Help me out here

[Ann72]

As unbooked dates approach, Airbnb, Smart Pricing, and even some hosts suggest lowering your price to increase your chances of booking those unbooked days.

Thinking of a place like Maine, where most of the bookings happen in the summer, I've been scratching my head over this.  You get messages or pop-ups that imply people have booked other places cheaper than yours.  But wouldn't the available listings start to dwindle the closer you get?  And wouldn't you therefore be entering a seller's market, not a buyer's market?  So wouldn't it make sense to raise the prices as the unbooked dates get closer?

What are your thoughts on this?

[Ben551]

Woah... @Robin4 that would have given me the creeps lol. That’s hair standing on the back of my neck stuff. Amazing 🙂

[Paul1255]

Hi @Ann72  the pricing on my own listing goes up the closer unbooked dates come to pass!

A last-minute stay booked with a 5* superhost is still great value even if it's double the price if it was booked 4 weeks before, when your other options are those listings that are never booked because their reviews aren't great etc etc.

If the orphan nights do go unbooked then I have the apartment to myself and get to be a bit messy!

Paul.

[Ann72]

@Paul1255 That's the info I was looking for!  I thought it must be the case somewhere!  Good to know.  I'll still hover over my calendar, but won't fret.

And I love alone-time, too.  Hats off to all of you home hosts.  Not sure I'm cut out for it!

[Paul1255]

Indeed @Ann72 ! And the more the guests pay the better the review I get 🙂 

The only down side is you are booked closer to the day passing, so that makes planning a bit harder- as your calendar isn't full up months in advance.

I don't play the same game for some of my co-host listings tho- I look after a 3 bed townhouse, and I wouldn't want last-min guests in there, as who knows what they might want to get up to- families and larger groups do tend to book more in advance than singles/couples, with some exceptions of course.

[Ann72]

@Paul1255 Yes, that has been my experience.  The listing with the lowest price of my three gets more late bookings, some very late.  The other two are booked farther in advance.  It works out because the late-booking one is easy to prepare and clean, as it only has one bathroom and one bed.  That one has same-day checkout/check-in, but the other two have a day before and after blocked for preparation time.  So far so good!

[Sandra126]

What I do is keep the same price year round. No hikes for prime time, no  troughs. The only tweaking I do is if I want to fill the odd stray night close to today, I will drop it down a little. Makes it simple.

I want to provide value and I think I do. But the great thing for my area is that it is steady year round, full calendar. If I lived somewhere that has a marked fall-off seasonally I get it, the prices need to change.

[Paul154]

Last summer, I had good luck raising my prices as the day came near.

I often would celebrate when a guest would cancel an upcoming reservation, cuz that meant I could charge more.

I currently have not yet released my dates for memorial day and later. 

Airlines and hotels use yield management for a reason ($$) .  I'm not sure why Airbnb does not.