Are Air BNB monthly income estimates accurate?

[Jennifer Edwards]

I found a cute house in a neighborhood with access to lake Livingston in Texas. I have not looked into short term rentals much but am very Interested and this looks like a good one for trying it out. I don’t know how to estimate the income though. I put in the location and how many it would sleep in a little calculator for renter income on Air. BNB and it spit out a number. But how did they come up with that? Does it account for vacancies and/or expenses?

Any advice is much appreciated!

[Jon Crosby]

@Jennifer Edwards Here is a spreadsheet I share on this forum to help you think about more of the expenses more broadly. Airdna can give you some high level Rates/Occupancy to start with for free but I would suggest really doing manual review of the booking sites to confirm or adjust your revenue inputs (which are ADR and Occupancy). The 2 things I see in the image below however are low occupancy rates and not a lot of competition. So if it's a growing STR market, now might be a good time to enter but if it's just always like this then I would say you are fighting for scraps to be honest.

Best of luck! 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...