In the short-term vacation rental industry, understanding your competition is crucial to making informed pricing and operational decisions. That’s where ‘Comp Sets’ come in. Comp sets (short for "competitive sets") help you identify, analyze and benchmark against properties similar to yours to gain actionable insights. This guide will explain comp sets, how they enhance your decision-making process, and how PriceLabs' tools help you leverage them effectively.

What Are Comp Sets?

A comp set is a group of properties that closely resemble yours in terms of key factors such as location, size, property type, amenities, reviews and pricing. By analyzing how these properties perform in the market, you can benchmark your property's performance, optimize pricing strategies, and spot opportunities for improvement.

PriceLabs makes it easy for you to create these Comp Sets. The selection process involves filtering properties that match your offering and target audience. The closer the match, the more accurate and valuable the insights you can gain.

Why Are Comp Sets Important in PriceLabs?

Using comp sets effectively ensures you get the most value out of PriceLabs' powerful tools. Here’s how:

1. Accurate Benchmarking: Comparing your property's performance against similar properties provides a realistic view of where you stand in the market.
2. Informed Pricing Strategies: Analyzing pricing trends among competitors helps you set optimal nightly rates, and find opportunities like relaxing length-of-stays to get early bookings in the low season.
3. Strategic Decision-Making: Gain insights into demand, seasonality, and booking trends within your competitive landscape.
   

Using Comp Sets in PriceLabs Tools

Here’s how you can leverage comp sets in each of PriceLabs' tools:

1. Market Dashboards

Both our ‘Ready-to-View’ and our ‘Custom’ Market Dashboards provide a detailed view of market trends within a certain geographic boundary. They come with pre-built Comp Sets (AirBnb/Vrbo) and also allow you to create additional ‘Custom Comp Sets’ that allow you to:

1. Focus on Relevant Data: Narrow down trends and analytics to properties that are truly comparable to yours.
2. Gain Competitive Insights: Track competitor performance on occupancy, pricing, and booking windows to optimize your strategy.
3. Analyze Various Segments of Your Market: PriceLabs Market Dashboards allow the creation of up to 30 Comp Sets with up to 2000 listing within a single Comp set.
   

Learn how to set up Comp Sets in Market Dashboards

2. Dynamic Pricing: Neighborhood Data

Neighborhood Data provides hyper-local insights into a property’s immediate surroundings. With comp sets, you can:

1. Perform Localized Comparisons: Select up to 10 closest competitors to view their prices, minstays, availability, platform fees, cleaning fees, etc.
2. Spot Opportunities: Identify trends or gaps in pricing, or booking patterns that you can capitalize on.
3. Access Existing Comp Sets: Select any active Comp Set from your Market Dashboard
   

Learn more about Data Sources in Neighborhood Data

3. Portfolio Analytics: Pacing Reports

For those managing multiple properties, comp sets are invaluable in Portfolio Analytics’ Pacing Reports, allowing you to:

1. Benchmark Performance: Analyze if your key metrics such as Occupancy, ADR, RevPAR align with your competition.
2. Track Future Demand: See how you’re pacing against your competition for the next 3 months.
   

Learn more about Pacing Reports in Portfolio Analytics

Tips for Building Effective Comp Sets

1. Stay Relevant: Choose properties that are as similar to yours as possible—consider location, size, amenities, and guest profile.
2. Experiment with Filters: Try different combinations of filters to refine your comp set for optimal relevance.
3. Balance Size: Your comp set should be neither too small nor too large. Depending on the requirement, pick a group that provides a good balance of detail and reliability.
4. Review & Update Regularly: Update your comp sets periodically to ensure they reflect current market conditions and trends.
   

Maximize Your Market Insights with Custom Comp Sets

Comp sets are a powerful tool for gaining actionable insights into the short-term rental market. With PriceLabs’ ability to create customized comp sets using over 40 filters, you can analyze properties that are most relevant to yours, ensuring precision in benchmarking, pricing, and strategic decisions. Whether you're estimating revenue, tracking market trends, or optimizing portfolio performance, comp sets add depth and focus to your analysis.

Start building and refining your comp sets today to ensure your decisions are grounded in relevance and actionable data. With PriceLabs, you can move beyond generic market trends and unlock strategies tailored to your competitive landscape.