New blog post: "The Cost of Success"

See for instance this post which exactly illlustrates what is mentioned in the blog:

community.airbnb.com/t5/General-Hosting/Compared-to-previous-years-I-have-fewer-bookings-for-Jan-and-Feb/m-p/26936#U26936

Jon
Compared to previous years, I have fewer bookings for Jan and Feb. Is this the same for you? [ New ]
AirBnB is recommending that I lower my prices to considerably less than I earned per night last year. Even though I have now lowered prices in some instances, I've found that I still have a number of gaps in my calendar that were not there last year.

Is AirBnB drying up, perhaps? Has it expanded too much and the prices are now being driven down?

I wonder if anybody else has had a similar experience with their rental this year?



Thanks guys.


Monica

It's slower for me than it was last year at this time, but Airbnb comprises of less than half of my bookings. I think people are staying home more, maybe for economic reasons?


Carrie

In my city, it seems like there are a LOT more listings, and therefore, a glut in the market. Airbnb has gotten a lot of attention, and, in my city, ther Pope visited last summer and a lot of people thought they could make money hosting out of town visitors. Airbnb's suggested nightly rate has gone to less than half of my normal rate - I've taken their suggestion at times, and my room is still not nearly as booked as last winter.


Marit Anne

Same here. airbnb has mushroomed, competition is fierce and prices are being dumped to a level that in my case would not be profitable. No bookings at all in Jan, Feb is more or less normal, March slow.

Gerry And Rashid

The year started very quiet, but already we are getting bookings again at same price as last year and totally ignoring AirBnB's prices which would be 50% of what we charge. I am sure there is oversupply - but I still feel people pay for a certain quality. It's not all about price.


Fiona

Definitely Jon. I have been hosting for 2 years and have been consistently 85-90% fully booked. Jan & Feb have been virtually nothing even though I have lowered my prices. I have 3 listings and even though I am the cheapest in my area with loads of 5* reviews, 2 of my rooms appear below other more expensive properties, some not even in this town (!) and with no reviews?! Why is the search engine bringing up listings that are 20 miles away before my property? I find the search engine is not good compared to booking.com, hotels.com etc where you can prioritise by price etc.

Having said that, I do think that the Paris terrorist attacks have detered visitors to Europe - I used to get a lot of American & Australian bookings. There is also another thread about a 90day per year limit in London (I'm just outside) so wonder whether Airbnb is enforcing this by arbitrarily disabling us. I haven't even had any views and the few bookings I've had have been my regular guests who will already have me listed on their system. My gut feeling is my listings are not, for whatever reasons, coming up in the search options and this is very frustrating.