I’m pondering a specific feature-length piece for this site. To appear among the monthly stories in the main body of the site with some sort of teaser artwork.

What I’m considering is “gamifying real estate.”  Very often it seems we approach business decisions with thought processes that parallel decision-making in games.

Board games, card games, competitive sports…  I am still hammering out this idea.  But here is an example.

I run a short-term Airbnb rental property.  We host something like 100 guests per year; an average of two groups per week.

I’m trying constantly to fill vacant slots. For example, right now I have a four-day opening beginning on June 3.

Every day when I open my Chrome browser, I can see how my rates compare with competitors in a specific geographic range.  Essentially I am impersonating a guest, shopping in a specific date range. Several browser windows show me several date ranges, pre-set by me.

Here’s how it works, explained in a TikTok video.  I posted several of these. They attracted very little traffic.

Every day I am angling to be the No. 1 or No. 2 choice seen by prospective guests as they shop for a rental.  I can “optimize” for the Airbnb “search engine” mainly by adjusting the price and minimum-stay settings.

Certain openings on my calendar are tougher to fill.  Any stretch that begins with a Sunday  or Monday tends to go unfilled longer.

So I am adjusting my price to be lowest among all competitors.  I’m pretty sure another nearby host is playing the same game, responding to my adjustments with adjustments of his own.

So I’m trying to fill a three-day, Monday-first opening.  It’s like drawing for an inside straight in poker.  Your holding nine-ten-jack-king and you hoping to pull a queen.

Hence the concept of gamifying.  Are there enough other examples?