Originally posted by @Jim K.:
@Lee L.
All right, you made me work for it, Lee. Can't say I appreciated it. There are very good reasons why you are failing miserably. Here are four of them.
1. On Airbnb, there is a 6-bed condo advertising that it sleeps 8 that is renting for $140/month that's closer to Mt. Snow than your place. That dude's got 22 reviews. Your impression that "we were priced lower" is wrong, at least to someone looking at places to stay up there online with no significant knowledge of the area.
2. You have zero reviews. Set the price at $140/night. Get five or six reviews and then raise the price to what you think it's really worth. Why do you think developers spend millions to build shopping malls and then open them up with balloons, giveaways, and coupons? Nobody wants to be the first to visit a completely unvetted place. You're going to have to create an incentive.
3. Look at your pictures. Actually go to HomeAway.com and look at them. Your listing claims 2 1/2 bathrooms. Your description claims three bathrooms. Yet all you have in the way of pictures of your bathrooms is a shot of an open door with a toilet facing it. What is that? Do you enthusiastically sign up to stay in places where you have no clue if your wife can plug in her hair dryer next to the vanity? Wouldn't you want to know if the tub you're going to be washing in is avocado green from the 1970s with a groaning 3-handle valve set from the 1950s? And of course, up there in Vermont, wouldn't you like to know if the bathrooms have their own radiator or heating duct?
4. Your place is listed as sleeping 8 because of bunk beds in the third bedroom with stated 200-lb weight limits. I see two shots of bunk beds, but they're in some sort of living room with a couch prominently featured. You pictures have to match up with your description. That should go without saying. A possible renter looking at this is going to wonder if he's going to show up and find the third bedroom locked and you on the phone insisting his kids will be fine sleeping in the living room the beds are shown in, that yeah, uh, the living room/sitting room/den/whatever is really a third bedroom, sorry if the listing didn't make that clear.
That's how it is, Lee. I hope you take action.
Look, I appreciate your perspective, but some of what you are suggesting is difficult because, well, it is a 1970's house, an extremely well maintained 70's house, but nonetheless....
Bathrooms are really too small to get any perspective in, a picture would get a corner and not really impart any information, the reason my husband showed the one bathroom is because it is ensuite to the master, and the tub IS a perfectly preserved (and I mean perfectly literally, not a scratch or water stain) 1970's style one piece thing. It isn't avocado green but it might as well be. The dated finishes are a fact, the house is clean and everything functions perfectly, but I understand that my customer isn't going to be a fancy seeker looking for high end finishes, I am thinking my customer is a budget conscious group or family who is ok with lots of room and clean basic accomodation.
As far as the condo that sleeps 8 for 140 a night, could I get a link? I have been looking at other houses on homeaway, just targeting different dates to see how other places are pricing. I may be doing it wrong, but my prices are dynamic, lower during the week, a little higher on the weekends, lower in November, a little higher in December and around the holidays where people take their vacations, etc. Is this condo you are talking about 140 a night full stop? Even during the high season?
Now, about the bunk beds. Let me clear this up. The house has an open concept kitchen that looks out over the dining and living room combo. The room with the bunks is not the living room. It is the bunk room. We put a couch and a tv in there because we figured it would be a great place for kids to segregate themselves from the adults, or just any group who wants to watch something different than the people in the living room. In case you were wondering I see lots of references to bunk rooms in the area, most of which have two bunk beds crammed into a tiny room. Our bunk room is palatial. If some guy is worried about his kids sleeping in a room that happens to also have a couch in it then he should definitely keep looking. My goal with the pictures is to present an accurate view of the accomodations. What you see is what you get for sleeping accomodations. If someone is imagining that there is an additional room to sleep in that isn't pictured they have only themselves to blame.
The kitchen is 70's with harvest gold perfectly preserved countertops, there is faux wood paneling in every room including the bathrooms. The house is clean and functional, and what you see is what you get. I don't see that there is any value in having a SECOND living room but limiting people to the 2 tiny rooms that function as traditional bedrooms. I can't please everyone.
