World Cup Boom, Rising Rates & What June’s STR Data Says About the Rest of 2026

Welcome to the STR data lab. Welcome to today's episode of the STR data lab. I am Rohit, the CEO of ADNA and today we have a special episode. With me is my colleague Bram. Bram is an economist in the ADNA team. Welcome Bram. How are you doing?

I'm doing very well, thank you Roit.

You know we are I'm wearing an Argentino jersey. became a huge Argentina fan. For those of our listeners who don't know, India and Bangladesh um got access to cable TV in 1986. Uh the first time Argentina won the World Cup. Madona was playing in that World Cup and for some reason the whole country loves uh loves Argentina and loves big supporters of Argentine football. So, you know, like World Cup is huge for me. I've been following it as a football fan, but now that I'm in the short-term rental and tourism industry, I'm also following it like as a as a person in the space. So, Bram, uh before we get into the World Cup specifics, like give us an idea. Everyone knows that June was one of the biggest short-term rental moments in short like in the US. Uh how did June look for the US short rental industry?

Well, June was I I would say it was a nationally it was it was a pretty good month. It was a solid month. Our occupancy has well it declined very very slightly but so far this year it's followed last year's pattern very closely you know so as far as demand goes you know we had a pretty nice uh you know it was about 2% which is a little bit higher than you know last month you know but not not stellar but you know what one of the things that really did surprise on the upside on the other hand was uh rate which um was was quite a bit came in quite a bit stronger than than we expected at around let's see here 4.6% year-over-year. That's the highest it's been since last summer. So, or can't but but think that the World Cup had something to do with that. If I if I'm a if I'm a host listening listening to this Bram, how should I how should I try and think about the June trends that you just spoke about in let's say I'm in a World Cup city, it makes sense.

But if I'm not in a World Cup city, uh one of the 16 cities, how should I how should I think about and interpret this number that you just spoke about? last year uh you know what Jamie and I were were describing last year as a sort of a tale of two halves because the first half of the year was extremely strong and then the second half of the year was was pretty weak and so this year we're kind of running into you know the year-over-year comparisons are uh sort of running in reverse right so we're actually keeping up really really well with the first half of last year so and that's that's everywhere not just the world cup cities but you know all over so as we enter you know June It's it's kind of I think at a turning point. We've been holding very very steadily along closely with last year's occupancy and uh you know we we've pretty much closed the gap. There's a tiny tiny gap but I think the second half of the year we're going to have uh uh some really some easier comps and it's going to be very very strong.

um if you're an existing operator, uh that rate growth, well, it's it's really strong in those World Cup cities, but it's also strong in many other cities as well. Um so, you know, that rate has surprised not just this month, but actually we've been building that sort of rate strength um this entire year. So, I think there's some I think there's definitely some positives uh in the data uh and also definitely in expectations for the the second half of the year as well. And Ram, you you track something that's very unique. It's called the repeat rent index. Uh I believe that grew even faster than ADR. Uh uh so why don't you unpack like again keep in mind like I'm I'm a single I'm I'm a host with one property. I'm listening to the show. Uh what is that what is repeat rent index? Explain that. What is that number telling you?

This is uh that's a great question too. Um, so the repeat rent index. So of Mark Mareno and Jamie Lane, right? The real brain trust here at AirDNA. They came up with this this metric. It's like a case Schiller uh index in that what it does is it looks at the existing properties that there are there and it looks at how they're changing their rate. So we know that ADR can also be influenced by the mix and we all know that STRs, short-term rentals are very high churn business. So you've got people coming in, you've got people coming out. So that can influence the total the the ADR because if you've got really expensive properties going out and cheaper properties coming in, that can lower the ADR. RRI will take all of that sort of mix shift out and say, well, if you're an existing operator, you know, how much were you able to change rate? So this is for existing operators. I think you know it it's a really positive story and what it says is that yes we grew ADR at a really great rate 4.6 but that was artificially low because new properties that are coming in are pricing below the market and this is often the case when we see inflation um you know uh u sort of on the upswing as as we are right now.

