How Lodgeur Runs Daily Dynamic Pricing Across Hundreds of Apartments With PriceLabs

Executive Summary

Sébastien Long founded Lodgeur in 2019 to manage furnished apartments in Houston, Texas, with up to 100 units in a single building. It runs closer to an aparthotel than a typical rental business, and it handles everything from revenue management to cleaning and interior design. Each building mixes different floor plans (as many as nine across studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms), and each type needs its own pricing logic.

Lodgeur has used a revenue management system since day one and moved to PriceLabs about a year in. Portfolio Occupancy-Based Adjustments now let each group of units react to its own occupancy and booking window, and Sébastien is an early user of Athena, the AI revenue analyst built into PriceLabs.

About Lodgeur

Lodgeur launched in 2019 and works with property owners on a turnkey basis. Owners hand over the keys, and Lodgeur runs revenue management, housekeeping and the interior design of every new project. For most of its history it operated only in Houston, across Midtown, the Med Center, Upper Kirby and the Energy Corridor.

Earlier this year it opened its first location outside Houston, in Denton, part of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex. A lobby lounge is planned for one building, giving guests a more hotel-like arrival and a place to pick up a morning coffee.

“We have multiple units in the buildings that we work with, up to 100 apartments in a building. So we are much closer to an aparthotel model.” – Sébastien Long

Challenges Before PriceLabs

Pricing furnished apartments at building scale brings hotel-style pressure to a small operating team.

• 365 days across several micro-markets. Every location has its own demand pattern, and it shifts through the year and by unit type.
• Several unit types in one building. Studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms each follow their own strategy, so the team needed to manage them by group, not one unit at a time. Sébastien’s first revenue management system worked well, but made multi-unit management harder.
• Moving with demand. Rates have to rise when demand builds and fall when it softens, and doing that by hand across a whole building is a lot to keep up with.
• Pricing to the building, not only the market. Market trends alone do not show how a building is pacing against its own bookings.

“Every different location that we’re in is its own micro market. The demand changes at different times of the year … it would be a crazy amount to try and figure out by yourself.” – Sébastien Long

PriceLabs as a Solution

Sébastien saw early that PriceLabs suited multi-unit management, and Lodgeur has run on it since about a year after launch.

Key features that made a difference:

• Portfolio Occupancy-Based Adjustments. Lodgeur groups its units into studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, because demand within a type is more alike than across types. For each group, a matrix sets price changes by occupancy and booking window. If a group books up early, prices rise. If it paces behind, prices adjust to bring bookings in.,

“My favorite PriceLabs feature is Portfolio Occupancy-Based Adjustments, because it prices off our own performance, not just the market. When a group of units books up early, rates rise. When it paces behind, they adjust.” – Sébastien Long

• Prices kept current across 365 days. PriceLabs sets and updates rates for every date in each micro-market, so the team does not rebuild a calendar by hand.
• Strategy by group of units. Settings sit at the group level, so a building with 100 units follows a handful of strategies, not 100.

“There are 365 days to price, and every location is its own micro market. PriceLabs keeps all of those rates updated and often knows before we do when demand is changing.” – Sébastien Long

Results

Sébastien’s strongest number is portfolio growth, and he credits revenue management as part of it.

• Growth since 2019. Lodgeur has grown at a compound annual rate of 50% since launch. After COVID cut the business by 92%, down to three units in a single building, that same building now runs 100 units. The team is on track for 1,000 units under management by 2030.
• Owners stay and add more. Lodgeur has not lost an owner or a property, and existing owners keep handing over more.
• Less manual pricing work. Rates across all 365 days stay current without the team compiling them by hand, which leaves more time for guests and owners.
• Rates priced with confidence. Knowing when to lower rates, as well as raise them, helps Lodgeur capture bookings and price fairly to the market.

“I just couldn’t imagine running our business without PriceLabs. It’s not just about making more money, having higher rates when demand is high. It’s also knowing when to lower your rates so you can capture bookings.” – Sébastien Long

Looking Ahead

Sébastien sees the lines between short-term rentals, aparthotels and extended-stay apartments blurring, and the teams who manage them are crossing over too. For Lodgeur, that makes pricing by building and by unit type matter even more as it moves into new markets.

He is most excited about AI, because revenue management produces more data than one person can work through.

He expects AI to move operators from compiling numbers to making decisions, to bring in channel-level signals such as conversion and reviews, and to make revenue management less intimidating from day one. The goal is more time for guests and for owner returns.

“We like to spend more time thinking about how we can deliver a better experience for our guests, and how we can deliver better returns for our property partners.” – Sébastien Long