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Strangely, we have February next year almost fully booked but still have a few vacant days this year in May, June, July and August. (I’m not worrying about September yet). Although we have been renting our apartment for several years, we only started on Airbnb last December.
In my limited Airbnb experience so far, it seems that guests tend to book roughly two months in advance. Do other hosts find that this is the case?
Yes two months in advance! but that being said I am booked until July and know this is NOT the norm so I expect August and September being really dead months. I think I will take my vacations to all of my fellow south florida folks to escape Miami for weekend trips! Ken I love your listing and want to talk to Hubby and see the non tourist part of Fort Myers. BTW we really considered retiring there and now have switched to Mount Dora area.
Fort Myers will always be in my heart since our family vacations were always there and my boys grew up visiting the west side of florida for vacation. IT was a different time when things or our backyards were are dense as now.
I like Mount Dora too, but it’s so far from BIG water! We’ll give you all the good Local places to see and do.
It depends on listing. I am managing my daughter’s house that is a separate rental with a pool. It’s being booked now for June and already booked for Christmas.
With my rooms in my house I never get booked so far ahead.
Monica, I am in South Florida, and I can tell you that definitely I noticed decline in bookings from last year. I still am getting bookings here and there but nothing like comparing to last year.
Also last year my guests were all international mostly from Europe. This year most were from US.
Last year until May I did not have a single guest from US.
I noticed many new hosts with prices that I will never have, way too low. This year I reduced my prices 20% of what they were as I was not getting any bookings at all
@Monica I’m also a SH with 100% 5 star reviews located in an almost year round resort in Australia. Though this is a quieter time for us, I had far more bookings last year. Very few since early Feb, can count them on half a hand! And I’ve added a premium listing. So same here and same comment from other hosts in the area who are usually almost full. I’ve not, and will not drop my prices nor add IB. Something is going (wr)on(g). Too much competition? I’m not worried though, it is what it is and if it continues I’ll just take longer bookings from other sources. Are other Aussies finding the same?
Have you kept track of the number of hosts in the area? We saw listings pop up at a blazing pace over the last 6 months. As late as last October, there were only 89 hosts showing when searching locally. As of now, there are 300+ in each category.
There are TEN Airbnbs on our short street. And that’s excluding rooms/apartments which are advertised on Homeaway, VRBO and other sites or regular rental properties. We are in a tourist area so I suppose it is to be expected.
I suspect that there are a lot of new ‘let’s try Airbnb in our spare bedroom’ hosts. I’m sneakily hoping that they will soon realise that Airbnb isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme and that they will understand how it can be really hard work if you’re going to provide a great guest experience.
Hopefully the cream will rise to the top eventually 
I’m not here to slander. Someone else stole my account and Wimdu wasn’t super helpful but took down the listing after a week but said they are charging my account for “cancelling my bookings” and didn’t seem to care about the fact that I am not able to sign into my account and that my listing was now listed 3000 miles away with new photos… weird
good to know so I can be aware!
Jaquo that is my hope as well that our area the cream rises to the top and those hosts that don’t put in the effort that we do will give up or at least get bad reviews and they get weeded out. But now on top of all things this new two day glitch is happening it is really very frustrating.
Yes, it’s very irritating. I think that those of who are in for the long haul will have to stick things out for a while until these hosts who are just giving Airbnb a try decide that it’s too much like hard work.
Because they are new, they get a boost in the search results which certainly doesn’t help tried-and tested hosts. There are lots of places on the internet where new hosts are complaining about ‘nightmare guests’. I don’t know what you think but most of these don’t seem like ‘nightmares’ to me at all. When new hosts complain about petty things, it makes me feel that they won’t last very long!
It can be very very seasonal… especially in the resort areas. As you go into your first full year you begin to see the patterns. Hawaii is coming to a thudding, grinding dead stop. But that is the pattern after back to backs in the winter. I plan for it.
you should go to come search maschine to check some hotelsprice to see if it is the high season if yes, you can offer a lower price than hotel…if it is a low season, you can wait until your guests come or use promotion like free breadfast. I am not afraid of no bookings because i am the own of the house. If more people come, the maintainfee will be higher.
Absolutely, there are currently over 300 listings! See my new post of today re searching via Airbnb app and mobiles!
@SothEndHospitality that’s not slandering, it’s terrible customer service. Without hosts there is no business, but I guess there will always be hosts…I listed with Wimdu and wasn’t even acknowledged two weeks later. Needless to say I deleted it.
In my resort area of Australia, it’s typically fairly short notice unless Easter/Xmas, sometimes only hours but usually a week or so. Having said that I am getting some more distant bookings, 1-2 months ahead.