Last time we saw RRIs, you know, handily outpace ADRs was in 2023 in the aftermath of, of course, the big pandemic inflation. So, what happens is, yeah, you've got new entrance. They're coming in, they're trying to beat the market by pricing low. Meanwhile, you've got all the existing operators that have this incredible benefit of, well, repeat business. Uh, they've got their review history, which is incredibly important. And you know, just just having uh uh that sort of advantage right there means that they can increase their price even more than than the rest of the than the rest of the uh the new entrance that are trying to come in. So that's a really positive spin I think on on the uh ADR 6.8% RRI increase in June. Way above inflation, which is which is very important, right? So, we're actually getting real gains now. Not just um not just keeping pace, but we're actually starting to increase um our rate beyond beyond the uh the inflation rate.

So, you know, really really nice story there. That's awesome. So, like for the established hosts listening to today's podcast, uh it basically implies that they're able to raise the prices above inflation and the market is absorbing it. So, like that speaks to pricing power.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. It's almost twice inflation. Uh so when you know we're covering the monthly review um and I should point out too you know inflation 4.1 was the you know the PCE uh but of course since this came out we've got the CPI coming in at 3.5 so you know that's 6.8 if you look at the CPI 3.5 almost twice inflation so that's really nice about 2 point um or or I'm sorry 3.2% real growth that's that's really nice.

Awesome. Uh, and Bram, like when I started off the pod, like you know, I was I'm I'm wearing an Argentina jersey. Argentina is playing England today as we record the episode. We are uh Spain just knocked France out of first semi-final. England and Argentina play today. Hopefully Argentina uh sends England back home and we have an England um Argentina, Spain uh final. But as you look back, so like June, now that we have the June data, we truly now have like uh you know some data points around how the World Cup showed up in short rentals during the group stages. I'm excited to chat about that. I'm also excited to pick your brain on like while that's happening, some things in the macro haven't changed. the war uh the the straight of hormones that keeps opening and closing up every every other week like the weather in Denver uh the broader industry in terms of the interest rate interest rate environment supply the consumer sentiment uh those are all still factors that are around so you have the macros that haven't really changed much since uh the last couple of times you and Jamie have spoken and then there's one of the largest short-term rental demand events in the world happening in the US Mexico and Canada over the over the month of June uh let's tie that together and you know you gave the headline numbers.

I wanted you to unpack the numbers. You were like hey like you know it's looking June's looking great. It's like you have the rev bar gain while occupancy is flat which speaks to sort of an ADR growth. You look at existing established host their RRI is increasing so they're able to increase pricing power. But while all of that is great at a holistic level let's unpack that in in the instance of the World Cup. So, I would love for you to like start to like mouth off everything you're observing from what you've seen in June uh for the World Cup.

June was uh I I'll point out that you this was kind of a nailbiter and maybe I can uh use the the ar this this Argentina uh England game as kind of an example. So, we had gotten so many press requests and people were just worried about the occupancies. Oh, it's we're not filling up. Uh um and we kept having to tell them you got to wait because there's a lot of lastm minutee bookings. Um you know that's that's historically been the pattern. It's always been the case. But you know still it was kind of a nailbiter because where are they going to come in? This was a completely um novel event, right? We haven't seen anything like this in the SDR data before. So we were pretty nervous about that. Um luckily the last minute bookings did come in. Um, and people are actually really uh they're they're definitely willing to wait until the last minute. So, this England versus Argentina game, our very talented analyst, Linda Rollins, pulled some of this booking data and I was looking at it and or here's the booking data for, you know, Atlanta uh before we knew it, right?

before we knew who was going to play and it was pretty much it was level with last year um for that whole week before essentially maybe it went up about 15% or something like that it was actually on the on the 5th it was actually down booking was down a little bit so then on the 12th Sunday right this was the day after we found out bookings shot up we had 1,900 bookings in a single day we were up 257% % over last year. So we had gone basically from zero to to to 60 in the course of that day. So people were you know they were waiting they were waiting till the last minute till the till the game ended and then they were pressing that book button. very very uh interesting also you know difficult for hosts who are you know sort of wondering how they should price and and you know if the demand is going to come in but yeah if we step back on a broader level we did see the demand come in for short-term rentals uh all of the host cities with the exception of San Francisco uh and Seattle uh gained demand and I I'll get to those two markets in just a just a little bit but yeah they all gained demand had many of them very impressive gains.

