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Hi Guys,
I started hosting in November and everyone I speak to talks about how the Summer months are the best months and U can make some funds tokeep you afloat during the slower winter periods.
For the experienced hosts, when do I set my summer prices? How much higher than my winter prices should I typically expect to charge?
I’m curious as my calendar is a 3 month calendar and I would like to open for 6 months to take early bookings.
Detailed answers would be appreciated especially from experience. Thanks a lot.
Where are you in the world? Specifically (city) and in general. Are you in a summer destination kind of place like the seaside or fishing lake region, out in the country away from a major city? What are the summer tourist attractions? What do similar listings to yours charge in summer?
Those are the things that determine when you change price and how much you can change your price. We can’t really tell you in any more detail because where you live is not the same as where we are
Here in Southwest Florida, we have a High Season that runs from mid-November until early May. My Low Season rate is $65 per night, my High Season rate is $95 per night. I run an intermediate rate of $82 per night for the 2 weeks preceding and 2 weeks after High Season: $82 from Nov 1 to Nov 20, $95 from Nov 20 to Easter, $85 from Easter to First week of May, then $65 per night from early May to Nov…
I can charge more at any time of year than similar listings, because we have a heated swimming pool, and because we offer full prepared breakfasts to our guests which other hosts do not.
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You need to set your prices depending on when the high and low seasons are in your area. @BlaQMarbleHost
We can’t tell you what will work for your area.
Why not look at what hosts in your area are doing? Obviously you also need to look at what big events happen in your area throughout the year as you will need to price for these too.
Thanks @KenH
This was very useful.
My listings are in Atlanta GA. I already started looking at Summer calendars which are open and there are some really ridiculous prices and I don’t think they are representative of what would really be obtainable in the summer. For instance I found a 2bed 2 bath condo which currently lists for $120 going for $750 a night in the summer. And I’m not even kidding. I was perplexed hence my post.
What I have gathered is demand goes through the roof in the summer in Atlanta so prices rise commensurately.
These are VERY VALID questions.
And no I didn’t research them. I just felt a $650 jump was crazy. Lol
Was going to use AirDNA to see how prices vary across the seasons for my market but when I realized they charge $99 for a months’ subscription I quit. LOL.
$99 for a month sounds great value to get that sort of data if it helps you get your pricing model right. After all you only have to take out a subscription for a month. @BlaQMarbleHost
I doubt that every host, everywhere, would agree with that at all. I have two apartments that are full all year round, despite the fact that we’re in an area that traditionally has a tourist season and a slower season. It depends how much effort you’re prepared to go to in order to get those bookings.
Regarding the time question, it depends on your area. (I’m afraid I don’t know Atlanta well at all). Here, I’d be very worried if I wasn’t mostly booked up for the summer months (June, July, August, September) already but I get bookings a long time in advance mostly, so to me March seems to be \too late to be thinking about summer pricing.
I don’t price according to season particularly but to events. My prices go up considerably during certain local events because of the demand. I also don’t pay attention to what other hosts are charging - the only price I ever look at is the nightly price of the nearest hotel (almost always higher than our price.)
By the way, here a 2/2 at $750 per night, if it was well located, and had good amenities, would be a reasonable price here. There’s no way that you can compare listings unless you’ve stayed there.
Remember though that sometimes hosts put prices right up at times that they don’t want to host. Their thinking is “I don’t want to have guests here over Christmas but if they’re prepared to pay $750 per night, I’ll put up with it”. So looking at other prices in the area is unlikely to work.
That’s probably because there are special events which means hotel rooms are tight then too. In addition to checking other Air listings, you should also check Booking.Com, Hotels.com, and other booking sites to see which for which hotels raise rates.
I belong to my local visitor bureau (a source for bookings, the first couple of bookings coming from them pay my yearly bureau dues), and they send me a quarterly calendar listing all the conventions and meetings that their convention sales/planning person has compiled, so I can adjust rates when rooms will be tight, using Rules (I don’t allow single day bookings during those tight times).
I have occasionally come across huge price hikes like that in my general searches-can’t remember where now-but where we are in the mountains on the edge of a national park, our summer rates are usually about double the off-season rates.
