- Phoenix Airbnb hosts were expecting to be fully booked over Super Bowl weekend.
- A manager of 95 properties said he's half booked and has cut one nightly price from $1,200 to $500.
- Some US spots are experiencing a glut of short-term rentals that can hurt hosts' booking calendars.
It should've been the busiest weekend in years for Phoenix's Airbnb hosts.
But now short-term-rental owners are scrambling to fill empty units with out-of-town revelers ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Months ago, Ric Kenworthy, who manages 95 properties in the Phoenix area through his company Old Town Rental, anticipated all of them would be rented out ahead of the big game. Now, two days before kickoff, occupancy sits at just 45%.
Take a prime three-bedroom two-bathroom home that Kenworthy manages in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix that actively prepped for a wave of Super Bowl visitors. Initially, he thought he could fetch $1,200 a night with a five-night minimum. Now, he's cut the rate down to $500 a night with a two-night minimum — and it's still not booked.
"It's mind-boggling at this point," Kenworthy told Insider.
The Super Bowl letdown comes as hosts in some areas complain that bookings have slowed, Twitter chatters of an "Airbnbust," and market data shows an increased number of Airbnbs nationwide that has outpaced increases in traveler demand. Some hosts are responding by switching to medium- or long-term rentals or prioritizing direct bookings. Analytics site AirDNA even predicts national revenue will drop slightly for hosts across the country in 2023 compared to previous years.
As of Thursday, only 52% of available Phoenix rentals were booked, according to AirDNA data. Two of the last host cities, Los Angeles and Miami, saw over 80% of all available short-term rentals booked for their game weekends, AirDNA found. A New York Times headline said Phoenix's Super-Bowl short-term-rental market was a "fumble."
It's not for a lack of travelers, but instead a signal of oversupply. More than 1 million people are expected to descend on Phoenix ahead of the Super Bowl, according to the local Fox station, but visitors have more rentals to choose from than ever before. AirDNA found that between February 2017 and January 2023, Airbnb and VRBO listings in Phoenix more than quadrupled from 5,000 to 21,000. A request for comment from Airbnb was not immediately returned on Friday.
There are even signs of a recent surge in listings in response to the Super Bowl hype.
Kenworthy said an Airbnb representative told him that over 2,200 new listings came online in the last two months, which Kenworthy believes stem mostly from locals who don't typically rent their spaces but were looking to "ride the wave" of game weekend.
Brian Harvey, a director at Rate Simple Mortgage who lends to and mentors short-term-rental investors in Phoenix, said his clients have faced similar bookings slowdowns.
One of them, he explained, has a three-bedroom two-bathroom unit close to much of the weekend's festivities. Guests initially booked it for $925 a night, but they canceled this week, saying they found a cheaper deal nearby. Now, the house costs just $300 a night — and is still available.
In 2015, the last time Phoenix hosted the Super Bowl, Airbnb hosts collectively earned more than $1.1 million, the short-term rental giant told local newspaper The Arizona Republic last year. Harvey said many locals were eager to get in on the action this time.
In November 2022, Harvey added, one of his clients bought a 1,600-square-foot, three-bedroom home about 10 miles from the stadium for $388,000. The client anticipated he'd be renting it out for $1,000 per night, but it's sitting empty this weekend.
While Phoenix will continue to be a popular vacation spot, Harvey predicts the Super Bowl disappointment will motivate some owners to sell their short-term-rental properties.
"We'll see some of these people exit," he told Insider. "I'm sure of it."