Thank you! I did have the listings even cheaper, but I raised the prices about two months ago. There are some whole house listings in our town that are even less than mine, though I don’t think they are as nice.
Hi
What a lovely property - deserving of many bookings. A few ideas:
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Explore where it’s showing up in the searches.
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Check out how it compares to the competition. If there’s been a glut of new listings in
the area you might be getting less interest? -
Try and find a niche for your place (showcase what it is that makes you special, offer
special touches, etc) - guests love to feel special!
Maybe you could include a video of your property on your listing to show it off to potential guests?
I do agree with the house rules, they are essential - but maybe try to lighten the tone a little, maybe something like this:
We love our pad and know you will too - so we ask you please read our house rules prior to booking, and adhere to them during your stay. Here they are:
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Please take your shoes off when you enter, we like to keep the floors sweet for your feet. There’s a shoe rack for storage (plus slippers are so much comfier indoors - don’t forget you’re here to relax)!
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Please don’t smoke or vape anywhere inside our place, we like to keep it fresh for each and every one of our guests. We’ve created a special space for smokers and vapers outside, take a seat on the sheltered bench and puff away til’ your heart’s content!
Best of luck with enhancing your listing and getting those bookings up!
Check out the competition. There might be more new AirBnBs in your area that are placed on top of searches and cost less to encourage bookings.
Odd one out here 
It really shouldn’t matter what ‘the competition’ are doing if you are offering a good service at value for money. If you genuinely believe that you have a great place and that your guests are getting a fantastic place to stay then who cares what others are charging? People do not buy on price.
I agree with @Don_Burns in that it’s important to have your own forms of promoting your rental.
There are millions of Airbnb listings worldwide. You (sorry to say this but…) have no automatic right to be promoted by Airbnb. Airbnb wants to get guests to book accommodation it advertises - not yours, any.
Imagine if Airbnb were to disappear from the internet tomorrow - could your business survive? If not, then that’s all the more reason to be in charge of promoting your business yourself. (Think back twenty years or so and remember how many large internet-based businesses have disappeared - a lot!)
I love Airbnb and think they offer a great service but as hosts we have to take responsibility for our own businesses.
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Thanks for the input. I do have my own forms of promoting the listings. I was doing STR before I ever heard of AirBnB. I have quit using some of the previous platforms but I guess I may have to go back to them and also search out some new ones. I have a Facebook page for my long term rentals but every inquiry I ever got from the FB page was a dead end time waster so I never bothered putting my STRs on there.
I’m still puzzled as to why I have 11 weeks in a row with zero bookings on what was formerly my most popular listing during what should be high season here. There are some new listings, yes, but the newest ones, the ones getting boasted, are all (except one) just single rooms. June should be high season (or close) here and none of the three listings have bookings. Mine still show up near the top. I was wondering if AirBnB was “ghosting” me—but apparently that not a thing they do.
You SERIOUSLY need to be on all major listing sites
Airbnb
Homeaway/VRBO
Probably Craigslist to your own website
FlipKey may also work
If Airbnb ever delists you, you will be GLAD you did.
You need a PMS to manage these channels. Guesty, freetobook, AirGMS, ownerrez, there are many.
This may double your bookings. Some areas, these other sites bring much more bookings than airbnb
Thank you. I do need to revise the wording on the house rules, for sure and give them a lighter touch.
I don’t allow any form of tobacco (cigars, cigarettes, snuff, or chew) or any form of smoking anything (including vaping) anywhere on any of my properties. If they want to smoke they have to leave the property. It’s not the hardship you might think— they need only go about 50 ft, at most, to be on a municipal sidewalk.
In my experience, regarding smoking, if you give an inch, they take a mile. Tell them they can smoke outside on the porch, and they smoke in the house. Tell them they can’t smoke on the property at all and they smoke on the porches and patios. That’s been my experience anyway. I don’t allow chew or snuff either—one guest used it anyway and washed and dried his clothes in our machines, forgetting he had a tin of it in his pocket. The mess it made in the dryer was unbelievable.
I used to be a smoker myself and I know, when you are addicted, if you need that cigarette you will disregard any rules when you want one. So I try to “head ‘em off at the pass” with my stringent no smoking rules.
