June STR Market Update: World Cup Impact and New Airbnb Discounts

Recording from the Netherlands

Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pad. I have arrived in the Netherlands. I spent the whole week last week driving from the south of Spain all the way to the north of the Netherlands, where I went to university. Today I am going to record an episode with an update about the month of June.

I am actually renting an Airbnb here in the Netherlands for about two months. Something I always recommend every host does is stay at other short-term rentals. You learn a lot from other hosts, and as a business owner, it is very important to understand your customers. The best way to understand your customer is to be a customer yourself. Put yourself in the shoes of an Airbnb guest. You can use that experience to improve what you provide for your own guests.

One thing we have noticed over the last few years is that guests have higher expectations and they complain faster. It is really important to continue to drive a world-class experience. Staying at other short rentals is one of the best ways to get inspiration.

June Performance: Freewyld Portfolios Up 22.36%

Of the 75 portfolios we are currently managing, the bulk of our clients are in the US and Canada, with some in Europe and Australia as well. On comparable units, our year-over-year performance for June stood at 22.36%.

We always look at comparable units when measuring performance. If you double the size of your portfolio and double your revenue, that does not mean you improved performance. It just means you added more units. Make sure you and your team are always measuring year-over-year on comparable listings.

The total revenue we generated for our clients in June was $14,425,000. Last year the result was $11,789,000. We increased revenue by just over $2.5 million for our clients.

World Cup Impact by Market

On average, the markets we manage were up just over 9% in June. However, there was a large discrepancy between markets, and I think one of the main reasons is the World Cup.

In the cities where games happened, we do see an increase for most of those markets. The increase was not nearly as much as anticipated. The gains were driven primarily by higher ADR, not higher occupancy. In fact, in many World Cup markets, occupancy was actually lower. Higher prices scared away regular travelers who were not coming for the games.

A few standouts:

Kansas City outperformed the most of all World Cup cities, up 44% year over year. Dallas was up around 40% in our client markets, with another client in the area seeing the market up around 30%. Miami did well, up 28%. Philadelphia was up around 20%.

Outside the US, Canada was mixed. Some Canadian markets were up around 30%, but others were down. Halifax had a very strong June. Calgary was down almost 20%. In the US, we are also seeing a number of markets down. The area around the Grand Canyon was down about 14%, which is surprising given how many international travelers visit that destination.

Markets being up only 9% on average during the largest sporting event in history, with 48 countries participating, is honestly disappointing. That said, our portfolios outperformed the market by over 13 percentage points.

July Outlook and Booking Window Strategy

As of right now, the markets we are in are up just over 5% year over year for July. Very modest growth. This year is shaping up to be fairly similar to 2025 overall.

Philadelphia is a standout in July, likely because of the 250th anniversary of the United States. Philadelphia is where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and there are a lot of festivities happening there.

Freewyld portfolios are currently pacing 29.8% ahead for July. I expect that number to settle somewhere around 20 to 25% by end of month. The reason we tend to pace far ahead is that we focus on the entire booking window, not just the last few weeks.

A lot of operators spend all their energy on last-minute pricing. Last-minute pricing is fairly simple: set your minimum, apply some discounts in the final two weeks, fill the gaps. But the early part of the booking window is where most operators lose revenue.

People booking three, six, nine months out are often willing to pay a premium. If you are priced too high for that early window, you miss those bookings entirely. Controlling pricing across the full calendar, making sure you are competitive but not overpriced, is where the real performance gap comes from. That is where we generate a significant portion of the additional revenue for our clients.

One thing worth checking right now: look at your August weekday pricing. A lot of hosts set a seasonal profile from Memorial Day all the way to Labor Day. But within that range, there is a real difference once kids go back to school. In many states, kids return to school in the second or third week of August. Weekday demand drops noticeably at that point. Make sure your weekday pricing is competitive for those last few weeks of August.

New Airbnb Discount: Top-Rated Guests

Airbnb just launched a new discount for guests who have at least three reviews and a 4.8 or higher guest rating. The discount is fixed at 15%. You cannot choose the percentage. It is 15% or nothing.

To find it: go to your Airbnb calendar, select an individual listing, and click on Discounts on the right side of your screen. You should see a section called Top Rated Guests below the weekly and monthly discount options.

In return for offering the discount, Airbnb promises more visibility in search results and a badge displayed on your listing. Airbnb does not specify exactly what the visibility boost looks like.

This discount stacks with early bird, length-of-stay, weekly, and monthly discounts. That is important to keep in mind because stacked discounts can bring your effective rate down quickly.

A few thoughts on strategy. You cannot maintain complete price consistency if you turn this on. Guests with qualifying ratings will pay 15% less than everyone else. If you raise your base price by 18% to offset the discount, you are essentially raising prices for everyone else and may price yourself out of the market.

One approach worth considering: raise your Airbnb markup by 5% to 10%, not the full 18%. Qualifying guests still get a real discount compared to your previous pricing. Non-qualifying guests pay a bit more. On average you may come out roughly neutral, but you are effectively rewarding experienced guests, who tend to be lower risk and less likely to leave a four-star review out of confusion about the rating system.

When Airbnb introduces a new feature and wants hosts to use it, they typically reward adoption with visibility. That has generally been true historically. We will discuss this internally with the team and I will give an update on our actual strategy in a future episode.

Mobile-Only Discount

I have also seen reports from other hosts of a new mobile-only discount on Airbnb. I have not seen it in my own account yet, but apparently it has rolled out in some markets. If accurate, Airbnb copied this directly from Booking.com, which has had a 10% mobile-only discount for some time.

This would stack with the top-rated guest discount, early bird, and length-of-stay discounts. OTA discount strategy is becoming a more complex and important part of revenue management. I will likely do a dedicated episode on this in the next couple of months.

Closing

If you are looking for a revenue manager, you can get a free revenue audit at freewyldfoundry.com/get-started. We will create an audit report pointing out where we think you can improve your revenue, and if we believe it is a win-win, we will also make you an offer to work together.

Thanks for listening and we will see you next time.