The Top Performing Airbnb Properties in the USA

Scott Shatford | July 3, 2015

Customers frequently ask, “What cities is the best place to start a new Airbnb vacation rental.” Every city has it’s pro’s and con’s; regulation, seasonality, cost of ownership and so on. We thought we’d let the performance of the best properties speak for themselves. 4,500 of the nearly 300,000 active Airbnb listings in the United States made the list.

The interactive map below shows where the top 1% of Airbnb properties in the USA are located. We filtered every single Airbnb listings to identify only those properties that had more than 20 reviews and achieved at least a 70% occupancy rate in the last twelve months.  

Zoom into the map and hover over individual properties to view their Airbnb occupancy rates, annual revenues, and number of reservations.

 

Some obvious cities had the largest number of high performing listings. New York City had 831 listings make the grade and San Francisco came in at a distant 2nd place with 375 properties. Here is the list of the 25 Airbnb cities with largest number of successful listings.

Rank Airbnb City # of Properties Total “Entire Home” Listings % Top Performing
1 New York 831 7854 11%
2 San Francisco 375 2812 13%
3 Los Angeles 366 4742 8%
4 Brooklyn 312 3884 8%
5 Miami Beach 153 2252 7%
6 Portland 131 1198 11%
7 Venice, CA 126 875 14%
8 Washington D.C. 123 1744 7%
9 Seattle 121 1791 7%
10 Chicago 83 2270 4%
11 Santa Monica 77 549 14%
12 San Diego 76 1868 4%
13 New Orleans 75 1491 5%
14 Honolulu 74 828 9%
15 Austin 67 2354 3%
16 Denver 59 852 7%
17 Berkeley 57 465 12%
18 Oakland 40 522 8%
19 Nashville 39 1132 3%
20 Miami 34 1370 2%
21 Philadelphia 30 900 3%
22 Boston 28 758 4%
23 Astoria 27 323 8%
24 Kihei 26 613 4%
25 Boulder 24 430 6%

While many known Airbnb hotspots were at the top of the list due to the sheer number of total listings, looking at the ratio of top properties to total properties reveals some interesting insights.  Austin and Miami, which are generally considered great vacation rental markets, had less than 3% of all properties achieve 70+% occupancy throughout the year while temperate California cities outperform the rest of country at over 10%.

One bedroom units seemed to dominate the list with 2452 of the 4478 of the top listings. This would indicate that smaller units are able to see more consistent bookings year round.  Here is the breakdown of the number of listings that qualified based on the number of bedrooms.

Bedrooms # of Listings
Studio 712
1 2542
2 948
3 228
4 40
5 6

For those of you interested in what properties are making the big bucks, below are the 25 properties and that earned the most income in the group. Surprisingly, while there are over 1,000 listings on Airbnb that charge over $1,000 per night, none of them were able to achieve high enough occupancy rates to make the cut. The most that any single listing was able to charge throughout the year was $695, with an average of $520 for the Top 25.

Rank Airbnb Link City Title Bedrooms Occupancy Rate Nightly Rate Revenue
1 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1663824 Napa A little bit of Italy in Napa! 4 79.8% $650 $239,850
2 http://airbnb.com/rooms/958435 Venice Luxury Modern by Venice Beach! 3 77.4% $695 $221,135
3 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1656264 New York THE BEST BEDS 2bd2ba View UpperWest 2 79.1% $550 $209,375
4 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2343208 New York Times Square Designr Townhouse Loft 3 89.7% $600 $207,792
5 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1115287 Palo Alto Walk to downtown Palo Alto 3 72.9% $575 $188,675
6 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2848187 New York 4Bedrooms / Roof Deck / Center NYC 4 88.2% $500 $188,550
7 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2371609 New York Sunny Top Floor Soho Loft 2 71.8% $695 $186,433
8 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1257035 San Francisco Haight Ashbury Victorian w/ Parking 4 74.2% $600 $185,680
9 http://airbnb.com/rooms/658474 New York Lux NY Views Designer Decor 2BR 2BA 2 76.1% $498 $178,354
10 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1115576 New York Quiet 3bdrm- ONE STREET TO TIMES SQ 3 70.1% $575 $172,500
11 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1159650 New York Central Park Views 2Bath 2Bed Home 2 73.4% $520 $169,778
12 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2619342 New York Big & Bright 3bed Artist Loft 3 76.2% $549 $169,437
13 http://airbnb.com/rooms/869573 Marina Del Rey Sleeps 10, Steps 2the Sand &HOT TUB 3 76.7% $500 $169,361
14 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1040156 New York Massive and Magnificent Duplex Loft 2 70.5% $499 $163,933
15 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2046584 New York Amazing 2BR overlooks Union Square 2 88.1% $455 $163,419
16 http://airbnb.com/rooms/594387 San Francisco Noe Valley 3BR/2.5 BA w/ views 3 74.3% $500 $162,375
17 http://airbnb.com/rooms/931579 Los Angeles Architectural Gem with Pool 2 76.0% $445 $159,547
18 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2411078 New York Sunny Union Square 2BR + Roof Deck 2 84.8% $459 $159,285
19 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1103207 New York Rare Duplex Loft in Prime SoHo 2 72.2% $550 $156,575
20 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1110708 New York Time Square Penthouse 2BD w Terrace 2 74.7% $450 $148,700
21 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1798036 New York It’s called the GEM of TIMES SQUARE 2 80.1% $395 $147,565
22 http://airbnb.com/rooms/2434435 Berkeley Modern Farmhouse in Berkeley 5 95.2% $360 $145,725
23 http://airbnb.com/rooms/3863281 San Francisco Modern 4BR with Garden – Mission 4 74.1% $650 $144,846
24 http://airbnb.com/rooms/1260093 New York STUNNING 2 BDRM – TIMES SQUARE 2 75.3% $450 $144,335
25 http://airbnb.com/rooms/3053181 New York World Trade Center / 4Bedrooms / NY 4 79.6% $300 $143,975

 

Want to get the skinny on how the best Airbnb properties in your city are faring?

Input your city into MarketMinder and see how you too can make a killing renting out your place on Airbnb.