The percentage of people in the US who smoke these days is fairly small now fortunately—in the neighborhood of about 14%. Of all the listings in our area, all but two are no smoking. One of those two has NO house rules at all. So I doubt that’s a factor in my bookings…except maybe I say “no smoking” more forcefully so that those who smoke go to another “no smoking” AirBnB and indulge.
I love the idea of doing a video. I’ll have to try that later this week when I’m not so busy.
I like the niche idea too. One of my listings, Bungard House, has a default niche. It’s the only property in town (the others are at least 30 minutes from here and most are more expensive) that can sleep more than 7 people. I’ll have to think about that for the other two houses.
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This is really a beautiful property. I think you need to try making your photography more creatively visible. Try to do different angle on shooting some pics. Photography is my hobby and i think if you make it more creative. you don’t need any further explanation for your property.
I agree. There is no such thing as too many photos.
If you aren’t getting the bookings, who is? Check your Air listings.
My full timers have reduced my Air income significantly. But lame as it sounds, we are unseasonably rainy and chilly here and it is not good for business vs. LY. So I am using the opportunity to repair and renovate.
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Ah! Then highlight that fact that it is a whole house in the title because even some bedrooms, (if that is what the majority of the other listings are), will say peaceful home, etc etc Make it clear that yours is an entire house: “Spoil yourself in this gorgeous peaceful 4bd home” I would take out the “& book” from the title and make room for the amount of beds or size because that is what distinguishes you from the rest.
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I don’t either and I also am stern/no-nonsense in my rules, and added a fee if smoking rule is broken…but adding more cameras is what stopped the smoking on our property.
Could not agree more! Have experienced this firsthand and the damage caused from smoking can sometimes be permanent, even after re-painting.
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It’s your AirBnB Listing Position Optimization. Do you know your listing position number? As number 1 or number 55 or number 125 in your city after 12 pages? Each listing has ITS OWN listing number in the AirBnB search. You don’t get any booking is because your listing for some reason is positioned lower compared to days of the last booking. If your listing is within top 7. There is no need to have any other service like booking dot com or VRMO dot com, your calendar is booked all the time.
Sorry to say that the inch=mile rule is true.
If you have a smoking area, you have to provide them with ashtrays, and clean up. Otherwise you are picking butts out all over. I used to save some to put on weeds to kill them.
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I have 3 “entire house” listings in our town. When I use google in incognito mode, and turn off my WiFi so I am using my unlimited data on my iPad, the houses come up right now in positions 5, 7, and 10 when I search using only the name of the town and no dates, number of guests, and filters.
All three of the listings are in the “work collection.” When I turn that on as my sole filter, they come up in positions 1, 2, and 3.
All three listings are always in the top 15, as best as I can recall.
June still totally empty. I have revised all three listings, changed titles on two, added and deleted pictures, etc., to keep them fresh. I did block off calendar last night for most of the month of June on one so that we could redo the bathroom. The one I blocked off is the one that is the lowest ranked in the searches.
From Google…Incognito mode can help keep your browsing private from other users, but it can’t keep your browsing activities private from your ISP or online snoops. For that level of privacy, you’ll need to connect to a virtual private network (VPN). "
Your incognito Mode will not work.
AirBnB Server will detect it is you trying to find out the listing position. It will always put you on TOP 10 when you are checking because YOU ARE LOG-IN. However, if you LOG OUT airbnb site and use a different browser, the LISTING POSITION is different than that if you are LOG-IN and that is your TRUE position of listing. Why is that? No need to explain.
To determine that you must 1. select the EXACT CITY of your listing, 2. select the type of room you are hosting and 3. select the DATES in which you are OPEN or Available. 4. Select 3 Days of Stays (why 3, just do it). Then tell me what listing position you are.
I promise you, YOU ARE NOT IN THE FIRST PAGE. If you are, you be getting bookings. I tell you how to increase your listing position on this post. After your reply.
If you follow what I tell you, YES you be looking for the listing position as if you are from another city or another country as tourist traveling and checking out the airbnb listing in your area.
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Thanks, I followed your instructions. One of my three listings is blocked for the next month for renovations. The other two came up in positions one and two, when I put in three days in June. When I changed the dates to three days in December around Christmas, they came up in positions two and three.
Ok.
