Pricing structure

If you are planning to buy a rental home, or you're thinking about what to do with one you have just acquired, this is the place for any questions about starting out in the rentals business.
SaltyT
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:57 pm
Location: Woolacombe
Contact:

Pricing structure

Post by SaltyT »

Hello all
Newbie here. I have been reading the forums and it is most informative. Helpful topics and hints - that I had not thought of.

I do have a question, that the other half and me disagree on.

Our price structure is the same as the previous owners - early, mid, high, autumn and late. We may change this next season - if any of you have a better way please.

But our main question is - the prices run weekly. How do we work out how much to charge for three or four days etc. Is there a typical way of doing this - or do folk just wing it?

I know some other places in our area raise prices quite a lot for shorter breaks - but we do not want to put guests off.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions

Dawn
newtimber
Posts: 1945
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:57 pm
Location: Brighton
Contact:

Post by newtimber »

I suppose the first question is where are you thinking of advertising? Most of the large sites require you to have nightly prices or price per week.

If you have nightly prices, then it is simpler to have a separate cleaning charge otherwise either you lose out when someone books a 2 night stay or a 5 night stay becomes too expensive. You need to work out how much it costs to do the cleaning, including your time. It's easy to underestimate this.

If you do short breaks on your own website, then it's something like 65/70% of the weekly price, but there are lots of discussions on this site already that you can look at.
SaltyT
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:57 pm
Location: Woolacombe
Contact:

Post by SaltyT »

Hi Newtimber

Thank you for your reply. At the moment - we have our own website and FB page. We have not gone down the agency route at the moment and would rather not if we can get away with it.

Good call about underestimating - as it is time and cost.

I did search the forums - but only found one thread. But it was late last night - so I will look again.

Thank you again - it is appreciated
SusanMay
Posts: 125
Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:23 pm
Location: Dorset

Post by SusanMay »

I'm hesitant to reply as I don't think I've got the answer but I do have an answer.

I have low, medium, high, and peak seasons. For peak I only let people book whole weeks.

At the moment I charge 65% for 3 days, 74% for 4 days, 83% for 5 days and 92% for 6 days of the weekly amount. I round up or down to the nearest £5.

It's simple for me as I don't use any of the OTAs so I just have a rates card on my website with the rounded amounts. People pay me by invoicing or bank transfer. It does get much more complicated if you want to use a booking system to take the bookings. Then, as Newtimber says, you typically have a daily charge. To encourage longer bookings it's best to separate out the cleaning or offer a discount % for longer periods (although then the final figure is something like £365.43 which sounds a bit odd to me).
User avatar
greenbarn
Posts: 6146
Joined: Sat May 30, 2009 6:41 pm
Location: The Westmorland Dales, Cumbria

Post by greenbarn »

We have changeover days of Friday and Monday so we can offer short breaks, which we do all year; if you’re in a tourism hotspot that easily pulls weekly bookings there’s not much point in doing that.

We have a short break rate which covers anything up to 3 nights Fri-Mon or 4 nights Mon-Fri, and that rate is around 70% of a full week. The normal range in the industry for a short break is 70% to 80%.
SaltyT
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:57 pm
Location: Woolacombe
Contact:

Post by SaltyT »

Thank you SusanMay and Greenbarn for your replies too. They both seem good to me and from what I have worked out - as good way of doing the sums.

My other half says to divided the week total by five and them times by the number of days wanted
Post Reply