All Forum Posts by: Emily Anderson

Hey all,

I'm wondering if any of you has Short-Term Rentals in Okaloosa Island, FL. 

If so, would you be willing to share your experience running STRs in this area? I'm curious about the demand for vacation rentals, especially with the presence of large hotels and beachfront resorts. Appreciate any insights!

@V.G Jason Thanks for your reply. I agree that past performance does not represent future results. 

Nevertheless, any type of analysis is going to look at data from the past and try to predict some results in the future. 

As an example, you mentioned analyzing why people visit Nashville. 

Well, to answer that question you need to look at the influx of people in the different tourisitc hotspots in the city over the last x months/years. Therefore, you are looking at past data.

Just because people have visited a specific landmark (say Elvis' studio), does not mean that they will necessarily visit it in the future. 

I think the analysis is valuable to idenify the areas with high demand (those where you have a high denisity of lisitngs with a lot of reviews) and the characterisitcs of the properties that perform the best.

The idea is to copy - paste their strategy (at the very least), or improve it at best. This is what Burger King does: McDonald's spends millions in researching the best areas to establish themselves in a city. Burger King opens next doors (pretty much, same prices, same product, same experience)...

The numbers of the financial case study are just an estimate. As long as I buy the right property in the right area, I should be fine, which is what 80% of the analysis does. 

I am happy to see how you analyze deals. Maybe it can help me improve my analysis

@Sam Severson thanks! Do you run any STRs in Nashville? 

I'm curious to validate some of the figures in my analysis with local investors in this city

Hey everyone, 

I did a long analysis of Short-Term Rentals in Nashville and wanted to share it for feedback. If you're a host in the area, I'd really appreciate it if you could verify some of the numbers I'm sharing below. Thanks!

As a side note, I am using Onera Group's STR analytics from their free tier (onera-group.com).

Areas in high demand for Short Term rentals:
Music Row, Sobro, North Capitol, Eastwood, Maxwell and Melrose.
All the above areas have a high density of listings with over 60 reviews in the past 12 months. You can see a map below that shows the density of top performing listings: 

The occupancy rate, average stay, average daily rate and average annual bookings in the lower right side of the page are the calculated across all the listings in Nashville with more than 60 reviews in the past 12 months. 

To see these variables for a specific neighbourhood, I used the multiselection tool and I found these values: 

Music Row: Occ. rate: 76%, Avg. stay: 3.06 days, Avg. daily rate: $229, Annual bookings: 98.1

Sobro: Occ. rate: 79%, Avg. stay: 3.47 days, Avg. daily rate: $346, Annual bookings: 95.7

North Capitol: Occ. rate: 74.6%, Avg. stay: 3.03 days, Avg. daily rate: $339, Annual bookings: 94.0

Eastwood: Occ. rate: 78%, Avg. stay: 2.95 days, Avg. daily rate: $128, Annual bookings: 103.2

Sobro:Occ. rate: 79%, Avg. stay: 3.47 days, Avg. daily rate: $346, Annual bookings: 95.7

Maxwell: Occ. rate: 81.5%, Avg. stay: 4.07 days, Avg. daily rate: $323, Annual bookings: 96.2

Out of all the neighbourhoods, I decided to deep dive into Music Row, although I am not sure if there is a high supply of for-sale units in this area (can anyone confirm this?)

This is what the data shows across all the listings in Music Row that had over 60 reviews in the past 12 months: 

Most of them are 0-1 bedrooms & 1 bath. condos. There are only 7 out of 27 listings in this neighbourhood that have 2 bedrooms. Also, I noticed that out of the 27 listings in this area (that had more than 60 reviews in the past 12 months), 25 of them are managed by a super host. 

I attach below a table where you can see more details of the top listings in this neighbourhood, by the number of reviews they had in the past 12 months: 

In regards to the amenities of these listings, I attached below a chart that shows the top 100 most common amenities across all the 27 listings in Music Row that had over 60 reviews in the past 12 months (the bigger the font size, the more common that amenity is):

I have also anlayzed the seasonality in Nashville. The chart below represent the total nr. of reviews across all the listings in the city, for any given month: 

It seems that the peak season is October, the mid-high season goes from March - Oct., and the low season from Nov- Feb next year. Can anyone confirm this trend? 

