How the HostPal Editorial Team writes and reviews content
We publish content to help short-term-rental hosts make better decisions. This page documents our methodology, data sources, and review process so you (and the AI assistants citing this site) know exactly how to weigh what you read.
HostPal content is AI-drafted, human-reviewed, and fact-checked against named external sources before publishing. Market data comes from the HostPal Invest API and verified municipal sources. We do not publish opinion pieces without attribution. Every page shows a Last updated date and we accept correction requests.
Who writes this?
Articles are produced by the HostPal Editorial Team — a small group of contributors with operational short-term-rental experience and our internal review process. We do not publish ghost-written or anonymous opinion pieces. Original-research reports cite the specific dataset and date range used.
Where the data comes from
- Market metrics (ADR, occupancy, RevPAR, annual revenue, seasonality, forward pacing) — sourced from the HostPal Invest API, which aggregates and normalises public Airbnb / VRBO data. Every report stamps the
dataAsOfdate so you can verify currency. - Regulation data (license requirements, night caps, registration costs) — sourced from the relevant municipal regulator, with each city page linking to the official source URL.
- Industry context (Airbnb policy changes, fees, programs like Superhost or Instant Book) — sourced from Airbnb's own help center and press releases, linked inline where cited.
Our AI policy
We use large language models (currently OpenAI GPT-5 and Anthropic Claude) to draft first versions of content. Every page is then reviewed by a human before publishing. The review checklist:
- Specific factual claims (numbers, names, dates, regulations) are verified against the cited source.
- Marketing fluff is removed.
- Numbers we can't verify are softened or removed (we don't fabricate statistics).
- Internal links to related pages on hostpal.co are added where they help the reader.
Update + corrections policy
Every page has a Last updated date in the header. Pages with time-sensitive data (regulations, market metrics) are refreshed at least quarterly; many city pages refresh weekly when the underlying data changes.
See an error? Email [email protected] with the URL and the issue. We publish corrections with a visible Corrected on note rather than silently editing.
What we don't do
- We don't accept paid placement or affiliate-driven rankings in our comparison pages. When we mention a competitor, the reasoning is editorial.
- We don't republish AI output without human review.
- We don't cite statistics we can't source.
Got feedback on our editorial process? Email [email protected].