You’re right. The studios listed as 1-bedrooms have 4.5 stars or less and reviews that say “smaller than expected.” I’m curious how some of these listings made it into the Plus program.
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Knowing what I know about Airbnb I’m not suprised. But could it be that they had higher ratings and Plus category brought higher expectations and now they dropped in their average?
Yes, one listing I have in mind has been around for about five years and had hundreds of reviews. Perhaps those will drop as more Plus guests stay. I wonder if you get kicked out of Plus for too many 4-star reviews like we get kicked out of the Superhost program.
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Thanks for the info. I’m a new listing and my place is an open loft. I listed 1 bedroom as it didn’t occur to me that I could list 0 for the bedrooms. I also didn’t see that I could have the queen bed and the sofa bed both listed in the common space. Changed mine and to me it will alleviate some questions. I’m also posting a floorplan showing the overall layout so they can see that the bed, living area with sofa bed and kitchen are all in the open loft and the bathroom is separated.
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Hopefully this will help you avoid the negative review that lofts sometimes get: that there was no privacy between the two couples who book.
My place is listed for 2 people, so I would not generally get 2 couples looking at my place. I do, however, get groups of girls coming for a girls getaway to the mountains who are willing to all sleep in the same room who are happy with the sofa bed as additional sleep space. Or a family with young kids who don’t mind sharing the space.
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I would think that if someone took the time to look at the photo’s they could see that it is a Bachelor flat
( studio flat)?
I agree that when your practice is to deceive guests into booking it will come back and bite you…
This is my pet peeve too!!! Especially when I’m searching for places to stay. When I travel I usually like staying within walking distance of things. I don’t want to be shown places far away. It really irks me that even when I zoom in the map it still shows me places outside the map area if there aren’t enough within the map area. I don’t care if there’s only 1 place in my map area, I want to see only that one!! Then I’ll decide whether to expand the map.
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Yes but if you’re browsing and looking for something specific (a 1 BR), you don’t want to waste time clicking on listings or scrolling through photos that turn out to be studios.
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I wish they still had the key word search too; our unit has a view, and our lead photo is of the view (and in our title), but it would be nice if folks could search by that. I would use it myself because I love to have a view when I travel.
I think you could list that as “entire place” no problem? Entire place doesn’t necessarily mean kitchen. I have 2 zero bedroom studios listed as “entire place” although occasionally get asked if it has a kitchen.
I probably could but I feel that what I’m doing is working okay. I’m just afraid it would increase the number of people thinking they get the whole house or too many questions about a kitchen.
I followed the canned “advice” from the CS Twitter, and flagged the incorrectly-listed spots. Nothing has changed two days later. I filled out the feedback form as well but I have a feeling my comment just disappeared into a void.
One of the reasons these incorrectly categorized listings irritate me so much is because I think listing as a 1-bedroom instead of studio pushes them up in the search ratings. AirBnB says one of the factors in the search ratings is a “competitive price,” so the system will think a 1-bedroom as $50 a night is a better deal than a studio apartment at $50 a night.
In my own observations, if I ask for what I think my listing is worth, it is buried deep in the search results. If I drop my prices closer to the price tips, it it starts showing up on the first page of my neighborhood.
I think what I’m frustrated with is another example of the AirBnB system directing us to “race to the bottom.” In the slow winter months, if I want exposure, I have to drop my rates to match tiny studios as well as decrepit STR buildings with abysmal reviews. Price seems to be the ultimate factor in listing rankings, rather than reviews or host reliability. I know I have clearly the quality listing (Superhost, over 100 5-star reviews) but I am not certain it is allowing me to actually charge more.
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I just did an incognito search for my place. I searched for tonight/2 people/private room. No other filters and came up 2nd. If I took off “private room” and competed with entire places I was 8th. Since this is for tonight there aren’t so many places. This is on the website with the map showing and while it says there are 113 places it didn’t look like so many on the map. It also, very much to my exasperation, includes places in Juarez, MX. In the search for private rooms I am the highest priced on that first page of results but and still 2nd. I have the most reviews. The #2 in review number and time on airbnb, with a room very similar to mine is $48 instead of $50 but 2 spots behind me in search.
