Problems With Airbnb Listing

[Cory11]

I've had a problem in the beginning with my listing being not shown to the public. I did the thing that some suggested, delisting it (is delisting a word? lol), and then making the listing active. It worked, my listing was booked within an hour of reposting it. I did lose a couple of days I figure though, troubleshooting, waiting, delisting and relisting.

That being said, my listing was booked for 2/3rds of the first two months of January and February. That made me happy even though Airbnb smart pricing is suggesting the lowest possible price. That may be the correct price, but I still have a feeling I may have been booked for more, especially after the first couple of guests who stayed gave me glowing 5 star reviews.

Anyhow, the problems have started again I think. A previous guest contacted me today through Facebook and was shocked at how much I had raised my price. When I checked yesterday the lowest minimum price setting was $36. The friend said when she looked it was $85, and then when she showed her boyfriend a little while later, it had gone up to $88. I told her before she said that, that I had only raised it a little bit. I went from my initial minimum of $25 to $35. I said that's still really inexpensive for a room in my city.

That's when she told me about the $85-$88. I went immediately to my listing, and it said my price was $36. I had asked for $35 minimum price and the Airbnb system suggested $36 for some reason. So I accepted the recommendation. Surprisingly, after I updated my pricing to the Airbnb suggestion o $36, when I go to the dashboard, it is telling me the recommended price would be $17 per night. $17 per night! I can't believe that. I booked the whole month of February at $35 a night!

Anyhow, when I heard about the huge hike, and I went to my listing it's telling me $36 is the price, and still recommending $17 a night. So I asked my Mom to go online as a person searching, not a host logged in, and she cannot even see my listing. I know for a fact my calendar for the selected dates are free. I know for a fact I am searching private rooms only. I came back to my own computer and I can't find it either. I can't find it if I search for dates before February (which are open) or March (which is entirely free at this point).

I have no idea how this may be showing to some people at one price when my listing is set at another price. Believe me if Airbnb is showing anyone $85 a night, that not only is way too high to be reasonable this time of year, in this market, but it is contrary to what I can see on my dashboard. And I have no idea how it shows to some people, but not to me or my Mom. Also, a little additional note, we have a renter living in a room in another part of the house. Earlier in January, a couple weeks into our listing, he said our room was showing $85 for him too. I discounted it, because I was getting booked for the prices of $25-$35. Now I know sometimes soemone can get mixed up and type in the wrong settings in a search, or misread a listing, but I seriously doubt two people are doing this as a mistake on their part.

And I am certain that my Mom and I cannot find our listing presently.

My listing is titled Westshore Retreat With Easy Access to City. It's a private room, in Victoria, BC

Does anyone have any ideas if something is really wrong, or are prices known to jump up and down to the people doing the searches? Is it possible that it shows to some people but not to others? I am seriously concerned I am missing many opportunities.

Thanks in advance!
Cory

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@Cory11 

Just did a search for West Shore, Victoria, BC, and your listing comes up on the first page. It is the 8th property listed. The nightly price (when I include no specific dates) is ~£53 stg (which will include the AirBnB booking fee of 12%). What I can't explain is why this is so high, as when I put in specific dates it changes to about £23 per night. Perhaps someone else can...

Remember that as a new host you get prime listing space for a little while, then you are back to competing with everyone else. And there and hundreds and hundreds of properties in your general area. What people see will depend on a huge range of factors, whether or not they enter specific dates, your overall availability, the number of new hosts in your area, whether or not you use IB, etc. and etc... So your position will always move and perhaps more so in the early days while you are building up a good reputation.

Hope that helps in some way...

[Cory11]

Thank you, it does a little.

However, people won't know to search for Westshore. It's not an actual town or something on map, it's just an area of Victoria, the city I live in. It's what we call it, the locals here, to indicated where abouts in the city we are.

That being said, now when I search my city, Victoria, the listing is showing. I didn't take the time to post a screenshot, but next time I will. Because I can assure you that it was not showing before. I went back to my listing search from before, wher my room was not listed anywhere out of the 7 listings. I clicked refresh, and then my room was the first one listed.

Something was buggy, but at least beacuse of your help, I can presume it's a bug with the app or the website. Because I didn't change any settings on my search criteria, and then it was there. Maybe you finding it did something. Maybe it just suddenly appeared when you went to search. But thank you again for your help.

[Ramnik1]

I am not able to enter my location (in words). Kindly tell.me.the solution