AirBNB - Manual Market Research for STRs

[Damian P.]

Hello,

I'm looking at the potential to AirBNB my home, and am doing the manual method of researching my target market. I choose my town, and then am looking at rates/availability of similar sized AirBNBs in my area.

In searching the calendars of competing homes, and I'm wondering if the Host is able to put a limit on how far out people can book in the future? Homes seem to reach a certain date where they are not available for like last half of 2023, all of 2024, etc. For example this home I'm looking at now is booked most of 2022 summer, couple months are slow, Xmas week is booked, Jan-April 2023 is wide open, 11 days in May 2023, but then after an opening from May 31st - June 5th, the ENTIRE rest of 2023 is "unavailable" or booked. 

Is this host only allowing bookings a certain date into the future, and I'm assuming you can adjust this around a bit? I've seen certain comps become completely "unavailable" like 4-5 months out and it becomes a little tricky gauging future bookings.

Any advice on this topic would be greatly appreciated!! If it helps, my market is not super busy with STRs, but there is definitely a need as the closest hotel is 30-45 minutes away.