Subscription to AirDNA

Short-Term & Vacation Rental Discussions
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Subscription to AirDNA

Sam Morris
Real Estate Investor · Dallas, TX · Member since 2016 · 4 posts · 1 vote

I have started researching AirBnb rentals across the country and see that AirDNA can be a useful tool (even though it has its data shortcomings). I am looking to get a closer looking at occupancy and revenue for different types of short term rentals. 

Is anyone a current subscriber to its national data? If so, would you be interested in splitting a subscription to reduce your costs? 

Alternatively, would anyone like to join in for a new subscription?

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John UnderwoodPro Member
Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
6y

I looked at Airdna data and I don't beleive it to be very accurate.

Most of my bookings come from Vrbo and very few from Airbnb.

I would recommend you manually look up vacation rentals in your area and drop the data into a spreadsheet to get a better analysis of rentals in your area.

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  • Kerry BairdPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Melbourne, FL · Member since 2011 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    6y

    I don't have a national account, just a local one.  It certainly was useful in helping me decide the risk & reward for my local area.  Once I got started, I found that I didn't need that extra confirmation, since my property was part of the data set, and my future property "rhymes" with my past property.  You could do that by looking at bookings on AB/Vrbo and see what is available in a few months' time, in the shoulder season. And you wouldn't have to pay the subscription fee.

    Good luck with your search.

    1Reply
  • Justin Anderson
    Property Manager · Pigeon Forge · Member since 2016 · 199 posts · 208 votes
    6y

    I don't have a subscription but have looked at the data for Pigeon Forge (where I own/manage several cabins).  The data there is horribly inaccurate and not indicative of the results I'm seeing.  As in I make 50% more than airdna shows.

    Looking at it logically, airdna aggregates data from all owners including those that are doing a bad job.  So I think it may be good at comparing overall markets with each other, but I wouldn't look to it for specific revenue number guidance.  Talk to local operators for their results and estimate on the high end from the airdna reports if you think you'd do a half decent job.

    3Reply
  • John UnderwoodPro Member
    Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    6y

    I looked at Airdna data and I don't beleive it to be very accurate.

    Most of my bookings come from Vrbo and very few from Airbnb.

    I would recommend you manually look up vacation rentals in your area and drop the data into a spreadsheet to get a better analysis of rentals in your area.

    5Reply
  • Michael BaumPro Member
    Olympia, WA · Member since 2016 · 8k+ posts · 7k+ votes
    6y

    I agree with @John Underwood. AirDNA's algorithm can be misleading. Like @Justin Anderson said, it takes into account the worst performing and mismanaged units.

    Even worse is that it also uses outliers in the equation. For example, AirDNA said my house should rent for $660 a night. Now I know that is WAAAAY over it's value but that is due to the outliers. I was lumped in with some very posh waterfront cabins which were renting in the 1000-1200 per night range.

    It isn't terrible and can give you a baseline, but I highly recommend you do your own research.

    3Reply
  • Bradley Chapman
    Real Estate Agent · Charleston, SC · Member since 2018 · 37 posts · 29 votes
    6y

    I think there's value if you're willing to look at individual properties for performance results, however the grouped reports are not to be trusted due to what others have said, data is being extrapolated from listings even if small sample size. You can't rely on the monthly income number if there's only 10 reviews of the property. If you start poking around enough you'll find listings with 100+ reviews, at which point the data should be much more reliable. I can attest to this since my properties are 98% accurate to what's being reported on Airdna.

    The other piece that's frustrating (Mashvisor wins here) is the inability to export the data behind what Airdna is reporting. In Mashvisor you can export and manipulate, so if I wanted to see reports with properties that had a minimum of 100 reviews, I could do that and get much more relevant output. Problem with Mashvisor is they don't collect Vrbo data for properties that list on both, so not very accurate unless you're in an area that's dominated by Airbnb only.  

    1Reply
  • Jon Crosby
    Investor · Roseville, CA · Member since 2016 · 893 posts · 1k+ votes
    6y

    @Sam Morris I use AirDNA and have an API account as well with them and strongly feel they can provide value to any STR analysis. A few things to note however...many people have issues with their revenue accuracy and that is mostly because most people don't realize that AirDNA provides ADR/Revenue totals that includes cleaning fees.  AirDNA has a compelling reason for only providing the data this way if you look at STRs at a more global scale, but for me it just never made sense, therefore I use my own formulas to convert their ADR/Revenue to remove cleaning fees when analyzing their data. 

    Additionally, I'm assuming when you are asking about their 'national' subscription you are referring to their Investment Explorer tool which is around $500/month?  While I think this tool is valuable there is a lot of 'secret sauce' going on in the background to which I think might make validating some of the data a little difficult.  I also personally find it an overly complex for an individual investor and seems more geared towards institutional investors. 

    I personally like and trust their Market Minder product more but I would imagine a national subscription would cost several thousand dollars per month for that (considering they charge up $100/month for a single market). 

    Final point, if this if your first STR then I wouldn't worry too much about scanning the nation for the best results, as you are likely and should be limited to proximity and price point for your investment model. Find something nearby first, get to understand the ins and outs of the business model a bit more before you try and find the most profitable market in the nation and spend a lot of money and time looking for it. If you already have a few STRs, then apologies for the assumptions there.

    Best of luck and if you have any specific questions I can answer, let me know.
     

