Remember, the cheaper places may certainly get booked early, but there’s nothing wrong with getting a booking request later…at your higher price 
the more places booked up in your area, the closer you get to the top
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When I started listing my place use to be book 4 months in advance but nowadays I’m very lucky if the next month is half occupied. I guess this is highly related to your local market. There are maybe 10k listings in my place so the being visible to the public matters a lot. You might have an amazing place with amazing reviews but if nobody is able to see it then you can’t be surprised of having no bookings. So, my thoughts are that in oversaturate markets (like mine) hosts try to make whatever they can to raise up on the search ranking and unfortunately one of this techniques is to advertise with a price much lower than what they are about to effectively charge so you can get visible to the ones who makes blank dates searches.
I’m not quite sure about the statement of “people who books already have they travel dates defined”. I easily can think of someone that wants to travel to a certain place but his dates are flexible. In fact, I can surely imagine someone arranging his dates to the availability of a certain accommodation they like. Blank-dates searches matter especially for those who books far away in advance.
In terms of what many here said about misleading prices, you are absolutely right. The hosts that advertised themselves at half the price of what I would have to pay when I fill my dates aren’t going to get many bookings. But the problem here isn’t them but the others ones who can’t get views because their price tag isn’t on the guest search range. In a certain way, the site starts to look spammy and it hurts the browsing experience’.
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I have seen properties on my list for an area in an open date list that show up for say $99, and when I try to select dates I get $155. I don’t think this is the hosts gaming. It is a question of if I look at a month wide set of dates I am getting the average or base price, not sure which. When I finally select a date, I get the traffic adjusted price created by AirBnB. If I do a search over the same dates I selected I see all the prices have jumped. As things become more specific more specific prices come out.
Surely there has to be SOME relation between the stated price with no dates and the actual price when you choose dates? Out of interest and because we plan to go to Cape Town in at some time in October I looked at an Air apartment recommended on a blog and was amazed and excited to see €48 a night. Wow, I thought, can’t be right (it was gorgeous …). Sure enough, when I put some October dates in it was between €90 and 105 - and October isn’t high season in CT (although it reduced to €78 if we stay a month)
The only rate anywhere near that imaginary €48 was one day next week when the price was €58. Now, I’m sure that apartment was worth the higher price and it was obviously very popular, but really, why tempt people with a price that seems totally plucked out of the air? .
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Unfortunately, it can happen. We do it. For example, if there is an art event locally we put up the prices because our rental is popular with (and ideal for) artists and photographers. So if it’s a three day event those three days might be priced at $199 with the surrounding days being $120. People who have been hosting for a long time - and have repeat guests for certain events - know that they can charge more for certain days even if other days during the same week are cheaper.
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Holy Crap! I was just looking at my listing and the nightly rate airbnb is advertising, sans dates, is $69 a night!!! What the What?! My base price is $95. At no time are you getting my room for $69. Frustrating!!! Once dates are entered the $100+ (with cleaning fee) appears. NOT my doing!!!
If you figure out why/what’s going on please come back and let us know. When I was air shopping this week I didn’t run across that problem.
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Not as dramatic but our base price is $126 and the listing is showing $122.
Right. I mentioned in another post that, for a time, air didn’t show any prices until a date was entered - a much smarter move.
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Oh snap! I got it! A couple from Switzerland booked my place long ago for two nights in October, when I must have been playing with pricing, or, I don’t know what, and got the rooms for $69 a night. I was just editing my calendar and saw that reservation and it triggered my memory. So airbnb apparently is looking not at what prices are currently offered but what some lucky guest paid for by booking well in advance, while I “wasn’t looking”.
@Monica I hope this clears the name of ‘tricky hosts’ for you. It’s not on the host’s part, it’s airbnb’s.
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But it is possible that a host is being tricky. I saw a nice listing with a $10 price but when I hovered over the dates they were all $60 and up. No way I think that was an accident. I hope for your benefit the Swiss couple end up not being able to make their trip. 