Our Airbnb bookings started to slow down in the spring of 2021, after almost three years. Last November, Airbnb’s bookings with us stopped entirely. When I put in our destination (Asheville, NC) our large guest apartment doesn’t show up in the more than 300 listings that Airbnb displays. The only way we can find it is to go to the map section and narrow it down to a very small section just north of town. Our last booking was in November for January. It was canceled by the guest because of a death in her family. Our last Airbnb guest stay was over Thanksgiving. We have about 80 Airbnb 5 Star reviews. Many of our guests say it’s the nicest Airbnb they’ve stayed in. It’s a totally private well decorated, 1000 square foot apartment with terrific mountain view’s, a full kitchen, spacious living room with a gas fireplace, large bedroom and a very large bathroom. The reviews for our personal services are very high. We can’t understand why Airbnb has stopped booking us. Our listing doesn’t appear and even returning guests can’t find us on the Airbnb platform. When I call Airbnb, customer service just says that we’re listed and they can find us. They’re very unhelpful. Something similar happened to another host we know two years ago. They delisted, gave up their Superhost status and all their reviews. They then listed on Airbnb as a new listing and started getting bookings again. We are also listed with VRBO whose been doing a pretty good job for us. Does anyone have any thoughts why this has happened and what we can do to get Airbnb to book with us again? Thanks for any input you might have. This is our listing: https://www.airbnb.com/h/treetop-asheville-home
I am in the same boat.
I think two things have happened to my listing:
What seems like 50 million NEW airbnb listings in my area are now ahead of me in the search results.
I have been booked via a different platform for 6 months so not active on Airbnb.
My NEW listing neighbors are booking great. Not me. Yesterday an Airbnb guest checked in to my rental and today I received 3 booking requests.
Perhaps if you encourage a friend or relative to book, it will put you back in the search results.
Wow! What a beautiful place.
I went on Airbnb, tried looking for it, with all sorts of filters to narrow down to you. No luck.
One thing for sure is that there is a LOT of competition.
I’m sorry that I don’t have an answer for you.
I wonder whether you could keep your listing but then have your wife list it as new listing and see if that helps.
Makes no sense to me.
I had thought that ‘The Twilight Zone’ had been cancelled years ago.
Best of luck to you – beautiful property, glad VRBO is working out.
Thanks Anne,
There are also a lot of new listings in our area. I’ve been very sure that Airbnb gives the new listings preference in their algorithm. But it was a shock when they dropped our listing off of the display pages entirely. If it weren’t for our other booking platform, we’d be sunk. I just had a cancellation for a nine day booking at the end of this month. Maybe I’ll try significantly discounting that time frame on the Airbnb platform.
Thanks for your response,
Jack
Thanks Glen, appreciate your checking it out. It’s helpful to know that I’m nor paranoid.
Jack
Lovely place…. But too many photos of the same bedroom under different lighting - makes it confusing. There is a lamp in the corner…. There isn’t a lamp in the corner……
I would also consider seasonal photos- every thing looks like autumn……
I would also reduce the pet photos 3 is unnecessary.
You need to rejig something everyday to make the algorithm think you are live. Open dates, close dates, change your title, vary the pricing, vary the photos……
I see that with mine. I think it because I dont have “instant book” turned on addition to “free cancellations”. What do you have?
We use instant book and we use the most generous Airbnb cancellation policy. Our pricing is very competitive for the value.
As much as I don’t want to I think I will also list on VRBO (again). The new listings in my area have killed my bookings
Ok no comments about on not relying on one platform. I understood the risks & I accepted them. Airbnb has kept me beyond fully booked for short term rentals
I feel your pain.
Next year may be different.
almost ALL of my new hosts purchased at current high pricing. Only 2 purchased “right” so they can easily meet cash flow needs.
I want everyone to be successful but I think many of these new hosts will sell out in the next year….Unless they figure out Nov-March rentals
It is not the easy passive income those damn YouTube videos proclaim —I hate those “how be independent with Airbnb rental hosting”. They need to be banned for false information
Ok you know how I feel.
You do know that you are rich because you have an Airbnb
It is such easy money- just a swish oh the bathroom and change the bed……
Jack,
Just so you know that Airbnb can be quite responsive and caring about Hosts I thought you might enjoy the attached story of a guest who shot his Host in the chest and is being held for second-degree attempted murder. You’ll see that Airbnb has firmly responded: it has banned the guest from the platform. So there! I guess that puts an end to all this talk about Airbnb being guest-centric. Airbnb cares about Hosts.
You’re giving away our secret sauce!
It’s funny. I was just commenting to someone about our Airbnb rental on the floor above us. We lived for years in that space. But now that we are ‘Airbnb-ing it’ we’ve done so many upgrades for which we had always done without. It never ends! We now painstakingly know our appliances’ ins and outs and, after Augustine-like study, their ‘optimal’ settings. Its state of cleanliness is one we never held ourselves to. We [literally] are sweating with each turnover as we keep finding something not quite right.
So, please don’t give our secret sauce away. [Besides, it’s swish, swish, and a wriggling of our nose, Bewitched-like]
I have relatives (cousins) who actually said that. They chose their life paths. They were smart. They were talented. I’m not their mother. You want to succeed either own a business or get thy ass up and start working or back to university…I was 44 when I finally received my Bs-nursing.
Started 35 years ago with $10 thousand ……now have 10 properties….
I have never used IB, and I know that is the foremost thing in Airbnb’s algorithm that affects search placement, so I’ve always been resigned to not being at the top of the pile.
I’ve never found changing little things to help- it showing “activity”. But getting a booking does up my ranking.
When I first started out, bookings were slow, but when they started coming faster, my search ranking went up.
One guest told me she searched about 5 times before my place came up, and it was because she kept upping the price range. Mine didn’t come up until she upped the price range to quite a bit more than what I charge per night.
So Airbnb tries to trick guests into booking more expensive properties, I concluded, by not showing them yours until they have been shown higher priced ones in the mix.
What really irks me in my area is that when you search Sayulita, they lump that in with showing Puerto Vallarta listings, as well as San Pancho and other towns nearby. But PV is an hour’s drive from here and guests don’t book in PV or San Pancho if they want to vacation in Sayulita- they are totally different places.
And because the majority of tourists fly here, it’s not like booking in a suburb in the US, where they can drive 15 or 20 minutes and be in the city- they don’t have cars with them.
I’m in the same boat,
Do you know if oes VRBO allow private suites vs whole home rentals with a full kitchen
One of the things I’ve noticed is that the search parameter around Boston has shrunken. Even though I’m just 7 miles north of the city, I know longer come up in searches for Boston unless a guest filters for price.
I run higher rates and then the closer to the date, I use there promotions which help with the them showing up when folks are looking for a good deal (never too cheap because your get the worst guests) . This has seemed to help. I try to be one of the lower rates but not the lowest.
My bookings are not like they used to be and at this time of year I would usually be mostly sold out through August but I don’t have a singled August Booking but the closer I get to the month the more my space gets books.
Changing details daily helped me when I was having listing priority issues.
Crazy coincidence that you posted. I was just looking at listing in Asheville for a friend. There are hundreds of very desirable listings. I don’t have any advice you haven’t already gotten, just sympathy.
I agree with Christine that it might help to log in daily and tweak you listing. Maybe change pictures, adjust the price, close days then open them again the next day. There’s anecdotal evidence that it helps with search rank. In my experience, the busier you are, the busier you will be. Ironically listing on more than one platform can work against you because every time you are blocked off for a VRBO listing that makes you inactive on the Airbnb platform. Inactive/unavailable drops you in search.
Good luck.