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Hello everyone!
We host an in-law suite in Atlanta, and are still relatively new to Airbnb. Recently, we started to face a tremendous decrease in activity starting in August. I’m trying to determine the cause of this change, and wanted to know if many others experience complete fall-off’s in non-peak months?
Our property was booked at 100% occupancy in May, June, and July (fortunately, we have a wonderful location for tenants). Then, we received Superhost status, and all of our bookings stopped immediately. I have spoken with Airbnb twice about this, and one employee was baffled…the other simply said, “Oh, it’s just not the busy season anymore.” About two weeks ago, we dropped our prices 30-45% (depending on the day of the week), and we’re just flat striking out.
I’m just curious to know if anybody has experienced anything like this, and/or if anybody has further insight in regards to the ebb and flow of busy seasons in Atlanta. We have several people asking to rent the space on a more permanent basis, and we are considering doing so as a result of the lack of activity. However, I would hate to do so, considering how wonderful the experience has been up until this point.
I’m trying to determine if:
We simply got lucky for awhile (one of the guests rented for a month and another guest stayed with us 4 different times).
August and September really just are bad months for renting in Atlanta
Perhaps something went wrong with our account after we achieved Superhost status (our stats on views appear to be decent…consistent with what we previously received)
Yup. It is seasonal. I’m opposite of you. Where I am in Hawaii just seems to die a slow death every summer. Not just me, but all my neighbors who vacation rent. Everyone is dead. It’s been like this every single summer over the 8 years I’ve been on Air.
You will begin to realize the seasonal ups and downs in your area and plan for them. Remember school starts after August and vacations suddenly come to a halt.
Nothing to do,with your superhost status. Everything to do with what the rep told you. Busy season ending,
There are numerous sophisticating pricing programs on the market like https://www.usewheelhouse.com/ or https://beyondpricing.com/sign-up integrate with Airbnb that take into account your entire market demand from airbnb units, hotels, events etc and prices according to overall demand. This will also give you a long run pricing projection through the year to give you a better idea of your seasonal fluctuations.
Why just take guesses and deal with the anxiety of not fully knowing your market yet when these products cost barely anything for a wealth of knowledge. Good luck and report back.
Is your wishlist count i.e. “xx travellers saved this place” incrementing? I find this a more reliable indication of whether people are seeing the listing than the views section, which Airbnb might just be making up.
You can also check, from a browser/computer you don’t normally use for Airbnb, to see where your listing is ranked. Make sure you are logged out, at a minimum.
My personal experience has been that last year was much busier than this year. Even though last year I was not a Superhost and this year I am. And currently it’s supposedly peak season here, but not much is happening. I don’t think being a Superhost is useful. Airbnb seems to promote listings based on Instant Book and possibly the cancellation policy more than anything else.
You will wonder no longer if you host for a whole year. Then you will see somewhat of a pattern and will adjust your prices accordingly.
I am in South Florida where vacationers rental goes dead for 6 months at least. Out busiest months are from second half of December until end of March depending when Easter is.
During slow months I do mostly long term but still it’s almost twice more money than if you rent it for a year. There are plenty of workers who need one or two month stays and hotels are way to expensive.
I just got my superhost badge after almost 2.5 years of hosting and my reservations went dramatically up. I was never booked so far into the future as now. Now I got some bookings even for March
We host in New Orleans and August is the slowest month of the year. We are usually 90% occupied and we are only 50% this month.
It’s not the super host, it’s the super heat! (and maybe politics)
Has anyone mentioned the new host boost yet? You booked up fast since AirBnb was promoting your space heavily. Now they aren’t.
There are seasonal issues as well. I have seen this pattern last year as well– people don’t book in August. They are on vacation, doing other things. For me, the week after Labor Day will be the next flurry of activity as people remember they are going to a conference, didn’t take that vacation during the summer, see a great flight rate, etc.
It’s all seasonal depending on where you are. Here is SW Florida last year, we were 100% from the previous November 15 but died from April 15th to August, then picked up again in until 100% from November on. This year we we dropped off a bit in May and June, and died last week until October.
Summers here are basically dead even though we cut our rates by 50% people just don’t go to hot places in the summer time.
