Your Flatmates tools
Customising your booking requirements
Beyond the platform's baseline verification, Flatmates lets you add your own specific booking requirements to your listing, giving you a genuine layer of control over exactly who's able to book with you and under what conditions.
Find booking requirement settings within your listing configuration
Booking requirements are configured directly within your listing settings, typically alongside your Instant Book preferences, letting you layer your own specific conditions on top of the platform's standard baseline requirements.
Understand which requirements are available to customise
Available options typically include things like requiring a verified government ID, a minimum account history, or a positive review record before a guest can book - review the full set of options available to understand what's genuinely possible to configure.
Calibrate requirements to your actual, specific risk tolerance
Stricter requirements reduce risk but also reduce your pool of eligible guests, particularly first-time platform users - think honestly about where your own comfort level genuinely sits before setting requirements more restrictively than you actually need to.
Requirements interact directly with your Instant Book settings
If Instant Book is enabled, your custom requirements determine who qualifies for instant confirmation versus who needs to go through a manual request process, so review both settings together rather than configuring them independently of each other.
Avoid setting requirements so strict they meaningfully limit bookings
An overly restrictive set of requirements can quietly and significantly reduce your booking volume without ever showing up as an obvious problem - periodically reassess whether your current settings are still proportionate to your genuine, actual risk concerns.
Review your requirements periodically as your comfort and experience grow
Requirements that felt appropriately cautious as a brand-new host may be worth loosening once you've built genuine hosting experience and confidence, particularly around assessing a booking request on its individual merits.
Communicate any unusual requirement clearly within your listing itself
If you've set a requirement beyond the platform standard, mention it clearly in your listing description, so a prospective guest understands upfront why they might not be eligible to book instantly, rather than being confused or frustrated by an unexplained restriction.
Requirements don't replace your own judgment on individual bookings
Even with requirements configured, you retain the ability to exercise judgment on any specific booking request that technically qualifies but still gives you genuine pause - configured requirements are a baseline filter, not a full substitute for your own review.
Consider seasonal adjustment of your requirements where relevant
During a higher-risk period, particularly busy festive stretches for instance, some hosts temporarily tighten requirements slightly, then loosen them again during quieter periods when maximising booking volume becomes the higher relative priority.
Test the effect of a requirement change with real data over time
After adjusting a requirement, track the effect on your booking volume and quality through your Insights dashboard, giving you real evidence of whether the specific change actually achieved its intended effect.
This tool gives you meaningful, granular control without sacrificing platform protection
Custom booking requirements let you fine-tune exactly who can book with you while still operating fully within the platform's broader protections, which is a genuinely useful middle ground between blanket openness and requiring manual review of every single request.
Explain your reasoning if a prospective guest asks about a requirement
If a guest questions why they don't qualify for instant booking under your specific requirements, a brief, honest explanation, that it's simply a standard setting rather than anything personal, tends to be well received and avoids any unnecessary awkwardness in the exchange.
Requirements can be a useful lever specifically for a higher-value property
For a property representing a particularly significant investment, slightly more conservative requirements are often a reasonable, proportionate choice, since the potential downside of a problematic booking is genuinely larger relative to a more modest, lower-value listing.
Keep requirements consistent across similar listings you manage
If you manage several comparable properties, apply a broadly consistent approach to requirements across them, rather than a seemingly arbitrary variation from one listing to the next that could be harder to justify or explain if ever questioned.
Understand how requirements affect your visibility in Instant-Book-only searches
Some guests specifically filter their search to Instant Book listings only, so overly strict requirements that push most bookings into manual review can quietly reduce your visibility to exactly this segment of guests, worth weighing against whatever risk reduction the stricter requirement is actually providing.
Loosen requirements gradually rather than all at once
If you decide your requirements have become more restrictive than necessary, loosen them gradually and monitor the effect at each step, rather than removing every restriction simultaneously and losing the ability to tell which specific change actually drove any resulting shift in booking pattern.
A thoughtful requirements setup reflects genuine hosting maturity
Hosts who've thought carefully through their requirements, rather than leaving platform defaults untouched or swinging to an extreme in either direction, tend to have a clearer, more confident sense of exactly who they want to host and why.
Review the default settings carefully rather than assuming they suit you
The platform's default requirements are set to work reasonably well for the average host, but your specific property, risk tolerance, and hosting goals may genuinely call for something different, so review the defaults deliberately rather than assuming they're automatically the right fit for your situation.
Requirements are worth discussing openly if you work with a co-manager
If a co-manager handles bookings on your behalf, make sure they understand the reasoning behind your specific requirements, not just the settings themselves, so they can explain them consistently and confidently if a guest ever asks.
This is a setting worth genuinely understanding, not just accepting blindly
Because booking requirements sit right at the entry point of every single guest relationship, taking the time to genuinely understand and deliberately configure this specific setting is one of the more foundational, worthwhile investments in your overall hosting setup.
Pair your requirements with a genuinely welcoming tone elsewhere
Strict requirements paired with an otherwise cold or unwelcoming listing can compound into a genuinely off-putting impression, so make sure the warmth of your overall hosting elsewhere balances out any necessary caution built into your booking requirements.
A short final note
Set requirements deliberately, revisit them occasionally, and trust that a thoughtful balance here serves both your safety and your booking volume well over time, rather than needing to be perfectly calibrated from the very first attempt.
This feature rewards a little patience during the calibration process
Finding the genuinely right balance for your specific property and comfort level rarely happens on the very first configuration - give yourself permission to adjust gradually over a few bookings rather than expecting to land on the perfect setting immediately.
One last thought worth carrying forward
The goal of every requirement here is genuinely simple, welcome the guests who are a good fit for your property confidently, and filter out only the specific, real risk you're actually trying to guard against in practice, nothing more and nothing less.
