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.
Blackstone just sold this house in Florida at a $130k loss.
They bought it at peak of bubble in 2022 to rent it out.
But renting it was harder than expected. So they liquidated the property.
Given that Florida is in a housing correction, Blackstone had to cut the price to $360,000 from their original acquisition of $490,000 (-27% loss).
New buyers ended up getting a 4x3, 2,200 SF home built in 2020 for $360,000. In a good neighborhood.
Not bad.
1) A couple notes on this listing:
Blackstone owned it through their subsidiary entity SFR Acquisitions 2, LLC. Through a company called Home Partners of America, who Blackstone acquired in 2021.
Home Partners of America operated a "rent to own" model. And bought houses, rented them to people, with the idea that the renter could eventually buy.
I guess that business model didn't work out. So it looks like Blackstone is liquidating a large portion of the Home Partners portfolio, especially in Florida.
2) This house is located in an affluent suburb north of Tampa. Where the median income is over $100,000. And where the schools are pretty decent.
I toured the neighborhood a couple months ago and was surprised to find that there were no buyers at the reduced price (it was listed around $410k at the time).
4/5 times, there was a big recession, with a high unemployment rate. In 2022 it didn't happen.
What does this mean for economy heading into 2025? Are home builders signaling something regarding over supply and capacity that could flip into an economic downturn?
1) This data is pretty alarming to me. Home builder months of supply today is 8.96 months.
That's the 5th highest level ever.
This data comes from the US Census Bureau, and takes the total new homes for sale and divides by the sales pace.
It's the trailing 3-month average.
2) For perspective - the long-term average months of supply since 1964 is 6.0.
So supply today is almost 50% higher than normal.
Indicating that builders are flooding the market with new homes at a time when demand is tepid.
Probably my favorite housing market graph right now.
Orange line is inventory levels in Florida & Texas, combined.
Blue line is inventory level across entire Northeast US.
In Texas and Florida, there are 261,000 active listings on the market. 207% higher than the level in Northeast, which covers 9 states.
Prior to pandemic, these regions were the same.
Highlights the very bifurcated nature of this housing market. The downturn is happening in TX/FL, but we are still suffering a historic inventory shortage in the Northeast.
1) I'm shocked at how few people actually know this in real estate circles.
In my mind, it's the biggest story of the housing market.
The boomtown areas during the pandemic are falling fast. While the cold weather climates that everyone left during pandemic are still appreciating.
2) I have some theories on why this trend is underreported.
I suspect it's because many real estate outlets don't want to admit the TX/FL dominos have fallen.
As those are the states with the most realtors, investors, wholesalers, and people who buy housing market-related products and services.
With domestic migration plunging 50% from the pandemic peak.
In 2022, 849,000 net people moved in.
In 2024, 411,000 net people moved in.
Basically back to pre-pandemic levels. If these trends hold, there will likely be continued issues in Sun Belt housing markets that relied on the big pandemic influx to fuel price growth.
1) Things look even worse when you consider the domestic migration levels relative to population size.
The 411,000 net people who moved South in 2024 were a mere 0.32% of the region's 132 million people.
Accounting for one of the lowest domestic migration growth rate in the last decade.
2) To be clear: people are still moving into the South. There is still positive growth occurring. But that growth is at unimpressive levels compared to recent history, and compared to the how expensive Sun Belt housing markets have become.