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.
Mortgage demand is down 50% from the same week in 2019.
No post-election bounce.
Sellers better start cutting prices or else it's going to be a long winter.
1) To put things in perspective: the number of mortgage purchase applications for the week ending November 20th was:
49.7% below the same week in 2019
55.2% below 2020
51.9% below 2021
22.0% below 2022
1.7% below 2023
2) Here's the mortgage application table so you can see the data more clearly.
The "Mtg App Index" is derived from the Mortgage Bankers Association, and measures the seasonally-adjusted rate of mortgage purchase applications submitted each week.
The Austin, TX rental market is collapsing before our eyes.
With the median apartment rent dropping 15% over the last 2+ years.
The vacancies have skyrocketed. Rental concessions are everywhere.
Rents are now only 9.8% higher than pre-pandemic. Meaning that many Austin landlords are losing money, as property taxes, insurance, and interest costs are way higher.
(This is a harsh lesson on the boom/bust cycle in real estate for many developers and investors who bought into Austin during the boom. Read more below to see how this happened.)
1) Austin's rental market is being dragged down by dueling forces right now: reduced demand combined with a deluge of new supply.
At the peak in 2022, apartment developers in Austin pulled permits for over 25,000 multifamily units in a year.
And now those permits are turning into completed units and sitting vacant, forcing landlords to do big rent reductions.
2) You can see this reality expressed in vacancy rate statistics from Apartment list.
At the height of the pandemic in Sept 2021, Austin's rental vacancy rate was only 3.9%.
Now it's 9.5% The highest level going back 7 years.
September 2022: $2,419/month
November 2024: $1,969/month
19% cut in two years. Owner is Tricon Residential, who is owned by Blackstone.
How far will these rents drop? And at what point does Blackstone liquidate due to negative cash flow?
1) Digging into the proforma on this rental listing, it doesn't look good.
At current asking rent of $1,969 month, Tricon will net $23,628 in gross rent.
After deducting expenses, including a massive $6,880 annual tax bill, they only net $10,163 in income.
2) While we don't know the exact figures on their debt, it's likely they purchased the house for around $375,000 from Meritage homes in 2022. Maybe a bit higher or a bit lower.
Assuming 70% leverage, that's $263,000 in mortgage debt assigned to this property.
Which comes out to $15,094 annual interest at a 5.75% rate.
Meaning that Blackstone/Tricon is likely losing around $5,000 per year on this property.