Managing Cleaning Calendars for Airbnb
This just in from a guest:
Theirs a iguana by the pool we can’t go out
I’m trying to dream up good responses. For example,
Actually that’s the baby alligator. Just wait around a bit and see if the parents come out.
I mentioned this to a neighbor, and he said, “I heard them screaming yesterday and thought someone was being murdered.”
I own the building at 1811 N Dixie Hwy. This just went down at 1822 N Dixie Hwy!!!
In these times of COVID-19 you need a different pricing strategy to maximize revenue. The key point is that you want a pricing strategy that strongly encourages last-minute bookings.
If the guest isn’t arriving in the next three days, you don’t want that booking. Why? Because too many things can change between now and the check-in date. And you can bet that Airbnb will give the guest a full refund. If you accept that four-night booking over the weekend with a check-in date six days from now, you have a good chance of sitting with that six-day period empty on your calendar. And then, the morning of check-in, the guest will call Airbnb and say, “Yesterday I was walking down the street and someone on the other side sneezed, and I think I have to self-quarantine for two weeks.” I’ll bet you a dollar against a nickel that Airbnb will give that guest a full refund.
If you’re used to filling up your calendar a month or two in advance, or even just two weeks in advance, you need a new strategy.
Do you know what a Dutch Auction is? The auctioneer starts with a high price and slowly lowers it. Everyone sits there looking at the each other to see who is going to make a move. As soon as someone jumps up and says, “I’ll take it”, the auction ends. The first person who jumps up gets it.
Let’s say you have a 1BR unit and your target price is around $60/night. Here’s how you set the prices:
Tonight: $50 Tomorrow night: $55 Tomorrow +1: $60 Tomorrow +2: $65 Tomorrow +3: $70 Tomorrow +4: $75 Tomorrow +5: $80 Tomorrow +6: $85 Tomorrow +7: $90 Tomorrow +8: $95 Tomorrow +9: $100 All following nights: $100
So a booking five-night booking checking in tonight would cost:
$50 + $55 + $60 + $65 + $70 = $300, or $60/night
But a three-night booking would be $165, or $55/night. That’s below the target, but it gets some revenue in the bank, and it’s a short booking. In just three days you’ll be able to take another booking, and hopefully it will be longer.
However, a five-night booking checking in tomorrow would be:
$55 + $60 + $65 + $70 + 75 = $325, or $65/night
You need to be compensated for leaving tonight vacant, and a bit of risk is creeping in. Tomorrow morning that guest might cancel and get a full refund.
For each night that you shift the booking into the future, the price goes up by $25 total, or $5/night. It’s not hard to imagine that guests aren’t going to book too far into the future.
When tomorrow arrives, it’s no longer tomorrow. It’s today. So tomorrow’s price of $65 needs to become $60. $70 needs to become $65, etc. Every morning you have to drop the prices for the coming ten days.
There are three ways you can do this:
If you’re used to having your calendar full for the next few weeks or months, it’s going to be gut-wrenching to sit see that there are no future bookings. Sit tight. If the unit sits vacant for 2-3 nights in a row, then your prices are probably too high. Reduce them overall.
But if you have someone in the unit and you haven’t gotten a booking yet, sight tight. Just wait. For a given booking, every day the price will go down by $5/night. Maybe nobody took it for arrival in four days, but tomorrow the price will drop. Maybe someone will take it then.
The above is a bit of an extreme example. I don’t recommend dropping the price by $5/night on a $60 target price. Something closer to $2/night would be more appropriate. You do want to get bookings for arrival tomorrow or the day after. It’s okay to have a 1-2 night gap between bookings, especially if the bookings are longer.
Here’s an actual screenshot from my calendar, taken on August 3rd.
There are a couple of things to note:
You only want bookings for guests who will arrive in the next three days. It doesn’t matter how long. One day, two days, three weeks, a month. I’ll take any booking as long as the guest is arriving today, tomorrow or the next day.
Why? Because any booking farther in the future is very likely to be cancelled. They’ll block your calendar for the guest who wants to arrive tomorrow and stay two weeks, and they they’ll cancel the day of arrival. And Airbnb will give them a full refund.
You do not want parties, not even a bunch of nuns reading the Bible together. Airbnb hosts already have a target painted on their backs, you do not want to draw any additional attention.
Easily said, harder to put into practice. Actually, it’s not hard, but there’s a limit to what you can actually accomplish. Nevertheless, make the effort. Here are questions to ask:
There are some guests who fully intend to hold a raging party and know what lies to tell, but you’d be surprised how many aren’t that perceptive. When you get the six high school seniors who are coming to Florida to celebrate their graduation, remember Nancy Reagan and just say ‘no’.
These are strange times. If you’re in an urban market like me, you may have to discount quite a bit. For example, my apartments rent for about $1200/month unfurnished, no consumables, no utilities, no internet, and on an annual lease. On Airbnb I’m used to getting double that, but I provide more, too. Still, I was recently pretty happy to get bookings that paid me just under $1200/month. Heads in beds, some revenue is better than none.
If you have a country get-away and there is high demand, charge what the market will bear. If you are booked more than a few weeks in advance, you under-priced it.
Set a Progressive Last-Minute Discount
If you use pricing software like PriceLabs, Wheelhouse, or BeyondPricing, you can set sophisticated discounts. For example, I have a 40% last-minute discount that is phased in over 28 days. If my base price is $100, then tonight costs $60, and each following day costs a little more until you get to 28 days from now when you pay full price ($100) for each night.
My goal is not to charge someone $100/night. My goal is simply to make close-in bookings attractive in price, and bookings farther in the future unattractive. To get bookings longer than a few days you have to combine this with length-of-stay discounts. I’ll discuss the exact mechanics in a future post.
We are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The numbers in Florida are exploding.
And yet I get Airbnb booking requests like this:
Can I have a dinner with my family and friends of course outdoors…Because I need the Pool more than the house….Please August 5 is gonna be my birthday and I just came here to do a little something…Thank you sir for your understanding
And this:
Hello good morning! I would like to book your beautiful house it will be only 4 or 6 people staying at night, but I would like to have a bbq/pool party birthday for my fiance on the Sunday 23 August it will be only 15 people min 20 max it’s going to be kind of hangout with family, no DJ just music and have a chef coming over with the food.
And this:
Me: What is the purpose of your visit?
Guest: I am a musician here to play a few gigs.
Me: [cancels booking]