How to Use AirDNA as a Host

AirDNA’s data and Airbnb revenue calculator (called Rentalizer) are great for when you’re looking at investment areas and properties, but what about when you have a home that’s actively on the vacation rental market? Is AirDNA useful for hosts? YES!

AirDNA has valuable insights for vacation rental hosts and operators, from market-level data to pricing recommendations to insights on your top competitors.

The Overview page helps you determine which OTA (listing platform) you should put your property on, what amenities are worth adding, and top property management companies in your area if you’re not interested in self-hosting.

Deep filters let you specifically look at properties that match your exact:
Number of bedrooms
Number of bathrooms
Price tier
Property & listing type
Management style
Star rating range
Number of guests you accommodate

With these filters set, you can explore how similar properties are trending for occupancy, what average daily rates look like (to make sure you’re in line with the market), and how revenue is tracking and what you could expect to make.

As a host you likely have a good understanding of seasonality in your area, but you might have noticed more travel outside of traditionally popular times in recent years. AirDNA’s Seasonality heat maps let you validate your gut feelings by seeing which days and months are more popular than others … you might be surprised!

One of the best features for hosts using AirDNA is the ability to add their Airbnb listing to AirDNA to get specific insights into your performance AND how your top competitors are performing. After adding your Airbnb listing, you can customize your top competitors list (called Comps) based on key filters like:

Number of bedrooms
Number of bathrooms
Number of guests you accommodate
Distance from your property
Star rating range
Number of reviews
Properties WITH specific amenities
Excluding properties with specific amenities

Once you have your perfect custom competitors list, you can see highly valuable information about those properties including their occupancy rate, average daily rate, and real revenue from the past 12 months. Even better, you can see how your future occupancy, booked rate (how much people are paying to stay at your property), and booking lead time are tracking for the next 12 months compared to your competition. It’s the intel you need to stay ahead of your competition.

With your Airbnb property connected to AirDNA you also get custom price recommendations for your specific property. These recommendations take key market factors into consideration like lead time, demand, seasonality, etc. You can further customize these recommendations to match your pricing strategy by selecting a conservative, balanced, or aggressive pricing approach, set minimum or maximum night rates, and add in discounts for orphan days. With a free AirDNA account you see 30 days of pricing recommendations while paid accounts see a full 12 months of recommendations.

Finally, AirDNA provides the answer to every host’s question: “What’s happening in the coming months?” AirDNA’s Pacing page shows you information on real bookings and rates for six months into the future. See how many homes are already booked and how many are still available for any given day in the next six months. You can also see the median nightly price of homes that are already booked and the median nightly price of the homes that are still available. This helps you decide if you need to adjust your pricing to pick up a booking or if you’re priced appropriately and guests are just waiting longer to book. Here’s a great video that explains these charts in more depth:    • See Real Demand in Your Vacation Rent...  

AirDNA isn’t just a tool for investors, it helps you no matter where you are on your short-term rental journey, from finding your first property to making sure your properties are performing as well as possible to finding your next property. It’s a one-stop solution for the vacation rental insights you need to succeed.

PS - Here are some other helpful videos you might enjoy. Happy listing!
See Real Demand in Your Vacation Rental Market    • See Real Demand in Your Vacation Rent...  

Understanding Vacation Rental Price Tiers    • Understanding Vacation Rental Price T...