Unlist or Remove?

[Emily2635]

I have a family member staying in my air bnb for a year.   I only see an option to unlist for a six month window of time.  Should I remove the listing instead?  Will i be able to reinstate the listing after removing it?

[Shelley159]

Yes you can Unlist and Re-list @Emily2635 

Listings tab, click the listing, click settings.

In Listing Status, select Unlisted

[Emily2635]

It only allows me to unlist for 6 months.  Calendar entry is required and only goes out that far.

[Shelley159]

Hi @Emily2635 

It looks like you did manage unlist since you posted this? I don't see an active listing on your profile.

Note the comments by @Joan2709 and myself below as well about the options unlist and unavailable by default (which is an alternative way to stop taking bookings for a while).

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Emily2635 

Just a caution when unlisting...It is better to block the calendar than unlist.

The reason is when I unlisted a property recently and then re-listed, the Guest Favorite status was removed. Airbnb CS stated this is because the system looks at the property as a new listing and I would need to re-qualify for GF status? However, after several weeks, the GF status returned, even though there weren't 5 new bookings.

My suggestion to my Host clients is to change the Calendar Availability to "Unavailable by Default". This will block ALL dates on the calendar until you manually unblock them, or change your availablility to one of the other options. After setting Unavaliable by Default, double check all your dates are showing blocked on the calendar.

[Shelley159]

@Joan2709 I could be wrong about this, but my feeling is if you don't take bookings for a while, you're likely to see a drop in guest favourite rank anyway, whichever way you do it.

One thing I'm sure of, it it's very sensitive to recent reviews, especially in the sub-categories. Of course, we'd only really know if we had detail of exactly how it's calculated (and what it sees as "recent') ...

[Joan2709]

@Shelley159 

I think that is something to consider, but the listing was only in "unlisted" status for several weeks, so don't think that caused GF to be removed, but could be wrong.

Also, the GF status returned before there were any addl bookings?

Also, I think the dates for unlisting default to what your current availability is set to. That is why @Emily2635 was only allowed to unlist for 6 months. The calendar may then "reopen" after the unlisting period set (haven't test that).

Probably best to just choose unavailable by default due to the above...

[Emily2635]

Thanks this was so helpful!

[Joan2709]

@Emily2635 

One more suggestion...If you were using Instant Book, I would turn that OFF and change to request to book. This is a final protection just in case things mysteriously change on the listing. That tends to happen after software upgrades.

Having Request to Book will allow you to prevent an inadvertent booking during the period you want to the listing to be unavailable.

[Emily2635]

Thank you! This was a helpful back up!  Got it all set now!

[Emilie]

A massive thank you to Shelley and Joan for your help here 😃

@Emily2635 It looks like you're all set up now, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything else we could help with? I hope everything goes great during your family member's stay!