Short term rental property investors and managers are aware of the importance of Airbnb occupancy rates. After all, how frequently your listing gets booked determines how much money you will earn from it. However, what vacation rental operators are less familiar with is how to find Airbnb occupancy rates.
This article lists how to find Airbnb occupancy rates, with the pros and cons of each approach. We'll go over what each method entails, how it is implemented in practice, and how much it costs.
- Calculate Airbnb Occupancy Rates Manually: Best for Finding the Airbnb Occupancy Rate of a Single Property
- Use the Airbnb Platform: Best for Finding the Airbnb Occupancy Rate of Your Own Listings
- Conduct a Competitor Analysis: Best for Finding Approximate Airbnb Occupancy Rates
- Talk to Airbnb Hosts and Managers: Best for Finding Airbnb Occupancy Rates in a Specific Area
- Look into Airbnb Data Tools: Best for Finding Airbnb Occupancy Rate at the Market Level
- Use Summer Forecast: Best Approach for Finding Accurate Occupancy Data
What Airbnb Occupancy Rate Is and Why It's Important
The Airbnb occupancy rate is one of the most important metrics for analyzing your short term rental properties and markets. It measures the proportion of time a listing is booked over the course of one month or one year. The occupancy rate can be expressed as a number of days, but it's usually calculated as a percentage.
There are two main types of Airbnb occupancy rates:
- Occupancy rate: This is the percentage of time for which a property is rented out compared to all the days in a month or in a year. For example, if a rental is booked for 15 nights per month, the occupancy rate is 50%.
- Adjusted occupancy rate: This is the percentage of time for which a property is rented out compared to the number of days for which it is available for rent. Hosts might block certain dates for their own use or maintenance work, and these days should be excluded from the calculation. For instance, if a listing is available 20 days in a month and gets booked for 15 days, the adjusted occupancy rate is 75%.
The reason why this measure is so important is that it affects the revenue and the profit that a property is able to generate. Airbnb income is the product of the average daily rate (ADR) multiplied by the occupancy rate. Airbnb revenue, in turn, is present in all ROI measures such as the cap rate and the cash on cash return.
So, let's take a look at how hosts and property managers can find the Airbnb occupancy rates of individual listings as well as entire markets.
1. Calculate Airbnb Occupancy Rates Manually
The traditional way to find the occupancy rate of a short term rental is to perform manual calculations.
The formula for calculating Airbnb occupancy rates is:
Airbnb Occupancy Rate = Number of Booked Nights / Number of Available Nights x 100%
To calculate the occupancy rate of a property, you simply need to know the number of available nights and the number of booked nights.
This formula is very easy and straightforward to use and gives very accurate results for a single property for which you have available and reliable data on booked nights. To calculate the occupancy rate of an entire market using this approach, ideally you have to find the average value of all listings there.
On the flip side, this way is not applicable if you don't have data on the performance of the property. Moreover, it's really difficult and time-consuming to apply at the portfolio or market level as it requires obtaining data on hundreds or thousands of listings and repeating the same manual calculations over and over again. Of course, you can use spreadsheets for this, but the issue with finding the necessary data remains.
The cost varies depending on how you access necessary data. This method can be free if you analyze your own property, but you might need to pay a fee to get data for other listings. That's why this strategy works only when you want to analyze one or few properties and you have data on them.
2. Use the Airbnb Platform
The second way to figure out occupancy rates in the short term rental business is to actually use the data available on Airbnb. To do this, you need to have your own listing, the performance of which you want to estimate. Keep in mind that Airbnb does not offer readily calculated Airbnb occupancy rates: neither for your listing, nor for other listings in the area. Market-level data is also not made available.
What you can find out on the Airbnb platform, under the Insights tab, is the number of blocked nights, the number of booked nights, and the number of unbooked nights for your listing. Using this data, you can run manual calculations using the formula above to find the occupancy rate of your property.
Moreover, Airbnb offers some numbers on comparable listings in your location, which do not include the occupancy rate, but again, you can use them to calculate this important metric. Then, you can compare the performance of your property with comps to decide if you need to step up your marketing and dynamic pricing game or you're doing fine.
The main advantage of this approach is that you will get 100% accuracy as you use data right from the source. However, the disadvantages are that you have to perform manual calculations, you don't get data on all properties you might be interested in, and you can't really find market-level Airbnb occupancy rates.
In terms of cost, you don't need to pay anything as all you're using is your own Airbnb host account. Because of these reasons, this method is generally good for analyzing the performance of your own listing and making sure that you are generally hitting your targets.
3. Conduct a Competitor Analysis
You can also use Airbnb to locate a few comps that have the same size, features, amenities, and daily rates as your property and are located within a few blocks from yours. From there, you'll need to manually review the booking calendars of these competitors to see how many days they are unavailable in the coming weeks or months. You can use this data to manually calculate their Airbnb occupancy rate.
However, there isn't a way to differentiate between booked nights and blocked nights (by the host) as Airbnb does not label unavailable nights. This means that the Airbnb occupancy rates that you find will be only be an approximation of the actual performance. And, it will be difficult to find last minute bookings.
What you can do to make results as accurate as possible is to frequently revisit your competitors' calendars to see how quickly and how frequently their listings get booked and try to derive patterns.
