What price you should charge depends on your market but there may be other factors to consider what price you are going to charge.
Other factors might be:
- The cost to clean the room and sheets
- Your free time taken up to meet the guests, check them out etc.
- The rent you could have received from a local long term renter
Your location could determine the type of guest you will get no matter what service you provide
My listing is in Newham, East London; a reasonably central suburb it is none the less the wrong side of London if you are a tourist (my main market).
I could try and aim more towards customers who are in town on business rather than a holiday but so far I have had so few of these clients and don’t believe these types of customers are using Airbnb in any great numbers in the UK (maybe this will change).
Know your competition
My competition is whole of Greater London. Most of my customers are not familiar with the many different boroughs of London so will simply be searching for London. But this could be reduced to the inner three zones of London – 1, 2, and 3. My listing is in Zone 3. For anyone nor familiar with London a small apartment in Zone 1 can set you back as much as million pounds.
How I work out my Airbnb listing price
This is how I decide my price so I stay fully occupied. I do a search for the whole of London and reduce the price until my competition falls below 100
My Results are below. Most of my customers will be paying in Euros so we use € currency.
- Price €99 = 1000+ other listings
- €79 = 888 listings
- €69 = 648 listings
- €59 = 264 listings (a huge drop in the number of listings from €69)
- €49 = 109 listings
- €44 = 56 listings
- €39 = 10 listings
I have priced my listing at 44 Euro’s to maintain a maximum occupancy. I could consider increasing to 49 Euro’s if say the number of listings at this price level drops below 100. If my listing was prime central London then I would increase my price to 59 euros and expect to do well. I certainly would not increase the price to 69 or above as my bookings would most probably fall to zero.