There is no doubt that having your home designated as a “Rare Find” is a very good thing. It gets guests more fired up to book your home (I know it does when I search as a traveler!) and it certainly indicates that your listing is popular in some way, shape, or form. It publicly tells this to you (yay, validation!) and to your guests alike. We have the designation on our listings because we work super hard to keep them booked 365 (like, literally, not one vacant day, ever, the entire year). So this is not a conversation about my listings keeping/losing that designation.
Instead, I’m obsessing over competing listings in markets where we operate having the “Rare Find” moniker when they seemingly shouldn’t. I know, for a fact, that these listings are not running anywhere near the same velocity as we are. I’m not going to stop obsessing about it, so please let’s not talk about how I shouldn’t care! I care and it bothers me!
OK, so then how do these guys accomplish this? I’ve heard that they block their calendar in some way. That’s not a Rare Find, then! Could it be that guests all booking super last minute and there’s more people booking than I think? But then when you look back at a month and see the number of reviews, it’ll be 4-6 per month. A fully booked listing in pretty much any market, should easily have 10-15 reviews per month. I mean, some listings in particular, you can look out several months and they have EVERY SINGLE DAY available between now and 3 months out. The listing still says “Rare Find.” Could they be in cahoots with someone over at Airbnb? In some cases, you can observe these listings lose the Rare Find designation only to regain it several days later. And their calendars remain the same as they were (from my overly obsessive observations). What gives? Anyone know anything more about this for sure?
If a place is hereby designated a “Rare Find,” it should be. . . A Rare Find! Anyone know anything further about this or have the same thoughts or observations?