Atlanta here for uh all the game days and eaves their their demand was up 6%. But then we had some other markets that you know were really strong. The Texas markets for example you know Houston was up 12%. Dallas Fort Worth 18%. Also Kansas City which is you know it's a transformative transformative uh market right there. It completely changed for the World Cup. It was up 44% on a year-over-year basis. Incredible. The reason, the only reason that San Francisco didn't increase its demand is because they actually decreased their stock of short-term rentals by about 5%. Uh, in San Francisco in June is always full anyway, right? So, essentially, we've we've packed the city full when and we have fewer we have fewer listings. So, that's why we couldn't increase demand even a little bit in San Francisco. Now, Seattle and Vancouver, they um didn't grow their demand quite as much as their supply and they did they did see some occupancy declines.

And I think the reasons for that is they didn't allow um you know, they have pretty strict regulations and they didn't allow these STRs to to come into the market until essentially the last moment. So, we didn't really see any supply movement in these two markets until, you know, May essentially. [clears throat] And as I was saying, you know, that that's that's unfortunate because, you know, we can expand the capabilities, but that sort of history, you know, that review history, that sort of establishment is really really really powerful. Um, and maybe even essential um but still Vancouver saw its demand go up 4%. Um, you know, so uh we did see some really nice uh demand growth. Now occupancy was uh a little bit more of a mixed bag but still most of these places most of the host cities did increase their occupancy uh with just a couple of those except exceptions. Seattle and Vancouver kind of the big ones.

Uh and then we did see you know Atlanta saw slightly lower occupancy but it increased its supply by a pretty significant amount as well. um 23% increase for Atlanta, which is I live in Atlanta. We haven't seen new STRs in years because the regulatory environment here is is so backwards, right? We've got laws that aren't being enforced. Uh Amstra, the local alliances, you know, been trying to draft rules, but you know, these it's it's kind of been going back and forth. So, we haven't seen any new supply and then 23%. So, uh occupancy decline of 5% to me seems pretty good. Um but yeah, a lot of places still increase their occupancy um as well. So, you know, even S, you know, San Francisco, by the way, they they saw lower demand, but again, it's because they're full, their occupancy actually increased by 5%. So, all of that is good. Uh but where we really saw, you know, some some really big numbers is in rate.

So, uh, uh, ex in excess of 30% of rate gains in nine out of the 16 World Cup host cities, big increases to rate for, you know, all these places. And what I like about the World Cup, too, is it's not a single day event. It's not like uh uh, you know, the Super Bowl or a Taylor Swift concert where, you know, we're in and we're out. All of these host cities, they had several games and the average for all of those days in game eaves was up by that significant amount. So, it's definitely been a boost to hosts in these cities. I think it's stimulated a lot of new growth as well, which is, you know, pretty exciting. I think for some of these markets, too, it's going to be long lasting. It's going to be again transformative. Kansas City is certainly one example. But again, even for Atlanta, which hasn't seen any sort of listing growth in in years, uh seeing that big bump right there, I think definitely some of those people are going to be staying on and continuing to uh engage in the practice of hospitality.

Awesome. Now that's that's exciting. Let's unpack this in two the way I think about this is in two formats. One, Bram is most of the World Cup games were in urban centers, urban cities, uh like basically attracting certain kind of travelers. How would you um you know when when I read when I read everything in the media um you've been busy with the press for the past month and a half common question for everybody including hosts including travelers is the World Cup a boom or a bust for travel right like that's the that's the big question they're asking and you addressed some of this you were like hey like from a host perspective a lot of the bookings are last minute so like you know like be patient it'll be it'll come it'll be there and you're seeing that now in a lot of the data that's coming through you're speaking to like hey like hosts are able to win on rates they were able to charge a lot more uh demand was definitely there you stated like the nine markets and like mans and where there was a ton of demand growth help me understand in the urban markets did the world cup demand displace the normal urban tourists typically visit or is the incremental demand that you're talking about like help me unpack that like how do you how should I be thinking about demand growth in the markets and uh if you were to like have a hot take was was the World Cup a boomerust?

