Vacation rental occupancy in Indio, CA

[Jerry Murphy]

I am thinking of buying a property in Indio to use as a vacation rental.  Ideally it will be a 4 bdr with a pool that will be ready to rent by early April. I think I can break even for the year on a few of the big weekends - Coachella & Stagecoach. But I would like to make some money. Does anyone know what kind of occupancy rates Indio has?

Nearby Palm Springs has an incredibly high occupancy rate - so high that the local government is capping it at about 36 rentals per year.  That would be 75% if I did weekly rentals. I doubt Indio has anything like that but I haven't seen any reliable data. Does anyone know where to find this information?

[John D.]

     Unique properties that can comfortably host large groups, do well all year long.  Smaller cookie-cutter properties that need to compete on location or price have a harder time during the off-season.  We pay the mortgage in April and make our money the rest of the year.  Also be aware a lot of new inventory has come online for Coachella over the last couple of years, and the attendance is the same.  More and more people that live there during the rest of the year are cleaning up their places and leaving for the Festivals while renting their homes out.  All of the owners I know of in the area saw some rate compression this past year, in particular for Week 2.

--John