Pricing in Brooklyn

[Alexandra879]

Hello. I have been a host in Brooklyn for a few years. Unfortunately I may leave as airbb is continually trying to lower prices. I understand that some people do this for a little extra money, but many others have high mortgages and taxes. As more and more people become hosts, it seems that prices keep going down. I feel that people are underselling their property via airbb. Good Hosts have many expenses and it becomes impossible to really cover all the costs when charging less than 20$ a night per person. (In Central bklyn at least. I understand that places like Williamsburg can charge way more) it seems that airbb is the only venue where cost of living increase and inflation does not matter-

As all prices go up in the city, airbb keeps telling hosts to lower their prices. People in Brooklyn need to stop undervaluing their properties. At this point, as rents in NYC keep increasing,  it has become more beneficial to rent outside the airbb venue. What do people think? 

[Kenneth12]

ABB definitely doesn't want hosts to lower prices,  as they make more money from higher rates!  (Ever notice how higher priced properies show up higher in search results?)

I have noticed recently that ABB pricing in the NYC area booked 5-8 weeks out is very low.    Booked closer in,  inventory becomes low and prices go up.

Raise your prices 😉 

Happy Hosting.

[Mark116]

@Kenneth12   I don't think that is true, before we put smart pricing on we constantly, and I mean constantly got messages that we should lower our price to as low as $55 a night, and it was almost always to lower it at least down to $75 - $85, and we were dropped in the search for having a cleaning fee.  Even though we have maintained a super host rating for several quarters, have fantastic reviews, we are still in the middle to the end of the search because our laughably low price of $95 a night is still 'too high' for the algo.  Airbnb cares about volume and number of guests, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to drive prices down all the time.

[Kaylee18]

@Alexandra879   I agree with @Kenneth12 , raise your price and see what works for you. I do not go with ABB's suggested prices as I agree they are usually much lower. I set my own price and I don't care if people in my area are going with much lower rates as I find it doesn't effect my booking rate. I'd play around with it and see what price works best for your location and property. 🙂

[Alexandra879]

Hey there. Airbb makes most money from volume therefore their interest is to make sure that places are fully booked. Unfortunately I’m not the only one to have experienced this in Central Brooklyn. This is a common complaint. I’ve been hosting for 7 years and I used to charge more for less people. As more people started to host, airbb suggested prices are way lower than what ppl should ask. My point in my original post is, as you mention that ppl should keep asking higher (fair) prices and not follow what airbb suggests which is ridiculously low. Thanks for the input!

[Delphine-And-Michael0]

I would have thought with NYC max of 2 guest regulation prices would increase as larger groups would need to book multiple places.

There are also the fixed costs needed to be covered as well insurance, taxes, mortgage

One of the larger costs is the insurance, a policy that covers hosting adds about $3000 to $3500/yr in NYC to your policy with few carriers that will write the coverage.

Airbnb is more volume based they do not mind a host lowering their prices to increase bookings you have to the set the price that makes sense for you rather then chase bookings unless your preference is to keep your occupancy high most likely sacrificing price.

NYC wants to curb the number of hosts most likely they will come up with further regulations to limit supply so that should also cause prices to rise for those it still makes sense to continue hosting.