I I would say it was it's a solid performer but as you pointed out there was some interesting stuff when we looked at urban and that that is to say the urban demand in June was ever so slightly down right now it wasn't down in the World Cup cities but you know urban has been facing some you know some headwinds uh certainly uh and I think you know there's been a lot of interest in sort of you know smaller locations uh a little bit less busy locations it's been very hot as well. Uh so we definitely saw a lot of interest in people going into you know lakes, resorts and smaller cities uh um as well in rural areas. So it wasn't the World Cup was a bust but it's urban is having some some difficulty uh with with its demand. Bram, just to open there, what you're saying is despite the World Cup host cities being a lot of urban cities, that World Cup demand wasn't enough to offset the headwinds in the other urban markets.

Yes. Yes, that is correct. Um because yeah, generally speaking, demand was up in the host cities, but yeah, for for urban um as as a whole, very very slightly down. Um again I think there was a variety of reasons um for this. Um we did see on the other hand while the demand was uh down uh we also saw that that the rate though for the World Cup cities was strong enough that even as occupancy declined uh even as demand in urban as a location sort of fell um you know no one wanting to go to some of these hot hot cities in June uh we did see prices actually increase um for urban at at the fastest pace of any of the sort of location types. that we've got. ADR increased about 12% in the urban location types. So, I think that really speaks to again just how big the jump in ADR was uh compared to the demand. The demand was solid, but we have to think to ourselves, well, uh you know, this is June.

This is the high season, so you know, we can't really pack too too many more people into these cities. Um but what we can do is we can charge them charge them more money. So, that that that I think was reflected in in the data. Uh so the World Cup itself yes it was it was a success. Urban has been facing some big headwinds but luckily you know the the ADR has been has been very very strong for those cities. Uh and there are some you know ADR generally has been pretty strong. Almost all of the big cities that I've got in my top 50 have increased their ADR. We've only got a couple that you know have seen declines. Uh Minneapolis um you know they've been in the news but not in a positive way for example. But yeah, if I were to look at in fact all the top 50, you know, the top nine cities for 80 yards were World Cup host cities and it's just it's they're big bars on this uh on this chart and that's that's awesome.

Okay, so like so the World Cup was a boom. Uh the World Cup host cities delivered in demand, delivered on rate growth. Let's take the rate growth and typically if you're saying hey demand's growing, occupancy is flat or declining uh rate growth's there. The key question that my mind goes to is what's the supply story? Like something about the supply here uh needs to be unpacked. So why don't we why don't we talk supply? Uh because there's a number in the report I was reading that jumped out to me. Listing growth below 2% for the first time since the pandemic. U as an exist host that's good for me because like less supply means there's more shots at bat for me as a as a host. But what's going what's going on here? Yeah, this so our outlook at the beginning of the year, this is the big prediction that we had is that we were going to see resurgent supply and that was of course barring any unforeseen events but [clears throat] as we know you know there were some unforeseen events mortgage rates had dipped below 6% in February and uh very shortly afterwards after the uh you know the war uh uh the straight of hormuz the energy crisis after that happened went up to about 6.5 so you know that that has put a big dampener on supply.

Uh I was doing we were doing an analysis. If we take the sixmonth lag mortgage rate and we compare it with new listing growth over the say the past three, four, five years, there's a really really tight negative correlation. One goes up, the other one must go down. And that's that's what we've seen when that mortgage rate went up. We're expecting new listings to continue to decline um into the future. It had gone down a little bit but of course yeah as you know the the conflict has reignited and it's pushed it back up. So to contextualize this the occupancy well it fell a tiny tiny sliver but it's really kept pace I think with last year and remember last year the first half was the strong half and and now we're going to be seeing this sort of low supply growth. Previously, we had anticipated that occupancy was going to be declining throughout 2026 and 27. But now with this mortgage uh uh rate sort of spike and this kind of the slowdown in listings, now we're expecting actually occupancy to start floating upwards towards the back half of this year and through 2027.

Um so I think that's a positive story, right? So and I'm pretty confident it's going to happen again because we've been keeping pace with last year which was very strong. Now we're going to be entering sort of the weaker comps at the same time that well hopefully inflation is is you know going to be going down right we've seen a you know recognition of the um the conflict so that that does you know throw kind of big uncertainty into it but on the other hand both sides I think are really strongly motivated to put an end to this conflict and to normalize uh oil shipping again um oil prices haven't gone to the you know extremes that they even, you know, with with all the the the violence that's been going on the last couple days, you know, it it was at 113, it's been spiked up to uh, you know, $80 now. So, you know, we're hoping that that is going to help, but you know, I think that uh as that sort of recedes, people's real incomes are going to start going up.

