504. Hosting Hotline: How Do You Build Trust Without Reviews?
Thanks For Visiting
Airbnb Superhosts Annette Grant & Sarah Karakaian
4.9 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
When you’re just starting out on Airbnb or launching a new property, one of the biggest challenges is building trust before reviews start rolling in. Should you put “new listing” in your title or description to explain why your property has zero reviews? Or could that actually backfire?
In this Hosting Hotline episode, Sarah and Annette tackle a great listener question about whether to use “new listing” in your Airbnb description—and the best ways to overcome the objections that come with having little to no reviews. They share how to leverage Airbnb’s algorithm boost for new listings, avoid overpromising, and use smart marketing language to build credibility right out of the gate.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Whether or not to include “new listing” in your title or description
- How Airbnb’s algorithm favors new properties—and how to maximize that boost
- Why accuracy in your listing copy matters more than hype
- Marketing strategies to overcome the lack of reviews
- Tips for building guest trust from day one through responsiveness and communication
If you’re launching a new property, or still figuring out how to make your first reviews count, this episode is a must-listen.
Resources:
Booked & Profitable Listing Audit Bootcamp – Learn how to optimize your Airbnb listing for conversions and overcome common guest objections. Join at: thanksforvisiting.com/bootcamp
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the Thanks for Visiting Podcast. |
| 0:07.9 | We believe hosting with Heart is at the core of every short-term rental. |
| 0:12.3 | With Annette's background in business operation. |
| 0:15.0 | And Sarah's extensive hospitality management and interior design experience, |
| 0:19.3 | we have welcomed thousands of guests from over 30 |
| 0:22.3 | countries earning us over a million dollars and garnering us thousands of five-star reviews. |
| 0:28.0 | We love sharing creative ways for your listing to stand out, serve your guests, and be profitable. |
| 0:35.0 | Each episode, we will have knowledgeable guests who bring value to the short-term |
| 0:38.8 | rental industry. Or we will share our stories of our own experiences so you can implement |
| 0:43.7 | actual improvements to your rentals. Whether you're experienced, new, or nervous to start your own |
| 0:50.3 | short-term rental, we promise you'll feel right at home. |
| 1:01.9 | Running a short-term rental business means wearing a lot of hats. And for many of you listening, you're a team of one. Guest communication, marketing, cleaning coordination, |
| 1:06.8 | finances, it all falls on your shoulders. And when you're bouncing between Airbnb, |
| 1:11.6 | verbos, spreadsheets, and a dozen apps, things slip. You miss messages. You spend hours updating |
| 1:17.3 | calendars and you're left working in your business instead of on it. That's why we're excited |
| 1:22.0 | about Logify. It's built for hosts like you, solo operators and growing teams who want to |
| 1:27.1 | simplify and professionalize |
| 1:28.7 | their business. With Logify, you can build a direct booking website you actually own. |
| 1:33.9 | Sync all of your calendars in one place and automate guest communication and payments so |
| 1:39.1 | nothing falls through the cracks. And here's the bigger picture. In today's market, |
| 1:43.0 | trust is everything. Guests want to know |
| 1:45.5 | their booking with a professional, having your own direct booking site signals credibility, consistency, |
... |
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