And the only criteria is price! They want slower price so they get their cut…, so insulting!
I have that RED line of text on my listings too because I don’t use smart pricing and won’t. Their smart pricing is crazy. They are telling me to price my 1 BR 1BA full kitchen 650 sq ft condo with a big screen porch for only $20 more than a room in someone’s home. Nope, not gonna do it.
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Mine is 5 bedroom 150 year old Victorian villa with a pool, fully furnished with hand made rugs and some serious antique furnishings and four poster beds
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Sounds amazing. There is no way Airbnb has enough rentals like that to have a comparable pricing recommendation.
Let’s ignore the Poor Listing Appeal red banner and remember some marketing person (probably a 20 something who just got out of school) thinks this is a good idea. As we say in the south, “Bless his heart…” (Google it to see what we really mean). 
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I was wondering what the reason for the red text meant. Do guests see it and what do they think it means? How do you know the reason?
The message in red is on the app host listing page. Not on the full website listing page. It is annoying.
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Maybe this is coming? Airbnb has a history of rolling out different functionality in different areas. Maybe this is one more example?
@Annet3176
Could be. No wonder we need this forum 
I do see my listing in red along with others when I search my area. So confusing.
This is horrible. At the moment smart pricing is recommending me to offer my room for £17 (US$22) a night. WTH?? That’s just insulting.
The problem is that there will be new hosts thinking this is what they need to charge and so drive down prices to a stupid level.
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For 22 dollars US a nite you couldn’t stay in a crackhouse in Chicago. Who in their right mind would let a stranger sleep in their house for that. Risk does not even remotly = reward…
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Amen brother! I think so many new hosts have jumped on the bandwagon and offering ridiculously low rates until they get those guests from hell. I think it will readjust over time. This is hardly a mature platform.
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They compared my waterfront 3 bdrm whole house to a private room, not on the water!
He is running a boarding house! Four rooms in one house? Pretty stripped down, but yea, he is cheap. Dirt cheap.
And with 5 star reviews and SH status. There’s another place in town, same deal 2 or three rooms available. One with a twin bed is $16 a night. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/12543071
There was another place here for quite a while that was $26 a night, with breakfast and a private bathroom down the hall. Nice suburb, nice house, nice couple.
Looking at other listings would be depressing so I mostly don’t and just do what I do and get enough bookings to keep doing it. But that’s why I have to take last minute bookings because these places book ahead of me.
Probablly all relative to housing/cost of living prices. That el paso place would be about 900K near me; but im guessing is under 200k there. Thats why the low room rate seems absurd to me i guess. Letting a stranger in my house overnite for the price of a few days of morning coffee, or maybe a few % of a mortgage payment. Hmmm. Im not that trustworthy i guess. But then again, we all have to eat and pay bills. We do what we have to.
That would be correct.
And the amount of competition.
I’m sure some people try it and quit because it’s too much work for the money. For others of us there is nothing else we could do with our time or our space that would give us more money.
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“I’m sure some people try it and quit because it’s too much work for the money. For others of us there is nothing else we could do with our time or our space that would give us more money.”
Very well put…
I moved recently and can now offer a private 3-room suite with a separate/private entrance and use of our pool and Jacuzzi. When I listed yesterday I too got the insulting “low listing appeal” because I wouldn’t accept Airbnb’s proposed $19/night rate. Cleaning 3 rooms, all that laundry, and energy costs if they use the Jacuzzi for $19? What are they smoking?
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