Preparing your property for guests
Before you take a single photo or write a word of your listing, the property itself has to do the work.
Start from the guest's first five minutes
Most impressions are set between walking in the door and putting a bag down. Clear hallway, working lights, no stray post on the mat, a clean smell rather than a disguised one — these matter more than anything you can write in the listing.
Room by room
Living area: remove anything personal — family photos, paperwork, overflow storage. Leave one or two things that make the space feel considered: a plant, a stack of local guidebooks, a decent throw.
Bedroom: a firm, fresh mattress and proper blackout curtains or blinds do more for reviews than decor ever will. Keep spare bedding in the property, not just at the laundry.
Bathroom: re-grout or re-seal anything mouldy before you list, not after a guest mentions it. Stock enough toiletries, towels and loo roll for the stated guest count plus one day's buffer.
Kitchen: a kettle, a decent set of pans, sharp knives and enough crockery for the maximum occupancy. Label anything unusual about the hob or oven — a laminated one-pager saves more questions than any amount of listing text.
Fix the things guests test in the first hour
Wifi that actually reaches the bedroom, a shower that gets hot within ten seconds, curtains that fully close, keys that work first time — guests test exactly these things, and they're what reviews mention when they go wrong.
Before every stay, not just the first
Build a reusable turnover checklist (see our cleaning checklist) so "guest-ready" is a repeatable standard, not a one-off effort you did for the listing photos.