As I was perusing my Airbnb pricing recommendations this morning, I noticed that for the weekend of Aug. 14 – 16, 2015 in my city, Airbnb suggested I bump my $282/night price all the way down to $140.
Ok, I thought, maybe I’ll have to lower it…
But wait.
I had just gotten a request at the $282 price and declined it because I wasn’t sure my cleaner could come.
Why was I getting requests for $282 per night if it was more than double what Airbnb recommended?
I had a feeling that their estimation wasn’t right, so I did a little research to verify my intuition.
Here’s what I did (and what you can do in a matter of minutes!):
- Open an Incognito window in Chrome.
- Go to Airbnb and search your city for the dates in question.
- Voila! Your very own real-life research is right before your eyes.
As for me, in a city with more than 1,000 Airbnb rentals, only 4 were available with the “entire home” designation.
Four!
I’d done this kind of incognito research before Airbnb released its pricing recommendation feature to figure out what to charge, but I’d never seen this happen!
So, as I recommend in my “Don’t Block Your Calendar Even When You Think You Should” post, I raised the price to $335/night to make it so that likely no one would request.
But of course they did, I accepted, and I decided to do the turnover myself because it was completely worth it. :)
With this calculation, Airbnb’s recommendation would have cost me a total of $390.
My advice? Definitely take a look at Airbnb’s pricing recommendations—then listen to your own feelings and do your own intelligent research.
Bottom line: Your intuition + research + knowledge of your city is much more useful to you than Airbnb’s pricing recommendations.
Quick Word of Caution: You can definitely lose Value points when you charge more during events and high-traffic weekends. Make sure you treat your guests to flowers, special treats and other extra amenities when they’re paying a higher price to stay in your place!
Thanks for reading! Have a question that wasn't answered here? If you'd like more specific help, I'd love to work one-on-one with you. Or, if you want to work collaboratively in a group with fellow motivated hosts, find out if the next Abundant Hosting Mastermind group is open. I also wrote a book, Cleaning Up, where I give you the nuts and bolts (and so much more) of finding your perfect turnover assistant, thereby upleveling your profit and success on Airbnb. Have a beautiful day!