Airbnb Short term Rental Market Data Analysis
San Diego, California
Updated on Sep 2026San Diego offers reliable year-round weather and consistent leisure demand, and a licence-cap system limits how much whole-home supply can operate. That is an advantage for incumbents - and a trap for buyers, because licences do not transfer with the property.
Annual Revenue
$57.4K
Occupancy Rate
50%
Average Daily Rate
$378
Total Active Listings
15,961
Market averages, not top-quartile figures. Year-on-year: Revenue −3.7%, ADR −7.5% and RevPAR −7.4% year-on-year.
Run a complete market analysis for last 24 months. Data trends covering Revenue, Average Daily Rate, RevPAR, Occupancy, Booking lead time, length of stay and more. Uncover critical data insights around Booking Patterns, Seasonality Map, Pricing trends and more
Occupancy Overview
Booking Pattern
Seasonality Map
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Regulations
San Diego licenses short-term rentals through four tiers, and two of them are close to full based on the city's own count from late August 2026. Tier 1 (20 days a year or less) and Tier 2 (home sharing, host lives on-site) have no caps. Tier 3, whole-home rentals outside Mission Beach, is capped at 1% of the city's housing stock and had 808 licenses left. Tier 4, whole-home in Mission Beach specifically, is capped at 30% of that neighborhood's housing and is already full, with the waitlist closed. A host can hold only one license and run only one STRO property at a time, which shuts the door on anyone trying to operate multiple whole-home listings under one name. Tier 3 and 4 licenses come with a use-it-or-lose-it rule: the property has to actually rent for 90 or more days a year, tracked through mandatory quarterly reports, or the license is at risk. ADUs can't be used for STRs at all, aside from a narrow exception for units permitted before October 2017. Fees range from $226 for Tier 1 up to $1,170 for Tier 3 or 4, and Tier 3/4 rentals require a two-night minimum stay.
Consultant’s take on San Diego Market
Superior execution carries a premium here, but the licence caps mean access to the market is the real constraint, not demand.
- • The gap: Median annual revenue sits near USD 57.4K at a USD 378 average daily rate, while top-quartile coastal listings clear it by a wide margin on rate rather than occupancy.
- • How the gap is built: Distance from the coast is the sharpest driver of rate, and the summer peak plus Comic-Con week let top listings push ADR well above the median. With Tier 3 licences nearly full and Tier 4 in Mission Beach already closed, incumbent licensed listings face limited new competition.
- • What it is worth to you: Reaching See more
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