Airbnb’s business is booming. The popular platform reported its highest revenue and profit ever in the third quarter of 2022, due in large part to strong demand and higher daily rates. The surging vacation rental industry has caught the attention of real-estate investors and entrepreneurs, who have been amassing large portfolios of short-term rental properties to cash in on the boom.Airbnb’s business is booming.
Few experts predict a full-on housing crash like the one we saw from 2008-2014, in part because lending standards are much higher for residential mortgages now than they were in the years leading up to 2008. Yet the loans supporting these vacation-rental entrepreneurs could rest on shakier ground. Demand far outstrips supply in the current housing market, where many home buyers have shopped for months, and made multiple offers, without succeeding in a purchase. “There are less than 800,000 homes on the market nationwide,” according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, adds Peters. “That level of inventory is still really low.”
Geographically, these new listings are not evenly distributed. The Phoenix and Scottsdale market saw a 44% increase year over year, while Las Vegas saw a 36% increase in new listings. Meanwhile, these Sunbelt cities are now experiencing some of the fastest-dropping housing prices in the country, down 4.4% and 4.8%, respectively, from their peaks in the spring, according to AEI Housing Center.
Robinson, who manages 30 properties across the country, shares similar concerns about a potential slowdown in demand for rural vacation rentals.
VRBO: Aspen 1/3 rentals open first week of 2023.
PatriciaMiIIer The bloated real estate industry is over due for a correction and it's going to be ugly