My husband and I are baffled. Since we began hosting our suite in February 2018, we’ve had a few slight slowdowns during winter months, but May through October we are usually booked solid. Our reviews are fantastic, so it’s not that, but this September and October have been much slower than usual, and now we are seeing just one booking for November, so far. We’ve dropped our already reasonable price by 10.00, but we are known for providing everything a guest could need, including snacks, drinks, pizza, etc. and a washer and dryer, so we really can’t afford to go lower. Is anyone else seeing an unseasonably early slow down in the northern climes?
I’ve had a busy October in the Catskills and November is fairly well booked, but I’ve been hosting a long time and I have many reviews.
Travelers are more nervous than they have been because of recession fears and some markets are fairly over saturated. There are many threads here on how to market your property and depend less on Airbnb algorithms.
You’re not alone.
I posted in that thread, too, but my bookings took off 3 weeks ago. Hope yours do, too.
My summer was rocking & rolling. Then NO bookings 10/15-1/31. My snowbirds arrive 2/1 so booked for 3 months. My area is soooooo oversaturated.
HOTELS with full maid service, onsite restaurants, indoor & outdoor pools, & gym facilities & oceanfront are renting king bed with sitting area (2 TVs) efficiencies with refrigerator, microwave, & coffee pot are renting for $49/night! (Summer-same room $250/night)
They are desperate to get any revenue to offset costs. For the wear & tear on my condo, I’m not willing to go that low. The race to the bottom continues.
Have you noticed an increase in Airbnb offerings? The increase in new owners seeking to rent via Airbnb & VRBO in my beach area is shocking and in the off-season there are not many renters.
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What other platforms do you list on @Meg1 and have you done any local research on how you can market your place with your local tourist board and through say local employers who have temporary staff staying or a hospital or university? What about marketing directly through your own FB page or website?
In my area numbers doing Airbnb have literally tripled since I started four years ago and we have uncertainty around Brexit here in the UK which has led to a reduction in our EU visitors.
Do you really need to be providing drinks, pizza etc for your guests - if you are going to reduce your prices then look at how you can cut down on your costs.
Personally I am in the top 10% price wise for my area and still get all the bookings I need despite the huge increase in Airbnbs in my city who are charging silly prices.
Guests don’t just book on price alone.
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Thanks, all of you, for your feedback. We had noticed a sharp increase in hosts in our area, but that has declined again, now that summer is over. We’ve also seen an uptick in new building of suite type hotels, and yes, prices of hotel rooms have gone down for the winter. We did get three more bookings since I posted this, which broke the long dry spell, so hopefully that will continue.
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I see listing that I saw for years as private rooms now as shared rooms. I guess hostel style accomodations go faster.
I had same very slow…but seems like now started to pick up.
Have felt that here as well. We were rocking with bookings through the summer then it came to a grinding halt. The few bookings & requests that we have received over the past 6 - 8 weeks all seem to be from newbies, which wasn’t the case before.
The stats in our area, New Haven CT, is showing a 33% occupancy rate, which is not encouraging. I’ve been wondering for awhile if the STR space is over saturated with hosts, it may be. I’m not willing rent at LTR rental rates for STR’s, there is just too much extra work, risk and expense involved. May need to convert some of these STR’s back to LTR’s and store the furniture.
Rick
Hearing this more often; because I suspect STR is easy money 
well, it is isn’t it?
In our area the number of active (whole property) hosts, on Airbnb has gone from 230ish to well over 300 and on BDC from 170ish to 214.
A fair chunk of the increase is down to companies listing multiple properties which, currently, all appear to be doing quite poorly (lots of availability on Airbnb). Their pricing policy is completely at odds with the actuality of STR here.
Locally, a lot of folks are fully aware of which (two) countries the investment is coming from. The question is I suppose, will they start dropping prices to generate more income or will they continue to operate at what must be a (tax) loss?
JF
I seem to always have business year round because I’m in sunny southern Calif. What counts is where you are positioned on the website. I’m lucky to be at the top, that helps along w 250 good reviews but I notice people who have been hosting a long time and have good reviews and cheaper prices their listing is buried and they have NO business at all.