Job market still seems to be pretty strong. Now, we had lower numbers in the job report this last month than maybe we anticipated. Um, but the unemployment rate is still very very low. Um, so there's a lot of things speaking u to to short-term rental strength in the p in the second half of the year on a per unit basis. Certainly.

Got it. Got it. So most of the when if I'm a listener, I'm an existing house or a potential investor looking to get into the space. um given the just the real estate headwinds with mortgage rates, whether that's driven by the war or other macroeconomic factors, that's what's driving for supply to be sub 2%.

Absolutely. I mean, we saw it dramatically, you know, since 2022. You know, interest rates started going up, supply growth started to dip um dip measurably. Um and we're we're, you know, continuing to to see that now. But yeah, as you said, if you're an existing operator, you've got so many advantages. So, we we already went over sort of the RRI story. You've got that review history. You've got loyal customers. You know, you might even have your sort of your own direct booking site um if you've been in this business for for a little while. So, you know, you've got those incredible advantages. And now your moat is getting deeper and wider as uh anyone that wants to compete with you is going to have to pay pay up big bucks for for the loans as far as you know the mortgage rate goes. So it is a it's a pretty good story for existing operators. Now for the investment what we have seen you know if you're looking to break into this uh uh business now it's difficult however there's still you know there's still opportunities and and when we look at sort of the supply growth that is still happening on a on a location basis you know we do see it is the small city rural where we're seeing a lot of available listing growth still and that is I think primarily because that's where the real estate is still affordable and demand is is is really interested in going into these small city uh and rural areas as well.

So, it's it's it's still very viable. Even though small city rural saw the largest available listing growth, 5% so way, you know, more than double the national average, uh they saw demand growth around 6.7%. So, occupancies are still increasing in the even though in small city world the the listing growth is stronger than any other location type. So, there's still some opportunities there. You got to find a sort of a niche market that's not being served that still has that affordable property is there. Meanwhile, if you're in one of these other location types, you know, you do have that really strong moat and you're going to be generating, I think, higher occupancies in the second half of the year. Be easier to book. Uh rates are are definitely really strong. You've got a lot of pricing power. Um so I think that uh yeah, that's a positive story right there for for existing operator too.

What you said, Bram, is one of my favorite sections of the report. So like the the the part of the report I love the most is where you were actually able to split like you know one thing is we started off by talking about June as a whole uh for the whole whole country. We dug into the world cup we dug into certain location types just when we were talking about the economy and supply and listing types. uh you brought up like uh you know earlier you said big cities the host cities got the world cup and like you know they were able to capture a ton of value there but the real demand winner you just mentioned was the small cities despite listings growing by 4 to 5% uh supply growth you said demand also grew by 6.7% or 7%. Uh what's driving that? What's your hypothesis like again like I get the thesis of what you said like cheaper housing easy construction fewer regulations uh you know so supply is growing and then demand's following but what's driving the demand following is it is it that these cities are located close to urban centers that are attracting certain events demands like what's driving these u if I were to try and look at the map and be like oh like these are the small cities or rural centers that are seeing this investment and growth uh what's your hypothesis there

well I think there's a variety of uh different things that I could I could bring to bear on that's you know one is that whenever you do have supply growth you know every new host is an advocate for their destination and you know that that's a powerful effect um so when you do see you know lots of new interest and new investment that does bring demand along with it some of the other ideas too could be that yeah we you know since since co we have seen a lot of interest in sort of getting out into these sort of less explored areas we that was a trend that we thought was going to, you know, evaporate and we were going to go back to normal, but like many things, we never really went back to normal.

Actually, this is kind of a trend that's still been going on. And then, you know, lastly, maybe um since we've seen really big supply increases in all of these World Cup cities, maybe a lot of these urbanites are renting out their uh you know, their apartments and seeking refuge in the suburbs and in the small cities.

