DwellSignal
DwellSignal blog

Short-term rental markets, measured

Legality by city, honest revenue math with sample sizes, weekly movers, and the financing questions no data company answers. Every post shows its work.

27%of the next 30 nights already taken, at a one-night and a three-night minimum alike
Operating the asset

Minimum-night rules and the next 30 days

On 29,000 entire homes, a one-night minimum and a three-night minimum show the same share of the coming month already taken. Longer rules are too thin in the data to call. A null result, with the sample.

September 4, 20262 min readdata as of 2026-08-22
54%of active listings belong to hosts running three or more
Market movers and reports

The professional-host takeover, by market

Across 483,048 active entire-home and room listings in our dataset, 54% belong to hosts running three or more, and 33% to hosts running ten or more. Here is where the professionals hold the supply, and where the single-listing host still does.

September 3, 20262 min readdata as of 2026-08-22
40 citiespermit fees quoted as each ordinance writes them
Legality and rules

What a short-term rental permit actually costs in 40 cities

The permit and registration fees 40 cities publish for short-term rentals, quoted as written in each ordinance or fee schedule, with the source beside every figure.

September 2, 20262 min readdata as of 2026-09-01
6 of 15highest-rate markets that are also among the highest-earning
Honest revenue math

Nightly rate versus revenue: why the priciest markets are rarely the best-earning

Across 220 metros with a served revenue figure, the rank correlation between median nightly rate and median annual revenue is 0.83. Only 6 of the fifteen highest-rate markets are among the fifteen highest-earning.

August 31, 20262 min readdata as of 2026-08-22
11% to 94%share of listings matched to a permit, St. Petersburg to Nashville
Legality and rules

Where the fewest listings match a permit

All 41 sub-markets where we hold a usable permit registry and at least 200 entire-home listings, ranked by the share of listings that match a permit, from 11% in St. Petersburg to 94% in Nashville.

August 28, 20262 min readdata as of 2026-08-22
120usable public permit registries matched to listings
Legality and rules

How we match permits to listings

The rule that links a public short-term rental registry to a listing, the numbers it produces today across 120 usable registries, and the false zeros we caught in our own data this week.

August 26, 20265 min readdata as of 2026-08-22
$417,000the median revenue two houses produced before the gate stopped it
Honest revenue math

When we refuse to show a number

Indio, California served a $417,000 median revenue built from two houses. Here is the gate that stopped it, what it withheld across the country, and why a blank beats a wrong figure.

August 24, 20262 min readdata as of 2026-08-22
179%revenue per available night overstated in the one peer-reviewed test
Honest revenue math

Why the number you see on AirDNA is too high

The one peer-reviewed measurement of vendor short-term rental data found occupancy overstated by 60% and revenue per available night by 179%. The cause is definitional, and here is how we define ours.

August 11, 20264 min read
Every figuremeasured, modeled or withheld, never guessed
Methodology

How we count

The definitions behind every DwellSignal number, what measured and modeled mean on a page, and where a figure is withheld rather than guessed.

August 6, 20262 min read
Newsletter

Movers, rule changes, and the numbers behind them

One email a week. Withheld figures included.