Airbnb Wish List Tiebreaker: Free Competition Tracking That Beats Software

What an Airbnb wish list is

A wish list is a free folder inside Airbnb. Any host or guest can make one. You save homes to the list, and Airbnb shows them as a group. That is the normal use. Sean Rakidzich uses the wish list for something different. He uses it to watch his direct competition.

How to build a real competition wish list

Here is how Sean builds one. Open Airbnb as a guest. Search for your city with the dates of a big event, like the 4th of July. Scroll through the results. Save only the homes that truly compete with yours.

Aim for about 40 homes. That is enough to see a pattern without taking all day to build.

Why the wish list beats software on peak dates

Software like PriceLabs looks at all listings in your market. That includes the junk. On a big date, you do not compete against the junk. You compete against homes at your quality level. A wish list forces that focus.

Sean finds that for holidays, a wish list gives a cleaner read of real supply than any chart.

Why Airbnb rewards wishlist saves

Airbnb’s official search ranking documentation names three popularity signals: how often guests save a listing to their wishlist, how often guests book, and how often guests message the host. Wishlist saves are an engagement metric Airbnb watches.

The 2025 top homes highlight layers on top of this. Airbnb’s highlight guide says listings with at least 5 reviews in the past 2 years qualify. Top 1, 5, and 10 percent homes earn a gold trophy.

How to read the wish list like a pro

Open the wish list one month before a big date. Count how many homes are still bookable. Write the number down. Do the same thing each week. Watch the pattern.

If bookable homes in your wish list drop fast, guests are snapping up quality. That means your price can stay high. If bookable homes stay flat, demand is soft. That means you need to price near the lowest quality peer, not the highest.

A read-the-list table

Two examples from the 4th of July

Example one. Two weeks out, your wish list shows 8 of 40 homes still open. Those 8 are the lower end. The good stuff is gone. You are the best option on the list. Hold your price high, or raise it 10 percent.

Example two. Two weeks out, 32 of 40 are still open, but all the cheapest ones have booked. Guests are price-shy. If you want the booking, you price under the expensive peers, not above them.

How often to check

For weekend stays, check once per week. For holidays, check 3 times per week in the last month. For long events, check daily once you are inside 14 days.

Wish lists plus your pricing tool

This is not a drop-your-software article. PriceLabs and Wheelhouse still do great work across hundreds of low-season days. The wish list is a tiebreaker for big dates.

Common wish list mistakes

• Saving too many homes. Forty is the sweet spot. A hundred turns into noise.
• Saving weak homes. If a home is not a real peer, it tells you nothing useful.
• Checking only once. A single snapshot misses the pattern. The trend is the answer.

Put the list together, keep it short, and use it on the dates that pay your mortgage. That is the whole move.