That's that's that's a good thesis because I have a lot of friends in Atlanta, Dallas who are doing that. So I could actually val anecdotally validate that that's actually happening because you can capture some of the capital in your urban centers and drive off. One one one interesting thing that stuck out to me in the report Bram uh again speaking to location types. Uh we spoke about RARI. RARRI for um simpletons like me is basically if you're an existing host you look at what you could charge last year versus what you what you charge this year and it's a way to measure pricing power for existing host right? That's the easy way to understand it. When I look at mountains and lake resorts, uh they saw really good RORI growth. So like these are existing hosts who are showing pricing power but the weakest ADR growth overall. Like what what how should I unpack that? Like is it is it like what's the best way to think about this?

Well that what that says is because we did actually see supply diminish a little bit in Mountain Lake resorts. So that was, you know, the the available listings actually declined year over year in in in this location type. Um only location type where that happened. Um now we did have a really difficult beginning of the year for uh mountain lake resort types. Terrible snow drought in the west. Um and you know this this created a you know big strain um for some of these markets. Now, you know, we go forward though uh to June. If the very very highpriced listings left the market, well, this would shift ADR down. So, there's there's that. Meanwhile, if you stayed in the market, uh it's super hot right now. Uh and this is driving everybody to the lakes, everybody to the mountains where it's just a little bit cooler. So, I think to some extent there was a bit of a surprise demand in this location type.

um as well. So you know the the people that remained in the market hey that saw oh well people are actually very interested in coming you know for a lot of these places it's you know the secondary season so maybe they didn't they don't usually charge as high of a price as they might you know during ski season um but they were able to to really see you know big gains I think is because of the interest I think in that um because demand you know even as supply was growing demand actually increased 1.8% 8% for for this uh for this location type. So occupancy did go up. Um and we did see I think everybody that stayed in the market being able to price very well.

Awesome. I know that that makes a ton of sense. What you basically like you know like repeating what you basically said back to myself because I I'm looking at mountain markets. Patience is key. So like if for the folks who the ADR decline is main like the lack of ADR growth is mainly driven by uh the churn from the listing types like some of the folks just getting out of the getting out of the business and yeah that makes a ton of sense. So one of the other things you know like economists love predicting like I'm looking ahead and I'm looking at the pacing for the fall and this looks almost too good. Um September is up more than 20%. Is this real? Is this a catch? like you know obviously like there's a there could be some Labor Day calendar shifts things like that but like would love to understand or is it that for a sports fan this has been the best season it's it's been the US Open and the Shin Golf Course then the World Cup then the US Open tennis tournament uh Wimbledon in the UK doesn't apply to this report but like that's happening as well and now come fall there's the American football so like it is just like sports and sports and sports uh so speak to me about the fall what's what's what's what's driving this uh this amazing September uh November.

Yeah. Well, as you say, so Labor Day last year, the Labor Day weekend, you know, it fell essentially in in August, um, which gave August a pretty big boost and took from September. Uh, and in fact, September performance, demand performance last year was very very very, very weak. So about, you know, what is it point4% year-over-year? So, one of the it was essentially one of the weakest demand uh uh months that we've had in a long long period of time. Uh and and that was one contributing factor. Now, this year, Labor Day weekend is completely in September and it's going to be that way for the next few years. And I think that is uh you know, so that's that's creating a shift. On the other hand, it so if I was to take that out, um we're going to be diminishing I guess the the pace a little bit for September. you know, it's up 24% year-over-year. Whoa. I don't think so. But if even if I were to take out that calendar shift, it's still around 15% positive, which is, you know, very very strong.

And I think that is again the tale of two hats. We're entering the weak half, right? So it's a very easy comp against last year. Uh for whatever reason, we didn't see very much demand growth at all in September of 2025. So this year, any growth will be positive. And uh to your point, yeah, some of the top pacing um markets are those that are hosting their their sort of inaugural uh college football games. Um so that's sort of another advantage of that Labor Day weekend being in September, right? You can have sort of that start start the autumn season a little bit early and you know, Tuscaloosa for example, uh with Alabama up seven times what it was last year. So you know, really incredible uh demand growth. these sort of sporting events, you know, they've got really big they've got really big effects. Um really outsized effects. They can really change the schedule. They give people a reason to go to these cities.

