The single pricing move that added $400/month to several of our Reno STRs.

Short-Term & Vacation Rental Discussions
1wFollow

The single pricing move that added $400/month to several of our Reno STRs.

Nicolas MoralesBusiness Member
Investor · NV, SC · Member since 2023 · 18 posts · 23 votes

This isn't a tool recommendation. It's a mindset shift that most STR owners resist until they see the

data.

We stopped anchoring on nightly rate and started anchoring on RevPAR vs. the comp set. The

difference sounds small but it completely changes how you make pricing decisions.

When you anchor on nightly rate, you round down to fill nights. When you anchor on RevPAR relative

to your market, you learn when to hold price on a Tuesday and when a $20 drop buys you a booking

that would have gone dark.

In Reno specifically, we found that Thursday–Saturday commands a 40–60% premium over

Sunday–Wednesday in our zip codes, and most operators weren't capturing it because their dynamic

pricing tools had the weekend multiplier set too conservatively.

The fix: Pull your own booking data by day of week for the last 90 days. Find your highest-converting

days. Raise the floor on those days by $15–25. Watch what happens over 30 days. That's it.

Anyone else running market-specific pricing strategies by day of week?

Would love to compare notes.

DNDStays510 Reviews
WebsiteView Page
1Reply
461 views

Most Popular Reply

Dan Ikon
Rental Property Investor · Member since 2025 · 85 posts · 35 votes
1w

We use a pricing AI agent that we trained on dynamic pricing algorithms. It's similar to yours, but for the South Florida market, we added an "advanced booking" dimension, i.e., a 60- 80% premium for bookings 180+ days in advance (for guests who want to secure a property earlier no matter the price), at comps for 180-30 days, and daily aggressive discounts for 30 days and less.

1Reply
See this reply in the discussion

5 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Dan Ikon
    Rental Property Investor · Member since 2025 · 85 posts · 35 votes
    1w

    We use a pricing AI agent that we trained on dynamic pricing algorithms. It's similar to yours, but for the South Florida market, we added an "advanced booking" dimension, i.e., a 60- 80% premium for bookings 180+ days in advance (for guests who want to secure a property earlier no matter the price), at comps for 180-30 days, and daily aggressive discounts for 30 days and less.

    1Reply
  • Diana Khan
    Attorney · 10451 Mill Run Cir #755 Owings Mills, MD 21117 · Member since 2024 · 329 posts · 123 votes
    1w
    Quote from @Nicolas Morales:

    This isn't a tool recommendation. It's a mindset shift that most STR owners resist until they see the

    data.

    We stopped anchoring on nightly rate and started anchoring on RevPAR vs. the comp set. The

    difference sounds small but it completely changes how you make pricing decisions.

    When you anchor on nightly rate, you round down to fill nights. When you anchor on RevPAR relative

    to your market, you learn when to hold price on a Tuesday and when a $20 drop buys you a booking

    that would have gone dark.

    In Reno specifically, we found that Thursday–Saturday commands a 40–60% premium over

    Sunday–Wednesday in our zip codes, and most operators weren't capturing it because their dynamic

    pricing tools had the weekend multiplier set too conservatively.

    The fix: Pull your own booking data by day of week for the last 90 days. Find your highest-converting

    days. Raise the floor on those days by $15–25. Watch what happens over 30 days. That's it.

    Anyone else running market-specific pricing strategies by day of week?

    Would love to compare notes.

    @Nicolas Morales, I like looking at the pricing this way. From working with investors, I’ve seen how easy it is to focus on the nightly rate and miss what the property is actually earning across the whole month. I would also watch what happens to the nights around those higher demand days. Sometimes raising the weekend floor works really well, but it can also change the length of stay or leave more gaps during the week.

    For me, I’d want to compare the higher RevPAR with the full picture after 30 or 60 days. Did total monthly revenue improve? Did occupancy stay healthy? Did the average stay get longer or shorter? And did the extra turnover or cleaning change the net result? That usually tells you whether the pricing change really improved the property or just made a few nights look better. I always enjoy seeing how experienced operators test small changes and use the actual numbers to decide what stays.

    0Reply
  • Andrew SteffensBusiness Member
    Tampa, FL · Member since 2022 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    1w

    I think this is a good concept but will have to be tweaked by the specific asset and market.

    [email protected]813-563-0877
    Vacation Rentals of Florida53 Reviews
    WebsiteView Page
    0Reply
  • Igor Ganapolsky
    Englewood, NJ · Member since 2018 · 461 posts · 82 votes
    1w

    Nicolas, the anchoring concept applies to more than just STR pricing. I buy properties at tax deed auctions in Florida, and the same mistake happens there: most bidders anchor on the assessed value or the opening bid amount, when the real number that matters is the total lien exposure plus estimated rehab costs relative to what the property will actually sell for once title is clear.

    When you anchor on the wrong number, you either overbid and destroy your margin, or you underbid and walk away from deals that would have worked. The fix is the same as what you described: pull your own data, build a spreadsheet that tracks actual outcomes, and let the data tell you what to bid rather than guessing based on a single metric.

    I wrote Python scripts to pull county property data, calculate tax balances, and score which properties are worth bidding on. The operators who win at auction aren't the ones with the most capital. They're the ones who've run the numbers on enough properties to recognize what a good deal looks like before anyone else in the room does.

    Curious what tool you're using to track RevPAR by day of week. Are you pulling that from your PMS directly or using a third-party analytics tool?

    0Reply
  • Matthew Tregoning
    Real Estate Consultant · Melbourne, FL · Member since 2019 · 205 posts · 113 votes
    3d

    Did it change how far out the weekends booked? I think that's what makes people nervous about raising the floor. It's easy to second guess it when you're staring at empty dates.

    0Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free