Hi everyone!
I am relatively new to the Airbnb hosting community, having started my Airbnb experience as an experiment in February.
When I started out I set my nightly price at $95 and offered 10% discount for weekly stays and 20% for monthly stays, but changed this to 5% weekly and 15% monthly after I had a bad experience with guests staying for 13 days - it wasn't worth the extra work I had with cleaning and chasing up missing items, so I thought a lower discount might discourage longer stays.
Just recently I increased my weekend rates to $105, still keeping $95 as my base rate for week day bookings.
I have just received a request for a 6-month stay by someone who is taking up employment in the town where I live. This period cuts across a number of confirmed bookings I already have into January 2020. So I was extremely polite and cooperative responding to the request, saying I would not cancel those bookings but if the potential guest was happy to work around those bookings we could probably work something out. I also pointed out that I currently offer 15% discount for monthly/longer stays.
The enquirer has now responded by agreeing to accommodate those bookings but is asking for a "significant discount" as I will have guaranteed rental for 6 months and has put that in figures, looking for a nightly rate of approx $50. This represents a discount of roughly 50% on my potential weekly rate.
The enquirer was also very keen to speak to me on the phone and provided a phone number (which was hidden by Airbnb). There is reference in the enquiry to the "reputable organisation" my potential long-term guest will be working for, but no name of that employer was provided.
Do others hear alarm bells ringing with all this? Or am I being overly and unnecessarily suspicious? Has anyone else had experience of this kind? And if so, how did they deal with it?