SHORT-TERM RENTAL ANALYSIS PARALYSIS

[Omer Sultan]

Hi All,

I’ve been doing some research into short-term rentals, and I’m running into a bit of analysis paralysis.

I caught the short-term rental bug after venturing down a crazy YouTube rabbit hole one night. After following that up with some more YouTube University, I learned that a typical short-term rental analysis should involve:

1. Using platforms such as AirDNA to acquire valuable insight into your target market.

2. Browsing Airbnb/VRBO for comparable listings in your target market, and taking note of both the average daily rate and the occupancy performance of those listings.

3. Comparing the information gathered from AirDNA with the information gathered from your Airbnb/VRBO search.

I’m having issues with Steps 1 & 2.

Firstly, I’m concerned about the accuracy of AirDNA and how reliable their insights truly are.

- I haven’t bit the bullet and paid for the premium service yet, but can anyone speak to its worthiness/accuracy/reliability as a platform?

- Is the premium version significantly better than the free version?

- Can I rely on the free version to help me close in on a couple of plausible target markets before I go ahead and pay for the premium version?

Secondly, and more importantly, I’m having a tough time using Airbnb/VRBO to figure out average daily rates and occupancy performance.

- How do I know that blocked off dates on a listing = money-paying reservations and not an owner making personal use of their property?

- If you scroll through the calendar 4-5+ months into the future, most listings have entire back-to-back months already blocked off, which I’m assuming has something to do with the host not having uploaded the property’s availability that far in advance? Did I get that right?

I know that I probably sound like I’m already all over the place, but I’m just trying to go about doing my research as efficiently and effectively as possible! Any and all insights are welcome here, and THANKS IN ADVANCE!

- Omer

[Dave Stokley]

AirDNA can be misleading without the paid subscription, and I would not buy on the free data alone. The premium data will show you comparable properties, their occupancy and nightly rates, and how many nights out of the year they were actually available to be booked. Using this you can get a pretty good idea of what comparable properties are actually earning. 

Looking at other peoples' calendars is the same story. Most STRs are not listed 365 days/year, and there's no way to tell why nights don't appear open.

What does the AirDNA subscription cost for a month? $100? Isn't that worth it when we're talking about assets that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? You pay an inspector way more and he's just finding **** you can always fix. You can't fix a bad market...