Airbnb's calendar price colors

1

Airbnb appears to indicate these prices as red, orange, or blue. I’m guessing they use these colors to mean that the prices are very overpriced, moderately overpriced, and priced correctly, respectively.

Do you guys pay attention to these or ignore them? If it’s the former, do you change them in response?

Air notoriously tries to get hosts to offer absurdly low prices, so I’m wondering how useful these color indicators actually are.

2

Ignore in terms of setting my prices. Sometimes if I see an unexpected date is green (indicating higher demand than I realized) I sometimes raise the price a little. This is in a market where there are many nice Airbnbs for under $35 a night. But when they are gone, they are gone then I get the last minute booking at $40. Last minute works very well for me, I prefer not to have bookings far in advance.

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3

Hmm…I only seem to get red, and the little light bulbs telling me someone booked someplace else for next to nothing. I’m getting plenty of bookings so I just mostly ignore air and their suggestions regarding pricing.

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4

@spkrause

I get red light bulbs what seems like all the time. I don’t use smart pricing for several reasons. It appears Airbnb lumps my full home rental with the pricing for a room & bathroom. Or maybe in my competitive market, there are too many willing to go low for the rentals.

My minimum rental is 3 nights. My rates are what I need to cover the bills offseason & competitive but profit based for prime season. At first I worried about being overpriced. I found 4 rentals that are comparable to mine (location, size, #beds, # baths). About once a month I check their prices and availability. If we are all about the same & I am getting the rentals I need, I don’t worry about it.

During the slow season, some hosts view it as some revenue is better than none thus driving the prices down. I understand that but I use my off season for repair & renovation. With me being almost 2X the Airbnb smart pricing my March & April are fully booked.

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5

Blockquote I don’t use smart pricing for several reasons. It appears Airbnb lumps my full home rental with the pricing for a room & bathroom
Blockquote

Same here and initially it panicked me when they suggested a price significantly lower…until I checked out similar priced competition.

Blockquote
Sometimes if I see an unexpected date is green (indicating higher demand than I realized) I sometimes raise the price a little. This is in a market where there are many nice Airbnbs for under $35 a night. But when they are gone, they are gone then I get the last minute booking at $40. Last minute works very well for me, I prefer not to have bookings far in advance
Blockquote

Great strategy. Hotels and airlines have the highest prices when the last minute, panic demand is high so it’s obviously one that works. I’m just checking all the green lines in my calendar now to make sure I haven’t been doing the opposite…

6

Haha I thought the red color was the default cuz I’m red all the time! Also a light bulb queen. Yeah, I’m never fully booked, but I like my guests and my guests seem to like me, and the income exceeds the outgo so it’s all good.

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7

I too am a light bulb queen. I’ve opened my calendar through the summer so my rates are of course way higher moving into our high season. Air keeps telling me that my average booked price on whatever day it is is way lower. That’s because it’s February!!! Of course it’s lower

8

So I just went back and checked and now I have GREEN light bulbs – the Smart Pricing is actually a dollar or two higher than my listed price BUT I’m getting messages that people looked at my place and are booking other places for $xx dollars less. I don’t think Air even knows what it wants me to do!

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