Setting prices

[welshfred]

Hi, I am new to holiday letting and am so glad that I have found this website! I am just in the process of setting my prices for next year and was wondering why everyone's prices seem to be an odd number? I was planning on rounding mine up or down to the nearest £10 as that just seems to make sense to me but maybe I am missing something important here?! I would be very grateful if someone could let me know why you would rent a house out for say £523 a week rather than £520! Many thanks

[Hells Bells]

Could just be something like currency exchange rates, or perhaps booking fees or commission added to the prices by the listing sites.

[Bunny]

Could be that those owners advertise on sites that force you to display a nightly rate so they have to come up with a figure that is a 1/7th of the weekly rate which doesn't necessarily work mathematically without some tweeking of the weekly rates.

My rates are rounded to the nearest £10.

[newtimber]

Some people use software that can automatically increase rates annually by inflation or another percentage. This will result in the effect you are seeing.
Also, some guests still think that there is a huge price difference between £399 and £400...

[kg1]

Which sites are you looking on? if it's Holiday lettings or another ommission based site it is the commission added by them to the owners price.

[welshfred]

Thanks everyone for your replies. As you suggest, probably just taking into account commission, inflation or exchange rates. I will stick to my rounding up or down to the nearest £10!

[charles cawley]

We can provide a simple spreadsheet free of charge so you can set rates in a logical manner for any permutation of arrival and departure days.

One tip. If you are in the UK do not rely on rates advertised by others. Over the last 4 years, the habit of DFS Sofa style pricing has become quite widespread. In many cases, advertised rates are 20% higher or more than prices actually charged.

Agency pricing is often a better guide, however much some claim they are a downward force on rates. Even larger agencies go in for discounting. In our case, we discourage this practice and do not band holiday lets with each having its own rates developed in response to demand.

It is not unknown for local cottage owners to impress on newcomers the need to charge high rates whilst discounting theirs privately when necessary. Yes, it can be dog eat dog.

The best way is to start of at a lower rate than you wish to reach and ratchet up to meet demand.

[Essar]

I too have odd numbered weekly rates, in my case I ensure that the weekly rate is always divisible by 7 to give an integer result. That way the longer stays over 7-nights have a whole number outcome rather than a result with decimals. Of course sites like HL completely 8u66er up the result when they add their guest commission.