A lot of people a reason to go to these cities. So So yeah, so I I think you know September is going to be really strong, but it is a very weak comp. We do have a calendar shift. There is going to be some some definitely some sports spectatorship that is going to be driving a lot of the performance in September and into fall of course. Um that's been a trend that is occurring over the last few years. Um is that you know these these smaller sort of college towns are are seeing lots and lots of people use short-term rentals. It's a really great format you know for for these games. You've got the kitchen. You can bring the whole crew with you. You can have a place with several bedrooms. So uh you know that's that's going to be impressive. Another thing to think about is that lead times in 2026 um on average have gone down just a little bit. Um so you know we're shortening it up just just a little bit but prior um to to 2026 lead times actually had been increasing from you know pandemic error lows.

Uh and when you have sort of longer lead times too, that can sometimes shift the pacing so that when you actually arrive at the date, you know, the demand growth is not quite as large as it once was. Um so we'll see uh we'll see, you know, exactly what happens, but I do expect that September is going to be meaningfully stronger than it was last year. In fact, I'm expecting the rest of the year to actually be pretty pretty strong in comparison to last year. So far this year, our occupancy is ever so slightly down, but I'm expecting it to end the year uh almost a percentage point up.

That's awesome. So, if you had to summarize, Bre uh your bottom line for the second half of 2026, sounds like you're optimistic.

I am optimistic. Yes. Um definitely because you know we did have some doldrums last year. Got a lot of travel momentum because you know we we've got sort of these great events. So, the World Cup has been you know it's been phenomenal. We've brought in tons of demand. Now, I didn't see a whole lot of displaced demand. you know, we we're still saying these places fill up, but you know what might have happened is that if you were planning a trip, you said, "Wow, I'm going to, you know, I want to take a trip." Well, uh, the World Cup is this summer. Also, it's super hot and very expensive, so I might defer my travel to sort of the shoulder season. So, you see a huge national event like this, it may actually be driving some additional travel at the back half of the year um, as people sort of defer. We also do, you know, inflation is is a little bit high and we often see more interest in the shoulder season too uh when inflation hits.

But, you know, I think most promisingly and I was talking, you know, uh I've been in contact with Oxford economics and and tourism uh economics and their predictions are that yeah, inflation has pretty much topped out. It's going to start falling. We've already seen CPI inflation come in lower than we expected. We all thought it was going to be around 3.8. It came in at 3.5. great news. Um, so that means real incomes are going to start increasing. People are going to start feeling a little bit better about about the direction the economy is headed. Um, again, we've got, you know, really low unemployment. We don't need very many jobs to keep it there. Uh, you know, immigration has been, you know, slashed uh to the bone.

So, you know, we don't need quite as many jobs being produced as as we want. Equity [clears throat] markets have been doing really well, too. that's been helping out, you know, higher income folks, which definitely disproportionately spend on travel. So, I think we've got, yeah, a lot of good headwinds coming into the second half of the year. I'm sorry. Sorry. Tailwinds. Tailwinds. Oh my gosh. Please.

Yeah. Yeah.

Me.

When I I and Bram, what I So, like in my seat, if I were like if I were to like evaluate like the media scorecard, what I'm taking away from, you know, today's discussion as well as the report is host showing pricing power. you know, the World Cup uh World Cup was a boom in every single way, like not just for brand America, but just like a great travel event, great short-term rental event, just overall a huge success. Supply pressure is easing, like whether it is the uh interest rate headwinds, uh macroeconomic headwinds. We aren't seeing as many new listings as we would typically see, which means again for existing hosts, that's real pricing power. Demand is finding new geographies. So like as you said uh while supply is still growing in smaller uh and r smaller markets rural markets we it is finding demand is finding its way uh there. It could be because for the month of June it could be because people are renting out their home homes in the host cities and driving somewhere else uh or some format of that but there is there is demand finding new geographies.

And lastly, whether you call it football or whether you whether it's American football or football the way the rest of us uh call football, events are driving major demand and calendar keeps going. So, um if you're a listener, you should not be finding out about a 7x demand surge in uh Tuscaloosa uh after the fact. So, if you're a host looking to get another space, just keep keep that in mind. Like would that be a fair sort of uh wrap up of like what you what you think about in terms of the industry? Like for my my perview like operating a business in the space being a host uh the the industry looks healthier at the midpoint than the headlines sus like like and the data is sort of pointing to that. Would that be your take as well?

