Fresh Listing?

[Mary-Ellen38]

Hi There,

I am Mary Ellen and new to the community.  We had a new build in the mountains of SC that I listed, shortly after we had a family emergency so for 6-months+ I simply kept declining folks with an explanation of course.  A while after when I realized the issue would be here for a while, I realized you could de-list your property, which I have done for the past 6-7 months.

Now we are ready to re-list, but we have concerns that we only have had 1 weekend visit with one review over a very long period and we are afraid that might impact potential bookings.  Does anyone know if you can republish your listing even if you loose prior data?

Warmly,

Mary Ellen

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Mary-Ellen38 Airbnb will suspend/delete your listing (and possibly account) if you delist and relist the same property as people who do so are usually trying to hide previous poor performance. It is probably best to explain in the additional description area why the property has so few reviews or just ignore it and answer questions if asked. You may need to price a bit low to build up your business though.

[Mary-Ellen38]

Thanks so much Mike & Jane!

Really helpful, and timely.  Appreciate you making the time to help me.

Best,

Mary Ellen

[Shelley159]

Hi @Mary-Ellen38 

I agree with @Mike-And-Jane0. You need to do what it takes to pull the visibility of the listing back up. Airbnb says if you decline too much, it hurts your search rank. What we don't know, is how far back it will look to count those declined bookings, or what it regards as declining many times.

Fortunately you ended up pausing the listing instead of denying more requests - you will now just need to watch your position in searches and see what you can do (discount is always a good plan) to get things started up again.

[Mary-Ellen38]

Thanks so much @Shelley159 & @Mike-And-Jane0,

Appreciate you both every much.

Warmly,

Mary Ellen

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Mary-Ellen38 

So sorry to hear about your family emergency....

Agree with @Mike-And-Jane0 & @Shelley159. You can do several things to help you improve your search results rank after being Unlisted for a period of time:

Discount Your Price

This will probably have the biggest impact and boost your search results the most. Discount 20% lower than similar competition. You can use custom promotions to do this and get free email advertising from Airbnb and other benefits by using their Custom Promotions instead of manually lowering your price. Do this until you get at least 5 bookings, then gradually lower the percent discount until you are back to your normal prices.

Reduce Your Min Night Stay

If you had a longer min stay (say 3 nights) then reduce that to 2 nights so you will appear in more search results. After getting 5 or so bookings, you can change it back to longer min stays.

Professional Photos

If you don't have professional photos - get them. This has been shown to improve revenue by up to 20%. The cost is minimal compared to the huge ROI and can be written off as a business expense. Be sure it is a photographer familiar with shooting Airbnb's.

Once you re-list, come back here and ask for a critique of your listing for free. You can also hire a STR consultant (there are a few of us out there 😊) who can optimize your listing. 

Let us know how it goes...

[Mary-Ellen38]

Thank you so much @Joan2709,

Really helpful, you have given me a path forward.  I appreciate you.

Warmly,

Mary Ellen

[Alex]

Hi @Mary-Ellen38!

Welcome back to hosting, and I'm sorry to hear about the family emergency. I'm also so happy to see that you received the support you deserved! Let us know how everything goes, and don't hesitate to ask us if you have any other questions. We're here for you!

Best, 

Alex