Are you too getting ridiculous price tips?

[Stephanie27]

I am finding that the price tips given by Airbnb are just crazy low, they wouldn;t cover the cleaning and laundry...anyone else feel the same

[Robin4]

@Niku0 @David685....As I have said before, so called 'Smart Pricing' and pricing tips have absolutely nothing to do with helping the host!

Airbnb have not the slightest interest in whether a host makes money or loses it. Their only desire is to secure a paid reservation which makes money for them. 

Although most hosts are not business minded, they do know what is viable from the money spent and effort they have put into supporting this platform, and many of the pricing tips I have either heard of, or seen, are way below a 'break-even' point for the particular listing.

The motivation by Airbnb to push this aspect of hosting is, there are now a number of similar platforms doing the same as ABB and for a number of reasons ABB are seeing a significant number of potential guests disappearing to other hosting sites. This means loss of revenue so the way to counter this is to cajole as many hosts as possible to offer cheap deals that will ensure the business stays with ABB. I know it reduces their money value but, they way they look at it is......50% of something is better than 100% of nothing!!!

If you use smart (dumb) pricing you are only giving ABB the ammunition to push it even harder until it becomes compulsory.

DO NOT USE SMART PRICING!!! We will all ultimately suffer if you do!

Cheers......Rob

[David685]

If you check the Host Voice section, you'll see I wrote the site a little treatise on this. Will it help? Probably not, but so it goes. 

[Suzanne845]

My Upstate NY 3 bed 2.5 bath lakefront property in the SUMMER season had a suggested price of $56/night for some nights between now and September! This feature is absolutely useless. They should delete it altogether. It's embarrassing for them to post these totally out-of-touch (and ridiculous) suggestions.

[David685]

To echo what's out there: the price tips are probably the worst thing Airbnb has added, and it undermines everything they say in the press about their model being mutually benifical. They're prepping for an IPO, and to increase their evaluation they need to show growth, which is to say they just want more: more hosts, more travelers—it doesn't matter if it's a solvent model for the host, or really even for Airbnb. Capitalism 101: just as Walmart grew by selling things at a near loss to get people into stores and exploitng employees, Airbnb is pushing for hosts to turn their homes into the equivlent of five pairs of socks for a dollar. I've been hosting for 6 years, and until the past year only had good things to say about the experience. Now? I'm wondering, half seriously, if hosts should be thinking about unionizing. Can you ignore the tips? Yes, of course, so long as you can feel good staring at all those bright red "warning" dates in the calendar and the fact that your listing is very likely bumped from its perch for not following Airbnb's rules. Real bummer, as they seemed to have a really special thing going... 

[Niku0]

All OTAs want to expand, but most of them shows the decency to accept a common lowest available rate, even if this rate not is always advertised incl. all extra costs on their websites.

 Airbnb used to be a good site, but has recently changed to worse. The removing of pictures inside the listings, the new layout of the multicalendar, their untruthful letters to the hosts concerning demand and thier price dumping policy are examples of this change.

[Derek6]

What are the "bright red warning dates" you speak of?   I have seen nothing like this in my calendar. 

[Olga6]

Airbnb changed their comunity platform: in the past they were defined groups, bu subject and some by location.

Starting a discussion on one of those could enable hosts from various cities or even areas within a city to comunicate and sindicate.

This new discussion platform is broadcasted globaly bu subject and by that dilutes: it would be impossible to sindicate now and doing it on any other social media would be to complicated and time consuming.

Or did I miss something?

[Cormac0]

i wonder what would happen if everybody agreed to raise their prices by twenty percent in Krakow City where I'm doing my Hosting it would be an interesting experiment and could be arrange on social media.

[Niku0]

Is formation of cartels allowed in krakow City?

[Cormac0]

@Niku0

I know below cost selling is, if thats any help

[Keith1]

I got a chuckle out of the response about forming a cartel 🙂

I think it'd be interesting if you could do it.  

I agree the price tips are insane.. they're designed to make airbnb guests happy and insure they don't book a hotel or some other platform. 

Meanwhile, If your community of hosts is small, you could probably do this, but unlike OPEC, you can't really force anyone to do this.

In the US they tried to do this with farmers to get them to raise prices.. they all agreed then one would undercut, then the next one would lower prices, etc..     
Often, people will act in the own personal self-interest at the moment even if that's not in their long term best interest.
If you can get everyone in the right mind set then you're in good shape.

I have this argument with people who price a private suite in san francisco at $49/night.     
"Why don't you keep it over 100?"
"because I wont be booked enough"

"ok, but if you're booked half as often at twict the price, then you make the same money with less work?"
"I'm not sure.. if days are empty I feel I'm losing money."

um. ok. well there's no reasoning with some people.

Personally, I'm always well over 95% capacity in my rooms from may-october.  I expect winter to be slow.  This December, I'm at about 30% occupancy, but my prices are at my minimum and my revenues are not bad for winter..  and I've been enjoying the peace and quiet.

I think people start up an airbnb listing in peak time and things are great and they don't realize theres seasonality and events that change prices, etc... 

I'm very happy with everbooked.. they were able to get me higher rates during a few local events I didn't even know about.. but in all cases their prices are higher than airbnb price tips.   So when I get a booking, it's for more money which offsets the empty nights to some extent.

[Gill16]

Yes totally agree. We are offering luxury guesthouse accommodation and it is being suggested that we charge as low as US$29 which would not even cover our running costs and breakfast provisions! We were doing very well with AirBNB and now all of a sudden

bookings have dropped and We are being told that it is based on cost but our prices have not gone up!

[Terra3]

Rediculously low. I'm finding newbie airbnb'rs are using them and undercutting long-term hosts. It's a bunch of BS and doesn't even cover the hosts time in relation to communication, booking, cleaning, laundering, etc...I don't use them but the new hosts that are seem to be getting more bookings this winter (which just plain blows). I've been considering quitting airbnb because my city is now taxing STR's and everything just seems to be more and more of a pain. Unfortunately the other choices that are out there to list with charge really high fees, but  at least they don't try to get you to undercut your costs.

[Derek6]

Yeah, I would have lost thousands of dollars if I had used their tips.  That being said, I realize that the algorithm is averaging across a wide swath of similar properties in my location...so it's not entirely relavant to my specific property with all its unique amenities and advantages in location over the "average" property.  I find it useful in so far as it helps to chart the seasonal demand shifts, but usually I will only use their pricing suggestions as a rock bottom.  More useful is to search your area on a specific set of dates and see what is available that is similar to your property, note on the price chart what the average price per night is, then adjust your price based on the competition you have at that time.  

[Carie1]

I had two identical listings, one with excellent reviews and one with no reviews, and got completely different price tips--the no review one was much higher. I asked why because I was afraid there was a glitch in one of my listings and was told that the listing with reviews got lower price tips because I could fill more days.  ??!?@# So the better listing should sell at a lower price?

Note that I had clicked the box for "don't want to rent all the time."

So none of this makes any sense and, as it turns out, my experience in practice is that they are complete bull**bleep**. So far off as to be more of a hindrance than a help.