Set rate for your area or charge your own price?

I’m helping out my neighbour who is new to this. We searched the fee for our area, though want to up the price abit. Only by $70/month roughly as it’s a self contained room out the back. Are we allowed to do this or do we have to go by the guidelines?

Not sure exactly what you are asking but she can make her rates whatever she wants whenever she wants for all days.

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Hi @lauren02

Of course not. It is her place she can charge what she likes.

If by guidelines you mean the pricing Airbnb recommends (smart pricing), as an experienced host yourself, I am sure you know it often bears no relation to market rates :slight_smile:

You mean guidelines is smart pricing.
I think it should be called stupid pricing. I just booked an apparrment in Bouquet, Panama for a seriously ridiculous price of 270$ a month.
It’s a gorgeous 2 bedroom apartment and comparing to other listing it was 3 times cheaper. I thought it was a good to be true and it is. The host messaged me yesterday that she didn’t realize she turned on smart pricing and appartments real price is 800$ a month. As you can see what Smart pricing suggests has nothing to do with reality.

I don’t think 70$ a month makes any difference. My experience with pricing is unless I am inline with my sort of listings price wise I don’t get booked . It doesn’t matter what I offer and what extras , I still don’t get booked unless my price among the lowest .
My rating is 4.7 . Almost all my reviews are 5*, and very few 4*. So reviews or lack of them is not the reason. Prices now dropped so much that for me there is no reason to even rent short term . I switched to longer term about 2.5 years ago. Now my pool house is struggling for over a month without my corporate people who rented for months at a time . I rent it by room for now and with that make half of what I did last year . Again my monthly price is along with others similar. There are 2 listings only who put ridiculously low price and I am sure they will be booked today or tomorrow . But I cannot go that low .

I’m doing all the research for my neighbour. His son is joining the army next month and the bills will get on top of him. He has an extra two rooms and a self contained flat out the back which has access to an outside toilet, shower and bath/laundry. He originally wanted someone to flat there, though we couldn’t find anyone. The $70 that I am referring to is he is hoping to get close to $800/month.

i am not an experienced host. I am merely looking at everything for my neighbour so he can start!

It’s a fine line between full occupancy and getting the maximum you can.

Apologies, I assumed by your initial post you were an experienced host who was acting as co-host for your neighbour.

Ideally @Lauren02 it would be an idea if you could help him get an experienced co-host he can work who is local and a superhost, who will know the ropes and help him avoid the pitfalls and manage his listing successfully.

If that is not possible, have a look at Airbnb Help Centre which has Q&As that covers all the basics around managing an Airbnb plus have a look at the useful tutorials and guides on Airbnb Community.