Host, Christine Karpinski:  Today's question comes from a homeowner. She asks,

Q: "I seem to be getting a lot of inquiries, but not many subsequent bookings. What am I doing wrong?"

A: Well, if you go through your ad and you find that you've got great photos, you've got a very well‑written description, you're keeping your headline up to date, one of the most common things that homeowners do wrong is that their pricing isn't right. If you're not getting response from your ad, your prices might be too high, too low, too vague, too confusing, or too restrictive. Let me just go and explain each one of these.

Too high would mean, if you have a condo in a complex where there's a hundred other condos that are exactly the same as your floorplan, and if you have a lot nicer furnishings or maybe marble floors, Sub‑Zero refrigerator, that might warrant a little bit extra. However, it doesn't warrant that you can charge twice as much extra. That would be an example of a too high price.

The next one was too low. By the way, it happens to be the most common mistake that vacation homeowners make. They price their properties too low. There seems to be some sort of implied value with regards to pricing of the property. If somebody has an intended amount of money that they want to spend, let's just say they want to spend $1500 for the week for their vacation rental that they want to rent, they're not going to look at properties that are $1000, because they think that those $1000 properties are going to be somehow inferior.

And, if the majority of your properties in your complex or in your neighborhood, or in your market are in that $1500 range, and your property is similar to that property, there should be no reason that you should charge significantly less. Now, I understand that there are a lot of people who like to have lower prices just to get an edge on the market. A little bit lower would be maybe $10‑$25, or something like that to lower the price, but not significantly lower.

The next example of another way that your pricing could be off would be too vague. Now, by too vague what do I mean? Now, this might seem a little odd, but too vague is if you have low season at $150 a night, mid‑season at $300 a night, and shoulder season at $195 a night. Now, what's wrong with that? That's too vague because the traveler may not know when your low season, or when your high season are. They would want to know the exact dates around that. So, that would be an example of too vague.

Too confusing, oh my word! I've seen a lot of people market their properties in a way that it is so confusing to try and figure out how much the property is per night, or how much it is per day. Having different rates for each week is a little obsessive. I think that just having a rate for each season, perhaps throwing in maybe a festival or spring break that might bring in a lot of travelers to your market, where you can charge a little bit more, that would be certainly all right, but not having 20 different rate structures.

And, too restrictive would be if you are requiring say a full‑week rental during your off season. A lot of people during the off‑season can't travel for a full week, that's why it's called the off‑season, or maybe the weather just isn't good enough during that time. However, there are people who likely would like to rent your property, but perhaps they don't want to take a full week, maybe they just want to take a long weekend. Having a three‑night minimum might be the best way to handle restrictions during an off‑season. That's a clear example of too restrictive.

So, anyways, just to recap all of this, your pricing might not be right on the money. Your rates might be too high, too low, too vague, too confusing, or too restrictive. Now, go check your rates.