In regards to the pricing strategy of the top performing listings in Music Row, I have attached below a chart representing how their daily rates vary thoughout the year for a 7-day booking: 

I did the same with the cleaning fee (per day of booking) below: 

With all these figures, I build a financial case study for a 1 bed / 1 bath property listed in Zillow at $385,000. 

These are the inputs of the financial case study: 

With the inputs above, I got the following results: 

Can anyone who runs an Airbnb in Music Row confirm these figures?

Also, if you don't have a listing in Music Row, Nashville, TN, I would highly appreciate it if you could give me some feedback on the analysis that I presented in this post. I am always happy to learn from other experienced hosts, and I am open to make changes in the way I analyze STRs. 

I hope you enjoyed the post. I might create more, but I noticed that Onera Group offers free reports for only 7 cities in the States. For any other city, they charge $100 for the report. In my opinion, it's a fair price considering the value provided. 

Their website is onera-group.com

Thanks for reading my analysis!

Hi, 

Well, you need to nail down every single home in terms of location and property type. My advice for you is to test out the STR reports from Onera Group. I found them more insightful than AirDNA, and their price is significantly lower, as you are only paying for the city that you want to analyze.

I purchased the data for Phoenix, and I was able to nail down the exact neighbourhood and type of property to invest in. 

Anyways, that report helped me cut down the "analysis paralisis" phase. Hope it helps. 
Their site is: onera-group.com

Best, 
Emily

@Katy Katz @Collin Hays@Neal Z. @John Underwood

@John UnderwoodHi,

So, I came across the STR market reports from Onera Group, and I found them way more insightful than AirDNA. Essentially, it allowed it me determine the exact neighbourhood in Phonenix where there is a ton of demand for vacation rentals, and also helped me find the exact type of property to buy (including amenities).

Before purchasing the report for Phoenix, I tried their free STR reports. I recommend you do the same if you've never came across this tool. I think it is fairly new.

Not sure about their prices now, but I paid about 100$ for the report for Phoenix. 

Anyways, I hope it helps. 
Best, 
Emily

Hi, 

Not an investor in any of those 2 cities, but I can share with you something that helped me a lot to determine where to buy and what to buy: 

You can find out the performance of STRs in both Allen and Fairview using data from Onera Group. It is a new AirDNA, but way more accurate and professional. I have used their reports myself to analyze the vacation rental market in Phoenix, AZ. 
I tried thier free demo STR reports to check first if it was worth buying the report for Phoenix. It was absolutely worth it. I remember the price was about 100$ for a report, quite resonable to me.

The only problem I found is that their user guide is quite long, so it would take you about 30 min to through it. Again, fully worth it as you will end up knowing how to use the data to find the areas that have high demand for short term rentals within your city of interest, and determine the type of property (with amenities) to buy. 

Anyways, I hope it helps. Their site is onera-group.com 
I think they still offer a free demo to 7 cities in the US. 

 Hi Chris, 

Not in investor in Orlando, although I thought to share with you the software I use to assess if an area has demand for STR, or not.

I analyze vacation rental markets using Onera's STR market data. I found it way more reliable than AirDNA, and they have some free reports, although I am not sure if Orlando is in their free version.

You can find them here: onera-group.com

Hope it helps

Hi Conrad, 

I had a look at the figures for Key West, and it seems that there is a lot of demand thoughout the year, however property prices in this area are quite high, which makes cash flow returns low. 

You can find the STR report yourserlf if you search it on Onera's website. I think they are a new competitor to AirDNA. This is their website: onera-group.com
Hope it helps!

You can have a look in the area around Fresno, CA. 
I run an analysis for Fresno, alothough I did not find it attractive enough for cash flow returns. 

You can have a look at the report yourself, but I think you might have to register for a free account with Onera (I guess it is a new competitor of AirDNA): https://onera-group.com/str-markets/fresno