Short-term rental

A short-term rental year, measured in nights

A short-term rental month can look excellent and still be a bad month. The platform report gives you payouts, the calendar gives you nights, and neither one tells you what you kept — or what you gave up on the nights you never sold.

Here is a full year worked through, and the three numbers that describe it.

Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR

Three units, offered for 1,095 nights across the year, of which 692 sold.

Occupancy — 63.20%. 692 divided by 1,095. Nights sold out of nights you offered, which is not the same as nights in the month: a unit you took off the calendar was never available to sell.
ADR — $157. Average rate per night you actually sold. It rewards pricing high, and it says nothing about the nights you did not sell.
RevPAR — $99. The same revenue, spread over every night you offered. $157 becomes $99 because 36.80% of the calendar stayed empty.

RevPAR is the one to watch, and the reason is in the gap between those two figures: it is the only one of the three that a night you never sold can hurt. ADR alone rewards you for pricing high and staying empty.

From what the guest paid to what you kept

Four steps, and each one takes a bite that the platform report shows separately or not at all.

Everything you charged — $121,360. $108,305 of accommodation revenue, $11,070 of cleaning fees collected and $1,985 of other income.
Platform fees — $16,712. That is 13.77% of everything you charged, not of the nightly rate alone, which is why the percentage on your statement rarely matches the one in your head.
After platform fees — $104,648.
Running costs — $23,100. Leaving $81,548 kept from the year.

Cap rate calculator — see what a property earns before the mortgage payment. Free.

Was it worth it against a long lease?

The same three units on a long lease, at the rents you would have charged and carrying their own costs, would have kept $38,400. Short-term kept $81,548. The difference is $43,148 in favor of short-term.

And then the honest part: neither side counts your hours, and short-term takes many more of them. Turnovers, messages, cleaners, the listing, the pricing. That comparison is a measurement, not a recommendation, and the hours are yours to value.

The other worked examples

Each file on this site carries a worked example already loaded, and each one has its arithmetic written out in full:

How to run a duplex through a spreadsheet — one property, worked from the six numbers you type down to the four that decide.
Break-even rent calculator — run your own numbers — break-even rent, and the free first-pass filter.
Where a landlord year actually goes — twelve categories, and what each one took.
A short-term rental year, measured in nights — occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, and what was kept.
Five properties on one page — the portfolio view, and the vacancy column.

The file this comes from

Every figure above is the worked example loaded in the Short-Term Rental Tracker, recalculated from the file: up to three units, twelve months, six numbers copied per unit per month off your own platform report. Nothing imports and nothing syncs — which is also why it works the same whether you list on one platform or four.

See the Short-Term Rental Tracker
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This template is a calculation tool, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Results are estimates based on the numbers you enter. Verify with a qualified professional before making any purchase, financing, or tax decision.