Wow. Large double room for £21! London is dead!

[David6]

It’s close to 7pm UK time. A search for a double room for tonight, shows only 32% of rooms in London are booked! 

London today  was heaving with tourists, yet it appears there are not staying with Airbnb?

And a nicely presented double room available at £21 including booking fee! 

What on earth is going to happen in low season?! 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@David6 

I would expect too that a Friday night and a Saturday night would be the peak days of the week too with many UK based travellers visiting London. All else being equal, an influx of new available accommodation might be affecting booking percentages?

Low season could be a washout. 😞

[David6]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 

Absolutely - you normally have all the August wedding bookings. The theatre goes/gigs/concerts/events as it’s peak summer season.

I’ve  constantly been getting alerts to lower my rates to £17 per night for a room with private bathroom. It’s just absolutely crazy. And 68% of listings in London not booked! That’s one heck of an over supply! 

[Mark116]

@David6   That seems really strange, especially with the 90 day max rule, I would think that if anything there should be a scarcity of airbnbs, especially booking in basically real time.

[David6]

@Mark116  The 90 days only relates to ‘whole listings’ not private rooms. You can host the full year for just a room. Many hosts are subdividing their apartments to get around the rule, so there are more ‘private rooms’ then ever. 

[Sarah977]

@David6  How can anyone be making money at that price, even if they were constantly booked? Why would anyone even bother to list if they're barely making enough profit for a Starbucks' coffee? Seems like there must be better ways to earn a living.

[David6]

It’s Airbnb driving the market down & totally eroding the nightly rate.

New hosts are taking on board the price recommendations. And listing at ludicrously low rates.

I mean this kind of rate is more in line with the long term rental market of £160 to £200 per week for a decent double room in a shared house. It’s not sustainable as even the busiest host is going to face void nights. 

I don’t understand Airbnb’s logic - I just assume they don’t care how or where or how many listings the $$$$$ comes from, as long as they are taking their cut. (But more hosts, surely puts huge strain on CS, the actual logistical nightmare of trying to keep ‘everyone’ happy! Or maybe they just want to drive us all away and focus on streamlining and going more upmarket and luxe? 

[Sarah977]

@David6  As far as I can tell, the decision makers at Airbnb seem incapable of normal logic. This is evident to me from the way many things are worded on the platform, to what you're talking about here.

For instance, you've probably always accepted back-to-back bookings, so you may never have noticed this, but the wording in Availability for setting prep time is "Block 1 (or 2 or 3) day before and after every reservation". Now to any logical, literate person, that would make you think that 2 days on your calendar would be blocked from booking for every reservation, right? But that, in fact, is not how it works. The blocked day after a reservation also can double up as the blocked day before the next reservation. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but it took me 2 years to figure this out 🙂 And I've read many posts here over time from other hosts who assume it meant the same thing I did.

Why wouldn't they word it "Block one day between reservations", since that is exactly what it does?

And it also seems logical to me that if they trained their CS staff properly and made sure all were savvy about the entire TOS and capable of handling issues on point and responsibly, they wouldn't need as many CS reps because there wouldn't be the need for endless back and forths with clueless reps who hand out false info or seem incapable of understanding the actual issue.

Zero logic.

[David6]

@Sarah977 

I honestly wept tears of  laughter/frustration/realisation when the wonderful @Susan17  pointed out that we are actually ‘victims’  who have aligned ourselves with the devil - a monster, narcissistic organisation who hooks us in, & then controls & punishes us at every move. Look at the t&c’s. The Superhosts just gone, their business ruined & no explanation given! As per t&c. ‘Basically do as we say. Or you’ll be delisted with no notice & no explanation.’ 

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@David6 

You have the added competition of commercial operators and hotels in the mix now too. Where once Airbnb was the domain for home stays or to hire a home its now just becoming a Booking.com. 

Where the increase of accommodation would be beneficial if the guest traffic was increased to the website everybody would be happy, but as mentioned on another thread if you search for accommodation or even a listings name, its not the Airbnb listing coming up its every other platform you've heard of who are actively trying to attract guests. Theres some very dodgy looking affiliate sites showing up higher in searches than Airbnb containing their listings. 

I've seen no 'paid for' adverts for Airbnb online and since over two years ago I've not seen any TV adverts either. 

[David6]

Absolutely. Remember back to that time of promotion ‘live like a local’. Now Airbnb has lost its USP & identity. It’s seen now as a greedy, corporate monster. We as veteran host know and experience this fundamental shift  every single day. Basically Airbnb treat  hosts with utter contempt. 

Every forum, consumer review page, is filled with horror stories from guests & hosts. Just a quick look at Trust Pilot makes you weep with despair. Ruined holidays, trips of lifetime destroyed.  And guest after guest saying NEVER, ever,  use Airbnb again. 

[David6]

21.35 Uk time.

Ok, so not able to add to or edit my original post. But I added filters of super host & price limit of max £50! Just with those parameters . See the results ! 

The £21 per night room still available to IB! And still 67% of IB Rooms £50 & under are available to book in London!

[Yadira22]

@David6 

hi- hope you are well.

i thought this was just me. From one month to the next we dropped occupancy from 88% to about 60%?! 

To be honest at those prices would rather rent 1-3 months at a time and on other sites. 

I hope Airbnb listens and does not become another blockbuster type company...  my question is if you have all these people who are users from both sides of the business, why not incentivise them to work short term with updating your it team- to project manage changes needed to better the site. They see what needs to become more user friendly and/or changed, it makes sense to exploit this opportunity. 

Anyway- thanks for sharing! 

Yadira 🙂

[David6]

Absolutely @Yadira22 

I was the biggest supporter of Airbnb several years ago! Literally raved about it. But not now. I too am using other platforms & making it work.

but what’s so sad! Airbnb could & should be amazing! So much potential blown because they are now an ugly runaway juggernaut !   

[Cathie19]

Those figures @David6, for London, are quite astounding! I might expect that in Darwin during the low season, but never a 365 day of the year city such as London.

Something  is seriously out of kilter.......

🤨