Kansas City Market Update | Short Term Rentals October 2020

Kansas City Market Update | Short Term Rentals October 2020

Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes

I frequently get questions about how much revenue a short term rental (Airbnb) can produce. I’d like to share with you the average monthly booking revenue of our rentals to give you context about this market. We own and manage properties in the urban core of Kansas City, MO and suburbs of Kansas City, KS.

Primary factors that contribute to booking revenue:

  1. # of Bedrooms/beds/bathrooms: How many guests can stay comfortably?
  2. Location: What is the walkability to food, entertainment, or events? Short drive?
  3. Interior design: Does the space have an appealing/tasteful design?
  4. Quality of photography: Cell phone photos CAN work fine at first but schedule a professional photo shoot when you get the listing created.
  5. Pricing: Is it priced competitively? Under-priced? Over-priced?
  6. Management/Reviews: Good management of property and guest communication ensures great overall reviews and long term success.

Our portfolio:

  1. Size: 1 bedroom to 3 bedrooms units.
  2. Location: The majority of them are located within walking distance or short driving distance to shopping, dining, and entertainment.
  3. Interior Design: We designed most of our units. Designs range and mix with rustic, farmhouse, boho, eclectic, art deco, industrial, contemporary, with sprinkles of mid-century and antique pieces.
  4. Pricing: We are constantly analyzing the market and modifying to ensure maximum profitability.
  5. Management/Reviews: We maintain Super Host status on Airbnb which helps listings rank in the top page of the search results.

Average October 2020 booking revenue:

**Booking revenue does not include the cleaning fee collected from the guest**

  • 1 bedroom / 1 bathroom: $1932.54
  • 2 bedrooms / 1 bathroom: $2809.64
  • 3 bedroom / 2 bathroom: $4195.04

Context:

Type of guest: The typical traveler has been medical and business professional, families, weekend vacationers, and individuals visiting family members. There were no parties nor unwanted guests.

Average occupancy rate (how many days the unit was occupied):

  • 1 bedroom / 1 bathroom: 88.67% (27 out of 31 nights)
  • 2 bedroom / 1 bathroom: 80.33% (25 out of 31 nights)
  • 3 bedroom / 2 bathroom: 74.19% (23 out of 31 nights)

October is the last month of the active booking season. The active booking season ranges from March to end of October. All months in this season are generally good. Top performing months are usually June, July, September, and October.

I hope this was helpful insight into the Kansas City short term rental market. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.

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

@Sofia Sharkey very cool! How many units do you have there? Are you using VRBO/AirBNB or just your own site?

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

    Hey @Sofia Sharkey, what kind of folks do you get/cater to? Vacationers or traveling professionals?

    Numbers look great!

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    @Michael Baum thank you! We were excited to see good numbers this fall despite COVID. The typical traveler has been medical and business professional, weekend vacationers, and individuals visiting family members. We are not in a vacation rental market so we don't get much tourism here. 

  • John UnderwoodPro Member
    Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    5y

    Are your numbers off from this time last year, the same or better?

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

    @Sofia Sharkey very cool! How many units do you have there? Are you using VRBO/AirBNB or just your own site?

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    @Michael Baum The extended stays tend to be booked directly, aside from that is all Airbnb. We’ve posted the listings on VRBO and other platforms but Airbnb is king here. We get maybe 1 week every other month on VRBO. 15 listings.

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    @John Underwood great question, this year is down a few hundred from last year.

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    @Michael Baum I meant one booking every other month or so on VRBO**

  • Real Estate Broker · Kansas City Metro · Member since 2015 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    5y
    Originally posted by @Sofia Sharkey:

    @Michael Baum I meant one booking every other month or so on VRBO**

     Thanks for the insight sofia. What is the best location for Airbnb?

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    @Alex Olson that depends, best as far as bookings, the most revenue, or the most Airbnb friendly area? We like the urban core but I’ve heard of other hosts who do very well in the suburbs.

  • Member since 2020 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    5y

    @Sofia Sharkey This is very helpful, thank you! My wife and I are sitting on some money analyzing where to pull the trigger on our first AirBNB type properties in the North Texas area. We've heard a lot of buzz about using tiny homes for AirBNBs with a really high profit margin. Personally to me this seems a bit risky because I feel like you narrow your exit strategy...ie: a single family home if the short term rental is failing you could always pivot to long term rental or sale and it doesn't seem like the market is great for tiny homes outside of the short term. Do you have any advice/experience with the tiny home AirBNB market? Looking at your numbers for 1b1b being the highest occupancy does start to build a case for a small place at a good cost. 

    Thanks in advance!

    PS: I'm currently in Managed IT services in Dallas and we're in the top 250 managed IT providers in the world so if you have tech related questions I'm your guy.

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    Hi @Matthew Weir, I do not have experience with tiny homes or their numbers. COVID has benefited the 1b/1bath since much of the competition is gone and there are many traveling professionals looking for lodging. I prefer larger homes but their occupancy has decreased some since covid.

  • Investor · The worst town to live in, KS · Member since 2016 · 4k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    5y

    What has your experience been with travelling nurses?  What has your experience been with other categories of travelling workers?  Can you list a totem pole of them?  Here is mine.

    1. Boilermakers, electricians, inspectors.

    2. Welders and Fitters

    3. Craft labor

    4. General labor

    5. Travelling nurses

  • Rental Property Investor · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 19 posts · 15 votes
    5y

    @Paul Sandhu

    Traveling nurses make fantastic guests for us.

    Here are our common traveler types:

    1. People on weekend trip / visiting family

    2. Business / freelancers

    3. People in between closing on a house / looking for apartments

    4. Traveling nurses

    5. People traveling through

    Travel is not dead. We’re having great months!

  • Real Estate Agent · San Diego, CA · Member since 2014 · 6 posts · 3 votes
    5y

    Awesome thread. We own and manage several properties in San Diego and COVID killed us in March/April, but we have bounced back really well since then. We are a completely different market than Kansas City @Sofia Sharkey , but I'm wondering if you saw any changes in performance based on the submarket? For us, our urban/downtown properties were very slow to recover as the convention market disappeared this year. However, our beach market was very busy and we actually had better performance this year (after March/April) than last. Did the property location have any impact or are most of your properties in a similar area? 

  • Property Manager · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2018 · 280 posts · 221 votes
    5y

    @Nick Jacobson yes, that’s an excellent question. For us has been mixed, not a stark difference like in your case, but city metro was still stronger than suburbia.

  • New to Real Estate · Member since 2021 · 1 post · 0 votes
    4y

    @Sofia Sharkey 

    It’s been a while since your original post, but I was curious how the numbers have been since COVID has still been around. Was looking at KC for a multi or a short term. Any insight would be much appreciated. Thank you 

  • Member since 2020 · 8 posts · 4 votes
    4y

    Do you have a preference for location within the KC/KCK area? Do you manage any properties in Lawrence?

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