Are there any tools to come up with your day rate?

[Cresentwrench]

@"CanadianHost

All of these suggestions are simply attempts to help guide you. Charge what you want and see how it goes - if $50 a night isn’t worth the time (and you aren’t inclined to share your space anyway) then charge more. I think you have a figure in your head of what you wanted to charge “somewhere between $105 and $50” so go for it! Try it out and see how many bookings you get.

You’re correct. The day rate has to make economical sense for the host or why bother hosting. Regardless of what others are charging. A happy medium between what the market will bear and what I can afford (time and resources) to provide. More trial and error than science. I get that now.

Thanks for these replies.

[quinnhubertz]

@Cresentwrench We’ve spent the past 18+ months tackling this exact problem. Our team (which includes 4 Ph.D Data Scientists) has built a pricing engine that analyzes billions of data points every night and turns them into the “right price” for your listing. However, we’ve learned that data alone only paints ~90% of the picture, which is why we’re the first and only pricing company that lets you personalize your short-term rental pricing strategy around YOUR goals. You can learn more at www.usewheelhouse.com

[quinnhubertz]

@KenH

If there was a computerized tool to do such calculations, you would spend, IMHO, an inordinate amount of time entering such a wide variety of data, that it wouldn’t “pay off”. There are a huge number of variables that define a socio-political area and the possible rental rates there…

Quinn from Wheelhouse here.

Have you tried any automated pricing services? I feel very strongly about the product that we’ve built to calculate such data (including risk tolerance, revenue goals. etc.) on a nightly basis, but there are other companies out there as well.

[Cresentwrench]

I think we should give these folks the benefit of the doubt, here.

Can I ask… You folks are in San Fran I take it. A major city with lots of places to stay, lots of travelers, events, etc.

I live in what some might call “the sticks”. Very rural, lots of farms, no Wallmart. You get my drift.

Can your system still work for me?

Also. You say you compute the best rate each day/night. Does that mean your program has “hooks” (an API) into Airbnb’s system and you are adjusting the rate up and down?

If so, won’t that affect bookings already confirmed?

[dcmooney]

You may have seen another post I wrote having to do with one of your competitors.

Some of the data they provided was helpful. Specifically, they helped me hold to my price because of their ‘health’ stats.

But what I realized was this - they would mark some days with a significant increase because of a local event. That looked great to me! However, I never once booked the rooms at that increased rate. The room would remain unbooked until ‘the last minute’ by which time they had discounted my rate.

By the end of October I realized that I was not making any more per night than if I just had a set rate and kept it steady all month. All I gained was a loss of my 1%.

Also, a significant drawback is that they deeply discounted ‘last minute’ bookings, when, in fact, I get a lot of those here in DC. There was no way to disconnect that feature. One particular booking came in for a very low rate because of this. Luckily, they didn’t complete their ID verification and since the booking was for that day I had airbnb cancel it. I then booked the room for significantly more money. Yet, of course, my pricing service got their payday but I did all the work of getting that rate. They should have been paid on the bargain-booking and I should have been able to keep the difference.

Can you address these issues and explain why your product will do a better job?

[jaquo]

@dcmooney

The room would remain unbooked until ‘the last minute’ by which time they had discounted my rate.

I know that I go against conventional wisdom here but I’ve never done the last minute discount thing. My philosophy (which many people disagree with, I know) is that the guests are requesting a last minute stay because other listings in the area are already booked. So why discount?

In fact, in ancient times when I used to have a traditional B & B I’d add a surcharge for last minute bookings (because it was more work for me) and invariably guests accepted. Last minute bookers tend to be desperate.

When I have a gap I promote the listing on social media with ‘due to cancellation’ (not necessarily true!) ‘this wonderful apartment is available from [x date] to [z date]’. That usually brings a booking without discounting.

[quinnhubertz]

Great questions @Cresentwrench

Where in CT is your listing? Even if your area is not in one of our current live markets, we might be able to still provide some insights into your market and ballpark price recommendations.

Yes, we post prices every day to Airbnb (plus other major channels as well) via their API, but that has no impact on confirmed bookings.

[ccportland]

If you are not dependent on the income and excited about possibilities…charge what you would pay for your space if you were staying;).

[quinnhubertz]

Thanks for asking, Nancy! I’ll try to address your questions/concerns one at a time.

(And sorry to hear about your negative experience with Beyond Pricing. )

As you undoubtedly know, this industry is getting more and more complex with every year, regulation, new product announcement, etc., and the different pricing services out there thus far have taken a “one size fits all” approach in an industry that is anything but.

At Wheelhouse, we believe that data can paint a pretty rich picture (which is why we have invested in a team of 4 Ph.D Data Scientists), but it doesn’t tell us everything. For example, data alone can’t tell us what your risk tolerance and revenue goals are, or whether your property has some incredible view that our data can’t detect, or if your listing happens to have that intangible “secret sauce” that your neighbor’s property doesn’t have.

Unlike our competitors, we believe the more control, transparency, and personalization the better. To see these concepts in action you can check out our blog, or read below:

• Control: we have added some “advanced settings” over the past few months (long-term discounts, minimum stays), and have some more robust (and exciting) features on the roadmap (custom last-minute discounts, plus much more)
• Transparency: in the next 2 weeks, we will launch “Local Events” on the Wheelhouse calendar to give you more transparency and insights into how we’re calculating any given price. That means we’ll not only tell you if local events are driving your comp set’s prices up, but we’ll actually tell you what event is doing that too!
• Personalization: currently, if you connect any listings to Wheelhouse you will have the option to go through a new personalization onboarding flow before turning on any automation. This is important because it allows you to align our world-class data science with your revenue goals, risk tolerance, listing quality, and more.

Additionally, we fully believe in a fair billing policy. We definitely wouldn’t have charged you for that nightmarish scenario that you outlined above. If we didn’t help you make that money, we won’t charge you. That simple.

And lastly (since this response is quickly ballooning in length…), I can say that our team is about to launch a bunch of new features that we’re really excited to get out into the wild. More there to come over the next few months.

Let me know if you have other questions – happy to keep this convo going!

[Militaryhorsegal]

I INCREASE my rates to $10 more for day of and $5 more for day before bookings. This is about a 13% - 40% increase though. It Ian definitely more inconvenient so I charge more.

[dcmooney]

Don’t mean to be obtuse - but - do you often book those days?

[Militaryhorsegal]

Surprisingly I do. Even with the increase it is cheaper than just about anywhere else, especially at my whole house listings.