nearly dangerous oven door… to a toilet roll in the wrong place for ten years… to a rain-soaked BBQ experience tha...