Short-term rental glossary

Active listings

Active listings are the short-term rentals operating in a market, also called its supply. In BNBCalc Markets, supply is the average number of listings bookable each month, while the Listings map shows listings open at least 127 nights of the past year and booked on at least 30% of them.

Annual revenue

Annual revenue is what a short-term rental earns from bookings in a year, cleaning fees included, before any expenses. BNBCalc shows it three ways: an analysis's revenue estimate, a market's Annual Rev per listing, and each listing's actual and potential revenue, and each is calculated differently.

Average daily rate (ADR)

Average daily rate (ADR) is the average amount a short-term rental earns per booked night: its booking revenue divided by the number of nights booked. Unbooked nights don't count, so ADR measures pricing while occupancy measures demand. BNBCalc's ADR figures include the cleaning fees guests pay.

Cap rate

Cap rate (capitalization rate) is a property's yearly net operating income as a percentage of its price or value, ignoring financing: $28,000 of NOI on a $400,000 home is 7%. BNBCalc uses the purchase price and leaves property tax out of operating income, so at default tax rates its cap rate runs about a point higher.

Cash-on-cash return

Cash-on-cash return is a rental property's yearly cash flow as a percentage of the cash you put in to buy and set it up: $12,000 a year on $100,000 invested is 12%. Unlike cap rate, it reflects your financing. BNBCalc's version adds one year of revenue growth (3% by default) before dividing.

Cleaning fee

A cleaning fee is the one-time charge a short-term rental adds to each booking to cover cleaning between guests. In BNBCalc, the cleaning fees guests pay are counted in revenue, and the cost of cleaning is counted separately as an operating expense: 8% of revenue by default on a new US analysis.

Comparable listings (comps)

Comparable listings, or comps, are nearby short-term rentals similar to the property you're analyzing, used to estimate what it could earn. BNBCalc picks comps automatically for each analysis. A comp set is different: a group of competitor listings you save yourself in BNBCalc Markets to track over time.

Gross yield

Gross yield is a rental property's annual revenue as a percentage of its value, before any operating or financing costs. BNBCalc shows it only for US markets and listings, where it has home values. Listings that earn $50,000 a year on $400,000 homes have a 12.5% gross yield.

Net operating income (NOI)

Net operating income (NOI) is a rental property's yearly revenue minus its operating expenses, before mortgage payments and income taxes. In a BNBCalc analysis it appears as Operating Income, and property tax isn't subtracted from it, because BNBCalc keeps property tax with the mortgage under Mortgage & Taxes.

Occupancy rate

Occupancy rate is the percentage of a short-term rental's available nights that were booked. BNBCalc leaves out the nights a host blocked, so a home booked on 150 of the 200 nights it was open shows a 75% occupancy rate, even though that's only 41% of the year.

Operating expenses

Operating expenses are the recurring costs of running a rental property, such as utilities, cleaning, maintenance, insurance and platform fees, but not mortgage payments or property tax. In a BNBCalc analysis they're grouped into Utilities, Maintenance and Management, and some scale with revenue.