When Scott Sage launched his short-term rental management business, he started with just two units, a laptop, and a big vision. Like many new property managers, he wanted to grow, but he didn’t know how to do it confidently. With so many variables at play in the STR world, seasonality, pricing fluctuations, guest preferences, and regulations, he knew that relying on instinct wouldn’t cut it.

Scott made a conscious decision early on that every business move had to be backed by data. That’s when he found AirDNA.

“I felt unprepared when going to pitch new clients, and I lacked confidence answering questions from existing clients. I needed a better way to prove performance.”

AirDNA quickly became his go-to tool, not just for tracking performance, but for uncovering hidden opportunities. With access to key metrics, market trends, and competitor insights, Scott was able to take the guesswork out of growth. He could see which markets had potential, which properties were performing best, and how he compared to local competition. AirDNA became a weekly ritual for him.

Armed with this information, he expanded strategically, one market at a time. He didn’t chase growth for the sake of it. He validated every move with hard numbers and local data, which allowed him to move confidently into five new markets, each selected based on data-backed evidence at both the market and property level.

“I wanted to find opportunities where I could win. The Midwest was full of them at the time, but understanding which type of properties did best in which markets was a must-have to make confident decisions.” 

As the business scaled, Scott’s approach became more refined. He could tell, for example, how his listings were performing compared to local comps. If a competitor started outperforming him, he knew about it and had the data to respond quickly. That access to data helped boost his guest review scores from 4.6 to 4.9, leading to stronger visibility and better conversion rates on booking platforms.