- Phoenix Airbnb hosts have been anticipating to be absolutely booked over Tremendous Bowl weekend.
- A supervisor of 95 properties stated he is half-booked and has lower one nightly value to $500 from $1,200.
- Some US spots are experiencing a glut of short-term leases that may harm hosts’ reserving calendars.
It ought to’ve been the busiest weekend in years for Phoenix’s Airbnb hosts.
However short-term-rental homeowners are scrambling to fill empty items with out-of-town revelers forward of Sunday’s Tremendous Bowl matchup between the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Months in the past, Ric Kenworthy, who manages 95 properties within the Phoenix space by his firm Outdated City Rental, anticipated they’d all be rented out forward of the large sport. Now, two days earlier than kickoff, occupancy sits at simply 45%.
For a major three-bedroom, two-bathroom house that Kenworthy manages in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix that prepped for a wave of Tremendous Bowl guests, Kenworthy initially thought he might fetch $1,200 an evening with a five-night minimal. He is lower the speed to $500 an evening with a two-night minimal — and it is nonetheless not booked.
“It is mind-boggling at this level,” Kenworthy informed Insider.
The Tremendous Bowl letdown comes as hosts in some areas complain that bookings have slowed, Twitter customers chatter about an “Airbnbust,” and market information suggests the rising variety of Airbnbs within the US has outpaced will increase in traveler demand. Some hosts are responding by switching to medium- or long-term leases or prioritizing direct bookings. The analytics web site AirDNA has predicted that income will drop barely for hosts throughout the nation in 2023 in contrast with earlier years.
Based on AirDNA, as of Thursday solely 52% of obtainable Phoenix leases have been booked. The positioning discovered that two current Tremendous Bowl host cities, Los Angeles and Miami, had over 80% of their obtainable short-term leases booked for his or her sport weekends. A New York Occasions headline described Phoenix’s Tremendous Bowl short-term-rental market as a “fumble.”
It is a sign not of a scarcity of vacationers however of oversupply. Hundreds of persons are anticipated to descend on Phoenix forward of the Tremendous Bowl, however guests have extra leases to select from than ever earlier than. AirDNA discovered that from February 2017 to January 2023, Airbnb and VRBO listings in Phoenix greater than quadrupled, rising to 21,000 from 5,000. A request for remark from Airbnb was not instantly returned on Friday.
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There are even indicators of a current surge in listings in response to the Tremendous Bowl hype.
Kenworthy stated an Airbnb consultant informed him that over 2,200 new listings got here on-line up to now two months, which Kenworthy speculated stemmed principally from locals who do not usually hire their areas however have been trying to “trip the wave” of the weekend.
Brian Harvey, a director at Price Easy Mortgage who lends to and mentors short-term-rental buyers in Phoenix, stated his shoppers had confronted comparable bookings slowdowns.
Certainly one of them, he stated, has a three-bedroom, two-bathroom unit near a lot of the weekend’s festivities. Visitors initially booked it for $925 an evening, however they canceled this week, saying they’d discovered a less expensive deal close by. Now the home prices simply $300 an evening, and it is nonetheless obtainable.
An Airbnb spokesman informed the Arizona Republic that the final time Phoenix hosted the Tremendous Bowl, in 2015, Airbnb hosts within the space collectively earned greater than $1.1 million over that weekend. Harvey stated many locals have been wanting to get in on the motion this time.
In November, Harvey stated, one in every of his shoppers purchased a 1,600-square-foot three-bedroom house about 10 miles from the stadium for $388,000. The shopper had anticipated he’d be renting it out for $1,000 an evening, nevertheless it’s sitting empty this weekend.
Whereas Phoenix will proceed to be a well-liked trip spot, Harvey predicted that the Tremendous Bowl disappointment would inspire some homeowners to promote their short-term-rental properties.
“We’ll see a few of these folks exit,” he informed Insider. “I am positive of it.”