    1Reply
  • Sam Morris
    OP
    Real Estate Investor · Dallas, TX · Member since 2016 · 4 posts · 1 vote
    6y

    Thank you everyone for your advice and insight. The plan is to get a Investor Explorer subscription for a month to consider a broad range of markets. During that month I plan to eliminate all but 2-3 cities and to  see if AirDNA is necessary at that point. Jon that is helpful to know that it is reporting revenue including cleaning fees. Do you mind explaining how you separate the cleaning fees from the booking revenue?

    0Reply
  • Ryan MoyerBusiness Member
    Property Manager · Orlando Kissimmee Davenport Salt Lake City, Park City · Member since 2019 · 993 posts · 1k+ votes
    6y
    Originally posted by @John Underwood:

    I looked at Airdna data and I don't beleive it to be very accurate.

    Most of my bookings come from Vrbo and very few from Airbnb.

    I would recommend you manually look up vacation rentals in your area and drop the data into a spreadsheet to get a better analysis of rentals in your area.

    I believe it captures the data from VRBO indirectly.  As best I can tell they get their occupancy from days marked off on the AirBNB calendar.  So if someone has their listing on vrbo as well so long as they have the calendars sync'd it would pick up that vrbo booking since it would block the dates off of the person's AirBNB calendar.

    I think the biggest problem is that they have no way of differentiating a booking vs. an owner stay.  So for instance if an owner decides to stay in the cabin all off-season and blocks off several months of usually vacant dates for it then that is going to massively inflate the revenue that AirDNA shows.

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    1Reply
  • Robert Gunn
    Investor · Tampa, FL · Member since 2019 · 48 posts · 7 votes
    6y

    @Sam Morris Im looking at the national Investment Explorer and would be interested.

    0Reply
  • Robert Gunn
    Investor · Tampa, FL · Member since 2019 · 48 posts · 7 votes
    6y

    @Bradley Chapman Does AirDNA allow you to export any of the data? Id like to use their Investment Explorer for directional guidance. If i paid $500 for that snapshot, would be great to export it.

    0Reply
  • Rachel Hughes
    Investor · Idaho Falls, ID · Member since 2019 · 85 posts · 62 votes
    6y

    My two cents...Skip the nationwide search and just look in TN.

    AirDNA Investment Explorer demo version will give you all of the data for TN for FREE (last time I checked). 

    In general TN is STR friendly and there are plenty of great markets to choose from.

    1Reply
  • Matt Hotze
    Rental Property Investor · Houston, TX · Member since 2016 · 30 posts · 5 votes
    6y

    Does anyone have a correction or way around this problem? The area I'm looking in has only a few properties so even a few owners doing this would throw the occupancy data way off. 

    0Reply
  • Boris Mordkovich
    Investor · Member since 2019 · 59 posts · 150 votes
    6y

    Hey Sam!

    So, we've used (and keep using) AirDNA pretty extensively over the years, as we have short-term rentals in 5 cities around the country.

    I would suggest that you start off using their free data in the beginning and, when you narrow down to a specific set of cities, just pay for a subscription for those cities. 

    The amount of info they display for free is enough to make an initial determination if the market is worth exploring further since what you're generally looking for is the level of competition (# of listings), average occupancy rates, and average earnings (simply for directional purposes).

    Only after you have a short list of 4-5 cities, it makes sense to get a subscription for those particular cities. It'll be as effective and likely quite a bit cheaper.

    1Reply
  • Alice Horn
    Property Manager · Kissimmee, FL · Member since 2019 · 446 posts · 266 votes
    6y

    We use Key Data Dashboard, which is a much more precise tool. (We moved away from AirDNA) Instead of scraping websites it pulls data directly from participating property managers' PMS systems. It provides extremely granular data including owner bookings, RevPAR, community benchmarking and much more. The drawback is that since it is based on participation, it only works well in areas where they have a decent number of subscribers (they do here in Orlando). We pay for a monthly subscription, not sure how it would work if you're doing high level analysis for different regions/parts of the country. Might be worth reaching out to them to see what they can provide.

    1Reply
  • Will Rawlings
    Member since 2021 · 1 post · 0 votes
    5y

    Sam, did you get a national subscription? I’d be interested in splitting one.

    0Reply
  • Sam Klein
    Member since 2021 · 3 posts · 0 votes
    5y

    @Will Rawlings @Sam Morris

    I am interested in a subscription as well. Did either of you get it?

    0Reply
  • Prithvi Jutur
    Member since 2020 · 1 post · 0 votes
    5y

    @Sam Klein@Will Rawlings@Sam Morris I'm interested in a subscription as well if theres room for one more

    0Reply
  • Alex S.
    Investor · Metro East of St. Louis (Illinois) · Member since 2016 · 259 posts · 211 votes
    5y

    I think @Justin Anderson hit the nail on the head...AirDNA could be very valuable for comparing markets to each other, but you can expect major variances within any given single market that makes the free data less valuable.

    I do love AirDNA's "Rental Demand" rating. My only question...how can I see all markets and sort them by rental demand? For example, my area is 97 out of 100 for STR demand. A saturated market near me is 55 out of 100.

    If they had that feature, it would satisfy half the questions on this forum asking "where should I invest?"

    1Reply
  • Kalo (Kyle) Atanasoff
    Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2014 · 259 posts · 55 votes
    4y

    @Sam Klein, @Will Rawlings, @Sam Morris,

    I am interested to join and splitting national (999) for 1 month - let me know if if you want to proceed. 

    0Reply
  • Katie Johnson
    Attorney · Holland, MI · Member since 2020 · 21 posts · 11 votes
    4y

    @Kalo (Kyle) Atanasoff Did you purchase? I am interested in splitting if you are still looking. Thanks. 

    0Reply
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