Land Of 9,000 Airbnbs: Northern Michigan's Short-Term Rental Market, By The Numbers

Short-term rentals (STRs) have been blamed for dwindling housing stock and skyrocketing real estate prices in northern Michigan, and local units of government have had to contend with the question of how to regulate them. But how many STRs does the region actually have? The Ticker sat down with Bram Gallagher, director of economics and forecasting for the STR data tracking company AirDNA, to crunch the numbers.

Launched in 2015, AirDNA claims to provide “the most accurate and comprehensive vacation rental data and analytics in the world.” Using scraped data from popular STR services like Airbnb and VRBO, as well as “partner data” from individual STR hosts, property managers, and channel managers, AirDNA is able to keep close tabs on listing numbers, vacation rental revenues, occupancy rates, and other key STR data. Worldwide, AirDNA’s data is used by everyone from journalists to tourism professionals to actual vacation rental hosts, to gain a better understanding of the STR market. Locally, Traverse City Tourism relies on the company’s analytics to monitor where and how vacation rentals are figuring into the regional tourism scene.

Based on a request from The Ticker, Gallagher compiled an exhaustive STR report for northern Michigan’s “north coast” market (pictured). That region spans from Benzie and Leelanau counties in the west and then runs northeast through Grand Traverse and Antrim, up into Charlevoix, Emmet, Cheboygan, and Presque Isle counties, all along the Lake Michigan and Lake Huron coasts. While the territory reaches beyond what is typically considered the Grand Traverse region, the data still offers compelling snapshot of STR growth in the area.

Here are a few by-the-numbers takeaways:

9,130: The number of available STR listings across the north coast market in August of this year. STR listing numbers fluctuate significantly throughout the year, but typically peak in August or September, based on monthly AirDNA data dating back to January 2021. In 2025, listing numbers were at their lowest in February (6,142), spiked to about 8,300 in May, and then hovered around the 9,000 mark for the duration of the peak summer tourism season.

What type of real estate is being taken off the market by STRs? AirDNA data shows that 1,687 of the available listings were one-bedroom units, 2,417 were two-bedrooms, 2,235 were three-bedrooms, 1,345 were four-bedrooms, 584 were five-bedrooms, 239 had six bedrooms or more, another 239 were individual rooms inside occupied homes, and 384 were studio apartments. As the image provided by AirDNA shows, the vast majority of the region's STR listings are homes, not apartments.

40%: The share of local STRs available for rental year-round. “That means the other 60 percent are occupied or unavailable some part of the year,” Gallagher says. “That kind of split happens quite frequently in markets like yours. People will have second homes, will have vacation homes or lake houses, and they will use them for some part of the year.”

39.7%: The growth of STR listings in northern Michigan between August 2021 – when AirDNA tabulated 6,534 listings across the north coast – and August 2025.

While that increase is substantial, Gallagher notes that growth in the local market has largely plateaued in recent years. Looking at the month of August, STR supply jumped about 1,000 units per year from 2021 through 2023, but only grew by about 500 listings from 2023 to 2024. The increase from August 2024 to August 2025 was only 113 units.

“I think some of the regulations that that are going into effect in the Traverse City area are having some effect,” Gallagher says. “I say that because the number of individual listings have really leveled off since 2024. This year, we are seeing very, very little supply growth – and in fact, during the off season, we actually saw a little bit of supply shrink in this area.”

Take February: In 2024, that month saw 6,276 STR listings in the north coast market; this February, the number dropped to 6,142 – about a 2.1 percent decline.

220,617: The number of available listing nights in August of this year across the north coast STR listings – the highest for any month on record.

How does that number compare to the capacity provided by the local hotel market? While not representative of the total north coast market AirDNA is tracking, Traverse City Tourism typically reports about 5,000 guest rooms in the Grand Traverse region. 5,000 hotel rooms would equate to 155,000 room nights for the month of August.

72.3%: The occupancy rate for August 2025 across all the available listing nights in the north coast STR market, meaning 159,545 of the available 220,617 listing nights were sold. Occupancy rates for 2025 range from 81.1 percent in July (when STR hosts successfully sold 176,491 of the available 212,290 listing nights) to 30.2 percent in March (which saw 30,404 listing nights booked out of the available 100,620).

Notably, that July number marks the highest level of demand ever recorded for STRs in northern Michigan, up from the previous peak of 167,077 booked listing nights in July 2024. Prior to last July, no month had ever surpassed 150,000 listing nights sold for the north coast STR market.

$445.91: The average daily rate (ADR) to rent out an STR in the north coast market in July of this year – also an all-time high for the north coast market.

“That’s a big ADR boost, compared to what your region has seen in the past,” Gallagher notes. The previous ADR peak was $412.54, in July 2024. Wind back the clock to the beginning of 2021, and the ADR was $300. “That means the bottom line is going up for these folks [who own STRs],” Gallagher adds. “As your region sees more regulations, and as you see more people demanding these rooms, you’re going to see more compression, higher occupancies, and higher prices as a result of that.”