How do I check a property's Airbnb potential?

How do I check a property's Airbnb potential with BNBCalc?

A property's Airbnb potential is what it could earn as a short-term rental, and the most direct way to see it is to compare the home with the rentals already operating around it. The BNBCalc Calculator makes that comparison for any address, in the US or abroad:

1. Type the address into the search box that says "Analyze any city or address", then pick it from the Addresses group in the dropdown. You can paste a Zillow listing link into the same box instead, or use the full-page form at /create-analysis.
2. Check the bedrooms, bathrooms, max guests and price. For US addresses, BNBCalc fills in the bedrooms, bathrooms and price from the property record and the home's estimated value, while outside the US you'll type them in yourself. Make sure the bedroom count is right, because BNBCalc compares the property with homes of a similar size.
3. Click "Select analysis type ›" and choose Buy, Own, Rent or Cohost, depending on whether you'd buy the home, already own it, lease it from a landlord or manage it for its owner.
4. Click "Run analysis". A few seconds later, the analysis opens on its own page.

The Annual Revenue figure near the top of that page is the property's Airbnb potential, and the Avg Daily Rate and Occupancy under it show how the year adds up.

What does BNBCalc's revenue estimate measure?

BNBCalc starts its estimate from the property's comps: up to 50 nearby entire homes on Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com with a similar number of bedrooms. For each comp, it works out what the listing could earn if it were open for booking all year, which you'll see as Revenue (Potential) in the comps table. Then it takes the median of the top-earning half. Since that lands near the 75th percentile of the comps, the estimate benchmarks a home that's set up properly, managed well and open all year.

The daily rate is worked out from that revenue, so annual revenue always equals the daily rate × occupancy × 365. The revenue and the rate both include the cleaning fees guests pay, and because the estimate is gross revenue, the platform fee, cleaning costs and every other expense come off further down the analysis.

How do I check the comps behind the estimate?

The comps table under the estimate lists every comp with its revenue, nightly rate, occupancy, size and amenities, and the map shows where each one sits. Before you put money behind the number, you'll want to spend a few minutes there:

• Open the top earners. The listing name opens each comp on Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com, so you can compare its photos and amenities with the property. If a comp isn't a fair match, untick it, and the estimate updates straight away.
• Use Filters. The Filters button next to Select comps can keep only houses or only apartments, only comps with a pool, a hot tub or pets allowed, or only comps rated 4.8 stars and up.
• Compare actual with potential. Revenue (Actual) is what each comp earned from real bookings over the past 12 months, so a wide gap between it and Revenue (Potential) means that host blocks off a lot of nights.
• See the whole range. How it's calculated, under the revenue figure, lists the 10th to 90th percentiles of all the comps' revenue, so you can see where the estimate sits among them.

On your own analysis of a US property with at least 4 comps, AI Underwriter can do the matching for you. AI compares the closest candidate comps' photos, capacity, amenities and interior design with the property, keeps the best matches and sets the estimate to their median.

What would the property earn after costs?

Revenue potential tells you what the home could bring in, while the rest of the BNBCalc analysis shows what you'd keep. The Profit box takes operating expenses off the revenue, then the mortgage and property tax (or your rent), to reach Profit (Cash Flow), and the pencils next to the expense and mortgage rows let you swap BNBCalc's starting assumptions for your own loan terms and costs.

Three more parts of the page put the potential in context:

• Seasonality spreads the year's revenue across the months and shows your monthly Break-even, so you can see which months fall short of covering the costs.
• The Short Term Rental card, at the top of a Buy or Own analysis, grades the deal from A+ to F, with the cash-on-cash return and cap rate behind the grade.
• The Long Term Rental card next to it shows the same home as an ordinary 12-month rental. Click it to see the profit a regular lease would make, then compare that with the short-term figures.

Which upgrades would raise the property's potential?

Right after the revenue section, Buy, Own and Rent analyses show an amenity card. It names the amenity that could add the most annual revenue for homes with the property's bedroom count in that market, such as a pool or a hot tub, and See N more revenue-maximizing amenities lists the others. Calculator and Markets members see an exact figure on every row, whereas without a plan you'll see the top amenity and the rest locked.

You can also test an amenity against the comps. Tick Pool in Filters, for example, and the estimate comes only from comps with a pool, so you can compare it with the figure for every comp. For the market-wide view, the card's Find higher-earning properties & upgrades link opens that market's amenity data in BNBCalc Markets.

How does the property compare with its market?

BNBCalc Markets shows the same kinds of figures for a whole market. Type the city into the search box and pick it from the Markets group, and the Marketwide Stats tab shows the market's annual revenue, occupancy and average daily rate for the last 12 months. With the Markets plan, you can switch those figures to a single bedroom count, and the Listings tab maps the market's active rentals, so you can zoom in on the streets around the property.

Keep in mind that a market-wide figure describes a typical listing across the whole market, while the Calculator's estimate comes from the homes nearest the property, so the two won't match. If you don't know where to invest yet, use BNBCalc Markets to rank markets by revenue and, in the US, by gross yield before you narrow down to an address.

How many properties can I check?

A free BNBCalc account includes 2 free property analyses. After that, the Calculator plan ($30 a month) and the Markets plan ($79 a month, Calculator included) both come with unlimited analyses, so you can check every property on your list.

What doesn't the revenue estimate check?

The BNBCalc Calculator estimates what a property could earn, but it doesn't check whether you're allowed to rent it short term. A strong estimate won't help if the city, the county or an HOA bans short-term rentals at that address, so make sure to check those rules before you buy or sign a lease.