Yeah, you know, I I think so. Um we're we're keeping steady with with the first half of last year which is really strong. We're going to be we're going to be seeing great performance I think in the the second half and you know one of the lessons I think of World Cup is you know just how powerful uh this travel can be you know we've got all of these people converging on on these markets you know but they have this sort of shared sense of purpose that's there and some of the heartwarming stories that have have come out with uh you know with this I I've been talking with you know Kansas City folks for a while and sort of the story with the uh Algeria team there was really incredible um heartwarming stuff. I think, you know, people have been really excited by the World Cup. Um and it just, you know, it shows you the transformative ability of travel. You know, you can you can really feel the hospitality, really feel the the vibe of these these cities, feel the energy of them, and I think that's really exciting.

Um and you know, when when we do have these sort of events, it gives you that reason to go and sort of a focal point around. So,

no, I I agree. And I want to I want to I want to close out with two two questions for you, Bram. Uh first, uh have you seen a World Cup game?

Well, I had to see the highlights yesterday, right? Because when I saw the Slack channel popping off, right, I knew, right, this was going to be a big deal. U because you know, we've got this the office in Barcelona. Um when of course I work with Khloe and Sabrine all the time on our press team. Um and I think they're cheering for France. So I heard about all this uh that so I had to had to had to to pay attention to that game. Um amazing stuff. It was really a stomach turnurning game for for a lot of it. Um

yeah know I I I feel bad for the French supporters that too that losing the game on best deal day which is there.

Yes.

So that's that's something. And uh and the second question uh this is more for the economist mafia that you're part of like you know your group chats your infamous group chats where all the smartest economists in the world are uh discussing uh downside risks like what is the biggest risk to your optimism like what what is if I am a listener what is the one thing that could turn all this uh is it energy prices is it uh like what what is it what would I be what would I be cautious about? There are two things that I think may precipitate a downturn and well you you've said like well all right what do the economists think and you know we're the dismal scientists so you know these are these are real bummer situations that that could happen um but yeah we have been able to keep oil prices low in one part by you know pretty quick draw down of global stock files and to some extent demand destruction in China although you know we don't know how fast China is drawing down their stock piles um and if they'll need to resort to the market, you know, the open market and buying oil at higher rates again.

So, if we don't normalize uh traffic through the straight of you, you know, with within a short period of time, and again, both parties are very very motivated, I think, highly motivated to do so. But if for some reason that doesn't happen, uh we could see energy prices spike spike out pretty sharply pretty quickly once again and that could drive inflation which has knockdown effects. So, that's going to raise the mortgage uh rate higher. It could uh you know depress real incomes again. It could depress real wages. Um so that could be a real bummer um if that happens. The other thing is that you know um the equities markets have been positive. It's been a tailwind certainly for the industry for the last few years. You know, I've seen an incredible run. If somehow that weakens or reverses or corrects um that could also have you know some some disruption in the economy and in particularly the travel industry because it is you know it is very as u as uh some of the economists have described it Adam Sachs highly indexed uh to the travel industry you know the higher income folks.

So, um I think those are kind of the two two things that I'm going to be keeping an eye out for, uh u in the in the coming months. But again, I you know, those are situations that nobody wants to see happen and I think a lot of people are going to be working to prevent.

Yep. Absolutely. Thank you again, Bram, for for your time. Uh I'll leave leave us with this. If we have listeners who want to get a hold of you, uh get in touch with their DNA, what is the best way to reach out? uh if there's someone from the press, if there's anybody, is it uh what's the best email or contact for you?

Oh, yeah. Well, um you know, if you are an interested journalist and would like to write a story, I would definitely say send an email to pressdna.co, not.com, but.co. That's important. But of course, if you want to just talk to me, you know, bram.gallagherdna.co. And I I will check that email pretty regularly. U so feel free to ask me any questions and I I love talking about this stuff, as you can probably tell. I love it, Brad. Thank you so much for uh taking the time. Pleasure.

Thank you, Robert. Always fun on the data lab.