I then went to search Seattle. Same search parameters at first, just tonight, 2 people. This was on the first page of search, just clicking the red search button and it took me straight to Plus homes and there are 24 of them available tonight. I clicked back and went to just homes using the drop down menu for homes and it still puts a couple of plus listings at the top. Anyway, now I put in entire place and superhost. I’ve also clicked on the map so I have a central centering
In other words I’ve searched the way I would on my own searches. Normally I would also turn on instant book but didn’t on this search. You came up 16th and on the first page. That seems pretty good. I realize you probably aren’t going to have anyone looking to stay in your neighborhood on a snow weekend tonight. But the problem seems to be too many listings. There are just so many spots on the first page. If I do a search for a spring weekend in April, on the same map you disappear. And for tourists I’d want to stay closer to the attractions. If I’m driving through I want to stay near the interstate. And for me personally I’d love to stay close to the light rail if it’s competitively priced.
I feel that when I upgraded my space I didn’t get any pricing power but I was able to keep the pace of bookings.
So I don’t know if it makes you feel better or worse but with all the competition it seems like the fact that you come up on the first page of any search is good.
I even raised my prices by $15 a night this week because I didn’t want to deal with last-minute guests who might be unprepared for our snow!
As we’ve discussed before, my location isn’t for everyone. I get a lot of guests who want to be near family they’re visit in my neighborhood, or want to be near Capitol Hill when the hill itself is booked.
I ended up blocking April but I do seem to be a few pages in for March. I have some things up in the air right now with my personal life so I’ve been opening my calendar just 1-2 months out. Most of my reservations are 2-weeks or less before arrival date. I use the strategy of pricing high and lowering my price as it gets closer. That allows me to book at a higher rate for special events when all the hotels are booked.
Thank you for the encouragement! I really am in an oversaturated market as everyone wants to cash in Seattle’s current boom. I’ve done everything I can to stand out: professional photographer and excellent reviews, most importantly. I don’t think I can do much more but wait for our new regulations to kick in and force some of the STR buildings to go back to being LTRs. I just wish I didn’t feel like I had to complete against budget places to attract bookings, but they are closer to the lightrail and freeway than I am (ironically, the places closer to the freeway don’t usually have free parking).
Speaking of saturation: there have been three other AirBnBs just on my block, to my knowledge. Two other basement apartments, and a small house. The house closed up about two years ago, as soon as there was a whiff of regulations coming, and has just sat vacant (occasionally the owners, who live in a nearby city, come and do maintenance). One of the basements closed after maybe six months due to family members moving in. The other basement is a new host and I’m not sure they’ll have the patience to continue long-term. It seems few hosts stick it out (even I took 1.5 years off), and with our new STR regulations, I’m hoping we will no longer see entire apartment buildings converted into AirBnBs.
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I was in Seattle last week and would have loved to stay with you or @Arlene_Larsson. But the friend in Seattle lives near Columbia City and our (canceled unfortunately) concert was at Showbox SoDo. So her location was ok for that and absolutely free so I stayed there. I also looked at a couple of Airbnbs near my friend in case another friend from Portland came up for the show. There is a ton of availability at good prices.
If you’re ever coming to town again let me know!! Although we aren’t near light rail; we’re on Queen Anne, but we do have very easy bus access, a nice view and free parking. @Xena the Seattle market is just so over saturated right now. But cruise season is right around the corner!!!
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I use the strategy of pricing low and raising my price as it gets closer. This way the bargain hunters who can plan ahead are a good fit for me and those that book later don’t have as many options so tend to pay my higher prices happily (which are not always too much higher than the average going but sometimes double or triple).
The main reason I do this is so that I get paid more fir when I have less time to to plan for their arrival. If someone books well in advance I have a much easier tome planning the rest of my life.
Ancient topic and many posters not active any more.
Closed for housekeeping.
JF
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