Then there is no problem in listing ranking. The situation is - Entire House. I understand breaking down to per room rental for two persons traveling is not feasible due to cost of cleaning. You may want to change the listing to
Per Room Rental with 3 people Max per room (you add an airbed or folding bed)
change the minimal stay to 3 nights minimum and change the lock to “Digital Lock”.
Plus what is your filter for booking requests? What do you required? You use instant booking? Do they need advance reservation? What do you required of the guests?
Did you check out your progress? View count last 10 Days?
AirBnB started as “Single Pad” for Single or Couple travelers. As it grew “group” or “family” usage is increasing. The traffic for those type is not as big as the “single or couple” traveling.
7 Guests and 6 Guests group traveling are still out there. However, I suggest you add "Duvet cover, bed sheets in both white and change out the bed cover.
I as a guest, I question, “where is my duvet, where is my flat sheet and where is my white fitted sheet”??? You buy them from IKEA…
I mean the fitted sheet looks nice but that is your taste the fitted sheet in purple looks great but for my style…no…not my style. You are not spending money to upgrade all the sheets into white. You goto FIVE STAR hotel…their sheets are all in WHITE ONLY regardless which HOTEL you stay.
I know they are NICE well then why don’t you use it…yourself.
Plus your room simply lack in decor and color. Check out “minimalist style room” (entire room has only TWO COLOR). Google that. Green room, i pass on the green. It does not invite brightness and open air. Just change it to WHITE and the art, lose the art and chock-board whatever is on there. Too clutter in the room, I keep the side tables and ONE lamp. Moreoever, you have the Raised up Canvas type bed canopy, where is my WHITE COVERING of the canopy. If you are too cheap to get the Covering then I change the bed style and move that bed frame into garage.
Do you sleep in the EMPTY canopy like that, if not, why you are asking guests to do that. Plus you need to have window treatment behind the metal headboard. I am afraid sun may shine into my face when I woke up.
It is the interior design and elements. That is the mystery.
P.S. By the way, the kitchen type wood bunk bed…I assumed that is for kids only. Where is my blanket. i want to see it and don’t want to go to where to pick-up in the house. I assumed I have to bring my own sleeping bag? Since I don’t see it as a guest?
Wow, thanks, for the comments. I appreciate the time you took to answer. I did find some of your remarks incomprehensible. For example, I have no purple sheets. Some of the bedcovers are duvets, some are quilts, and a few of them are comforters. I have been gradually replacing my sheets with all white 100% cotton.
All my beds have fitted bottom sheets and flat top sheets, covered with one or more (depending on the season) upper covers…in the winter one or more blankets and on top, a quilt, duvet or comforter. This is what is most common in the US, particularly outside of the large urban areas that don’t have access to an IKEA.
[quote=“airrhost, post:37, topic:31653”]
You buy them from IKEA…
[/quote].
I host in a small town in West Virginia. The nearest IKEA is over 100 miles from here. I’m aware, of course, that I could purchase them online but I don’t buy linens without seeing them in person and touching them. And I don’t drive more than 100 miles to buy IKEA linens.
Absolutely NO clue what you are talking about here.
I appreciate that you prefer a minimalist style. I don’t. Furthermore, my AirBnB houses are vintage…two of the three are over 100 years old. I don’t think a modern, minimalist vibe would suit them. If you look at the other listings in my area, I don’t think you’ll find any with that sort of style.
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The pic you sent has different complex of colors. No quilts, just simple white comforters. No white 100% Cotton. They are nice but they stained. Just use 80% polyester but I personally use 100% cotton for my own sleep but for AirBnb it’s 80% Polyster. One is cheaper and two is easier to wash and no need to replace that often. They can’t tell the difference… Again no quilt (they are nice and aesthetics but you are for the masses and just mke it simple: 1 fitted, 1 falt and 1 duvet (all in white). You can order IKEA online or Target Online. No use Amazon. They are pretty cheap quality. Or you can use KHOL online. Yes I like Vintage. But the masses “Not everyone in the Traveling Group like vintage” sytle. If I travel with my gf, I do a Vintage Style but for family, just convert into Simple White. I suggest you paint over the green room if you want to get higher traction. For the masses, people pref. minimalist vibe (cost you money) compared to vintage (free). Because it will cost you money, that is why you are defending your style. Anyways, I will conclude the Mystry Solving problem. Good Luck.
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LOL. I’m going to be sending you a PM.