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

[Olga6]

Well, there is a logic in this: it is obviously designed to lure new hosts.....expand, expand, expand.

This is a massive fast growing corporation, fas someone mentioned up for sale. So, obviously it ceased to be friendly hipster all idealistic organisation as it might have been as a start-up. No surprise there.

[David685]

That's fascinating—and scary. I've recently gone through something similar when I put a new listing up, and now I understand it. One thing I've noticed is that they have a feature in price settings that allows you to compare yours to recently booked places. It's much more accurate than the tips (which really seem designed to help Airbnb more than its hosts). 

[Carie1]

Hunh. You mean by the calendar near where they have "what price do clients pay" (or something like that). I don't see it. What I sometimes do is search for myself (so to speak) and then look at the bar graph that shows up and see where I fall.

I am new to renting the whole house and at first felt intimidated by all the nudges airbnb gives you to go low, but as I gain confidence and also track my gross, net, time spent, mortgage... I think that their price tips are --to call them 'evil' would be taking this whole thing too seriously. But not good.

Thanks for your reply! If you can help me find your hint I'd appreciate it.

Carie

[Niku0]

Airbnb wrote: Hi Niku,

Did you know that 32% of guests in your area are booking trips of 2 nights or less? Your current minimum night setting prevents these travelers from seeing and booking your listing.

Since I cant reply to their mails, then I will reply in this forum: The purpose with my minimum night setting is to avoid one and two nights reservations, because in the end of the day, these bookings results in less occupied room nights, when a limited amount of each roomtype is available.

[David685]

Interesting, you're the second person to bring this up with me. Since I live in a city that a lot of people visit just for weekends, I was weary about increasing my minimum nights. But you find it works better? 

[Niku0]

Depends on the pattern of visitors to your location. If guests only come in weekends, then you can't force themto stay minimum four days

[David685]

In my case, it's all over the map. I've had month-long bookings, I've had two nights. I've always believed in just keeping it open to serve whomever, and in the past this has worked fine; weekends would book first, and then the gaps would fill in. All in all, I'm probably booked 29 days a month. But I've noticed that with more listings, the bookings have slowed, and maybe increasing the minimum would fill me up faster with longer stays. I wish there was a way to having, say, a four night minumum, but then decreasing that as dates neared. 

[Gillian48]

I just don't get it! I have always studiously ignored the price tips. I had been doing really well and gained Superhost status 5 or 6 quarters in a row but now the bookings have just dried up! 

[Niku0]

Because a lot of new Airbnb host follow the price tips and get the guests. Not sustainable for hosts, but Airbnb makes a great amount of quick buck.

[Karen122]

I've researched all the hotels and BnB places in my area and find the average is very much in line with our own pricing while AirBnB suggest 60% less than the base price.  I could understand 10 or 20% to get things off the ground but this is, indeed, ridiculous.  Not saying there are not some rooms in our area where there are very cheap offers but these are invariably a spare room in a house with basic or no facilities.  We offer en suite, meal options and a good proper BnB experience but it seems facilities and amenities are not taken into account when generating the price tips.

[Olga6]

Nor the price of the property and relation to long term rental prices for the same / similar property.

[Elisabeth40]

@Stephanie27 I was using price tips and automated booking system and it almost ruined me. I started getting very bad guest and my pricing was even tanking every day more and more. One day I turned it off and it took me almost half year to get to the point where I was able to charge normal price. 

[Art8]

They are definitely too low to cover costs.  AirBnb is getting greedy and trying to increase their commissions by driving prices down.  

[Robert375]

Thought it was just me. What the insanely low price tips have caused me to do over the last year or so is take my listing off airbnb! I figured they were giving an honest calculation of what the current trend was. So I have been offering longer term rentals elsewhere. After reading this I am seeing they are more trying to trick people who have it activate into renting at low prices. Shady...

Hosting at airbnb is running a hotel. Its a lot of work and for $25 a night for a San Francisco private room in a good location near the underground? Thats what it says that I should be charging right now! Its April! Spring Break! Nothing short of mind-blowing!

Here is my take on it. All these so called "tech" companies, Uber, etc. hire all kinds of Ivy league school employees, which they do not need, they then try to cut prices from the people actually making these shared communities work. These high end employees overthink everything, because they need to do something for their salaries! The result is complete neglect from those actually making the business work. A business model that cannot sustain itself.

Airbnb is a hotel company. Period. Most of it is automated. The tech rarely changes. Good marketing campaigns is all they need. Not huge office buildings with beer kegs and ping pong tables and hordes of self-entitled children working there. Uber is a cab company... If only these sites started to see themselves for what they actually are and hire people with appreciation for the people actually doing the work. It would go back to what it was in the beginning. Anyway, I'm venting and could be half wrong here. I just see these companies first hand in San Francisco and get to witness how they spend their money. Our money.

[Margaret174]

Hi guys, can any host out there tell me wherein the UK I can rent a detached manor house for 12 plus people for under 2 dollars per person a night?  I am a new host and was staggered to see a suggested price tip for the whole house coming out at £1.50 pppn Sterling!  But hey!  The good news is I could increase my bookings by 300%.  Obviously everything I learned about Micro Economics at LSE London was a waste of time......