Revenues are down nearly 50% in cities like Phoenix and Austin.
Watch out for a wave of forced selling from Airbnb owners later this year in the areas hit hardest by the revenue collapse.
1) What's scary for the US Housing Market is just how many Airbnbs there are.
Data from AllTheRooms shows 1 million Airbnb / VRBO rentals.
Compared to only 570k homes for sale.
Creates huge home price downside if struggling Airbnb owners elect to sell.
2) Ground zero for this Airbnb collapse is a city like PHOENIX.
Where the number of short-term rentals (18k) is more than DOUBLE the number of for sale listings (8k).
Mix the huge Airbnb supply with revenues down -50% and you get a cocktail for massive forced selling.
3) Another area with huge exposure is Eastern Tennessee.
Particularly a vacation town called Sevierville in the Smokey Mountains.
In this county there's 10x as many Airbnbs as homes listed for sale. While the revenue per owner is down nearly 50%.
Yikes.
4) Another area to watch out for is Central Texas.
Data from AllTheRooms shows that Airbnb revenues are down 40-50% yoy across most of the area.
Particularly in Austin, San Antonio, Uvalde.
5) Another area that is getting smoked by the Airbnb Crash is the Pacific Northwest / Mountain Region.
States like Montana, Idaho, and Oregon.
Fewer people playing out their Yellowstone fantasies + way more supply = 40% declines in revenue per listing.
6) And ultimately this Airbnb crash was to be expected.
The pandemic is over. Fewer people are working from home / vacationing in states like Montana, Texas, and Tennessee.
So the demand is way down. Just as the Airbnb supply went way up. So you get a crash.
7) What will be interesting is how "stubborn" Airbnb owners are in holding their properties.
Many of them are just now seeing their revenues down 50%.
But the mainstream narrative hasn't caught up to it yet. So owners might not realize the Airbnb crash is a broader trend.
8) Some Airbnb owners might elect to do a long-term rental in their properties instead.
But the problem with that is that there has already been a huge surge in long-term rentals hitting the market.
With vacant rentals in cities like Nashville exploding over the last year.
9) So if Airbnb owners "pivot" to long-term rentals, they'll likely crash that market as well.
Especially in dense urban areas. Which is where the majority of Airbnbs are located.
Check out the Airbnb heatmap in a metro like Phoenix to see areas with most exposure.
10) I think "newbie" Airbnb owners who bought over the last 1-2 years with a mortgage are in trouble.
They got in at a high price. And have a high monthly payment. And little margin for error.
They could be some of the first to sell later in 2023 when the season ends.
11) However, some of the more seasoned Airbnb operators who got in before the pandemic likely have room to work with.
They paid less for their Airbnb. Have a cheaper mortgage rate. And more experience.
They will be less inclined to sell.
12) I'll have more content and data on the Airbnb crash in coming weeks.
The data used in this Tweet thread came from AllTheRooms. They're a short-term rental data provider who tracks Airbnb supply, rates, and revenue for every market in the country.
The U.S. housing market just broke 1,000,000 listings.
Excess inventory is piling up.
Relative to buyer demand, we now have the highest inventory in close to a decade.
Which is causing home prices to drop in over half the U.S.
1) This was the highest active listing count for May since 2019, according to data.
This is important because it signals that sellers are now facing stiff competition to sell their homes.
A marked reversal from the pandemic boom, and a signal that gains in affordability are coming for buyers.Realtor.com
2) Sellers are now also getting more eager to cut the prices on these listings, with the price cut rate surging up to 24.6% of total listings in May 2025.
That's the highest level of price reductions for the month of May on record, going back to 2017.
Home values declined in over 60% of US counties in April 2025.
The only other two times we saw this breadth of home value declines was the 2008 crash and the 2022 mortgage rate spike.
More than half the country is now officially in MoM declines. Indicating that the housing downturn is spreading.
We'll have to see if this lasts into the future, and if it turns into a sustained correction like 2008 or is a blip like 2022. But given the trajectory of listings and inventory, it seems like more value declines are coming.
1) We have to be careful not to overanalyze one month of data. However, to see 60%+ of US counties recording a decline on Zillow's home value index suggests something big could be happening.
2) The last time this happened it was a bit of a head fake, in 2022, when 77% of counties experienced a decline in September 2022.
This was right after the Fed raised interest rates, and there was a short-term dislocation in the market where sellers panicked and cut prices. Because they feared an economic recession was imminent.
That recession didn't happen, and prices bounced back.
1) What's interesting about this house is that the investor, a Blackstone-owned entity, purchased it for $550k in April 2022.
And then turned around and tried to sell it two years later. Listing for $529k in April 2024.
The house sat on the market for a year, and they incrementally lowered the price until finally it sold.
2) This does not appear to be a Hurricane-damaged property, as they had already cut the price down to $431k (22% loss from purchase) before the hurricanes hit.
After the hurricane hit, the price went down another $40k (7%).
The U.S. is in the midst of a severe demographic collapse.
Births are plummeting, deaths are rising, and our organic population growth is down 72% over the last 15 years.
Back in 2008, the U.S. Experienced:
4.31 million births 👶
2.44 million deaths 💀
1.87 million organic growth
Fast forward to 2024, and the figures are:
3.61 million births
3.09 million deaths
520,000 organic growth
That 520,000 organic growth figure is a mere 0.15% of the U.S. population, meaning we basically have no more growth from natural means (Births-Deaths).
Not good for the housing market or the economy, and a serious issue that needs more attention.
1) Here's a potentially better way to visualize this: the natural increase in the population as a % of total population.
In 2024, the natural increase fell to only 0.15% growth.
Back in 2008, it was at 0.62% growth.
2) The basic idea here is that the U.S. isn't growing anymore internally. The population has aged to a point where deaths are surging (+25% since 2008), while the same aging has reduced the number of births (-16%).
Some younger people also put off forming families, further constraining the birth rate.