PHOENIX — Janaya Goselin did a double take when she saw tweets by an out-of-state real-estate consultant that indicated revenue on Airbnb listings decreased sharply in several cities, including a 47% drop for Phoenix.
The June 27 tweets by a social-media influencer referenced an “Airbnb Revenue Collapse.”
“I saw the number and I said, ‘That can't possibly be right,’” said Goselin, who co-owns AZ Desert Vacations, a property management company that oversees approximately 50 short-term rentals.
“I knew it was going to cause a frenzy,” she said. “A lot of people getting really worried.”
Airbnb disputed the figures in the viral tweet, saying in a statement: “The data is not consistent with our own data” and “More guests are traveling than ever before.”
A few days after the viral tweets, Jamie Lane, the chief economist for a different data company, AirDNA, released its own figures, saying there is not a revenue collapse happening. AirDNA showed revenue declines that are significantly smaller, just 3% in Phoenix.
ABC15 asked Mark Stapp, a real-estate professor at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business to weigh in.
“I sincerely doubt that those statistics of a 40% decline reflect what’s really going on in the market,” he said. “It just doesn't seem to comport with what we’re actually seeing.”
Stapp said short-term rental bookings skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, so any revenue declines could be an adjustment back to normal.
He said people aren’t rushing to put their vacation homes on the market. And even if every one of the estimated 23,000 short-term rentals went on the market at once, it would have only a small effect on the Valley’s housing market, according to Stapp.
Short-term rentals make up a small part of the overall housing market - about 1.2%, Stapp said.
“I just don't see the sky falling here at all,” he said.
Nick Gerli, the real-estate consultant who sent the viral tweets, told ABC15 in an email that he got his data from AllTheRooms, a data company that tracks the short-term rental market. The data looked at the revenue per available listing from May 2023 compared to the same time a year ago. He said he is confident he reported the figures correctly.
Gerli referred questions about the data differences back to AllThe Rooms and AirDNA. AllTheRooms did not respond to questions seeking comment from ABC15.
Lane said his company’s data shows revenue declines of three to 10% around the country. He characterized the declines as “more of a moderation” from the high bookings seen in 2020 through 2022.
There can be an upside for travelers, Lane said: slightly lower rates, more choices and more options for booking at the last minute.
ABC15’s data analyst Garrett Archer also looked at the data.
“There has been a decline in short-term rental revenue,” he said.
“But if it was a 40% decline you would also expect to see a spike in housing inventory, which we are not seeing.”
As for Goselin, she thinks the future of the short-term rental business is still strong.
“I think it's just a normal market,” she said. “It’s just cyclical, just like the real estate market.”