The main benefit of this method is that you can find the occupancy rates of as many listings as you'd like. The drawbacks, on the other hand, are that you have to run manual calculations and you can get only approximate results that are not 100% accurate.
Conducting competitor analysis in this manner does not cost anything as you're using publicly available data from the Airbnb website. All in all, this approach is good for estimating what occupancy rates your Airbnb competitors are generally able to achieve.
4. Talk to Airbnb Hosts and Managers
Yet another way to help you find the Airbnb occupancy rates is to connect with their owners or managers. To do that, you can message hosts on Airbnb if you want to figure out the exact occupancies of certain listings rather than approximations following the method above. Alternatively, you can visit online real estate investing forums to ask fellow investors what occupancy rates they are able to achieve in specific markets, or you can reach out to Airbnb managers to ask for the averages they get in an area.
The major pros of this method are that you don't need to engage in any manual calculations and that you can analyze the overall performance of an entire location. Moreover, you can find rates in multiple areas, so you don't have to limit your search to a single area because of how demanding the process is.
However, the cons are that you need to identify Airbnb hosts and managers that are willing to discuss this matter with you and that you can't analyze large markets as you'd need to connect with a lot of owners and managers.
With regards to cost, this strategy can be implemented for free. In general, this approach works best when you want to figure out the occupancies in a specific area or micro market.
5. Look into Airbnb Data and Analytics Tools
To scale up the process, you can use Airbnb management software that provides access to Airbnb occupancy rate data and other Airbnb data analytics.
Some of the most widely used short term rental data software platforms include:
- AirDNA: This is a popular vacation rental data provider used by both hosts and property managers to analyze occupancy rates across markets as well as for specific properties based on comps.
- Mashvisor: This is another widely used app that helps find Airbnb occupancy rates at the city, neighborhood, and property level.
- Rabbu: This is a short term rental data website that is particularly good for analyzing properties including their occupancies but can also be used for market-wide research.
- Airbtics: This is an Airbnb data software that offers both property and market data, but market intelligence is its true power.
While there are many data providers out there, they all offer more or less the same type of data and the same level of analysis. In general, they get data from active listings, apply their own proprietary algorithms, estimate market averages, and show what occupancy rate a certain property can achieve based on the performance of comps. The main differences between various software options are whether they use just Airbnb data or also Vrbo data and how accurate their algorithms are.
The great thing about using Airbnb data analytical tools is that you can analyze both markets and properties much faster and more conveniently than applying any of the more manual processes outlined above. These tools allow you to find the average Airbnb occupancy rate by city, by neighborhood, or by zip code to know whether a certain market is good for your investment strategy or to compare your listing to the average. In addition, most of these platforms provide tools to search for the top short term rental markets across the U.S. with the best Airbnb occupancy rates.
The downsides? Low data accuracy remains a major issue for all of these software apps, with many users reporting inaccurate data. These platforms also have subscription fees that can be anything from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars per month, depending on the access to tools, level of detail, and market coverage.
Using Airbnb data tools is the best option for investors or property management companies who want to find the occupancy rate at the market level, usually when buying a new property.
6. Use Summer Forecast
Finally, the best way to find Airbnb occupancy rates is using Summer Forecast. It goes beyond most of the other Airbnb data tools, offering:
- Data accuracy: Property investment and management decisions are only as good as the data that they are based on, so investors and property managers should prioritize data accuracy when finding occupancy rates or any other metrics.
- Multiple data points: Forecast is not limited to occupancy rate data only. The platform also provides data and analytics on all the most crucial metrics including but not limited to booking revenue, cleaning revenue, average daily rates, cash flow, and more. This means that hosts can conduct comprehensive market and property analysis to make data-informed decisions.
- Various tools: Forecast provides access to multiple tools, such as an Airbnb calculator among others, to analyze markets and properties. These help you easily and quickly find the best investment opportunities, compare the performance of your portfolio to market averages, and find ways to increase the occupancy rate, revenue, and profit of your listings.
- Customizable analysis: Forecast allows users to customize the workflow and the analysis in the way that makes the most sense for their needs. Moreover, the platform is extremely user-friendly and intuitive.
- Scalability: Forecast can be used to find occupancy rate and other metrics for a single property or thousands of listings or multiple markets. The platform grows along with the needs of hosts and managers.
Forecast by Summer is your go-to platform for building a high-performing Airbnb portfolio, designed by property managers for property managers. Our institutional-quality Airbnb data and forecasting tools are designed to help property managers and investors like you make smarter decisions. With intuitive insights on revenue, occupancy rates, market trends, and comps, Forecast enables you to evaluate new investments, optimize your portfolio, and stay ahead in the competitive short-term rental market.
Whether you're managing a few properties or a large portfolio, Forecast simplifies the process and puts all of your essential data in one place. Ready to take your STR performance to the next level? Learn how Forecast by Summer can help you make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Bottom Line
These are the most effective methods for finding Airbnb occupancy rates. For individual properties, you can manually calculate occupancy or use the data provided on the Airbnb platform. To assess competitor occupancy, conducting a competitor analysis or connecting with other hosts and managers can be helpful. However, if you need to analyze the occupancy potential of multiple listings or entire markets, relying on Airbnb data analytics platforms is essential. The best choice is Summer Forecast, offering unmatched data accuracy and ease of use, whether you're analyzing a few properties or entire markets.
