I got a request for the max stay at my place (25 days). Question is how that affects search listing after they leave. Does my place get bumped to the bottom of search listings because it was unavailable for so long? I had one guest stay for 10 days, then I was very slow after she left. Felt hard to build the momentum back after long stays by guests.
My anecdotal evidence from our own experience is it does have a detrimental effect.
The search placement seems to reward numerous inquiries and bookings over say a single long booking.
And if you by any chance accept a long booking from elsewhere and block those dates on your calendar, the effect is even worse!
But just take the booking all the same. Less stress for the 25 days, then work to climb back up the rankings!
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Appreciate the response. Yeah, I had a feeling the listing drops during longer bookings. I get annoyed with long staysā¦ Its the reason I did AirBnb instead of a roommate to supplement the rent. Would rather have short bookings more consistently than a long booking and dead afterwards. Iām sure it all evens out, but like someone else said, Guests can be like Fish. Starts to stink after a few days.
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Amen to that!! One of the reasons we tossed a long-term renter in favor of str was that very reason. The woman was fine, really, just not a good fit for our family.
On the other hand, after just a few months in this business we had a 60 day or so stay of a PhD student here for research at University of Maryland, and he was perfect. We called him āPrince Matthaisā cause he was so cool to have around.
You just canāt tell in advance!
Perhaps you want to change your settings to have max 14 days?
On the other hand, as @AquaticQuests says, perhaps better a long-term bird-in-the-hand than a bunch of short-term maybes.
How did you go about tossing the long term?
It was pretty easy. We started airbnb while she was still there. We just let her know we were going to do airbnb more seriously and needed her bedroom. She was fine. We never had to discuss any issues - there werenāt any really to talk about - she was kind of a drag to have around, very needy. Always āso tiredā. Always. I was home schooling 3 kids, one that didnāt really speak English, and working 3 other jobs besides, and had health issues - did she really not see? Could she not understand that complaining about being āso tiredā all the time wouldnāt be helpful to me? She got involved with so many guys in quick rotation (never bringing them home) and always wanted to cry on my shoulder.
Honestly, she just didnāt see, which is perfectly normal for her age. She just never contributed to family life in any way, just took. Time to goā¦
We may switch back to having students live with us, after the summer. I think Iām ready for it again - I just hope we can make some real $$ this summer - donāt we all, lol!! Lots up in the air with my daughter graduating from high school but not heading off to University quite yet (sheās only 16).
Iāve only had one person stay more than a week. He was here on a job and just kept getting extended. After about 10 days he just started paying me cash directly and I blocked the room off. A week after he left I was booked solid for two weeks which is unusual for me. So I was wondering the oppositeā¦if you block it off for a while do you then get a boost. I donāt think our anecdotal evidence is worth much.
Another anecdote. We had an 18-night booking with checkout around October 1st and have been dead ever since.
All summer long it was non-stop action and we never had a problem filling even weekday gaps. Could be that we lost the new host bump, or the 18-night booking hurt our search results, or itās just the off season. Iāve been trying to appear more active on my listing (moving photos, blocking and unblocking dates), and still nothing.
We have since dropped our max nights to 7. Take it FWIW but could support your theory.