With all eyes on the economy and pockets of the U.S. seeing dips in rental bookings, Tuesday morning’s session at this year’s Vacation Rental Data and Revenue Management Conference with Jason Sprenkle had a packed ballroom at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. As the founder and CEO of vacation rental data and benchmarking platform Key Data Dashboard, Sprenkle had the collective insights anxious revenue managers were looking for.

 

Stay Alert

Now is not the time to take your hands off the wheel. This was the message Sprenkle wanted to drive home, and he used the photo of a driver behind the wheel of a Tesla to draw a parallel to his point.

“You can take your hands off the wheel,” said Sprenkle. “But I don’t recommend it. When we hit COVID, the adaptable ones crushed it. We kept saying to increase rates. It’s time to sit up and take the wheel again.”

With the economy teetering on the edge of recession and real estate in an almost anemic state of supply, homeowners have been asking their property managers for any insights about their investments. The same questions are on everyone’s minds, and the data Sprenkle brought to his presentation addressed many of them.

Sprenkle spoke confidently about this being a good time to be in the vacation rental industry. Supply is growing. There are more units in the marketplace. Everything is slightly up and to the right, Sprenkle pointed to a chart showing an upward trend line of properties available year over year.

“We’re doing a lot better than the rest of the economy. I don’t think it’s critical that we know if we are in a recession. We need to know what’s going on so we can speak to it,” Sprenkle explained. “The fed left the money machine on for too long. The market overheated, and supply couldn’t keep up. The reserve jumped in and tried to control liquidity.”

When things get messy, vacation rentals have a huge opportunity to learn from each other. If the economy continues to do what it’s doing, Sprenkle encouraged managers to step up and distinguish themselves.

 

Carry On

The data shows that there has been a steady growth in supply. In fact, in AirDNA’s presentation, they shared that about 50% of our short-term rental inventory came online within the last two and half years. There is a slowdown in housing, both on the market and new construction, he confirmed. Properties are making less return on their investment than several months ago. However, property managers are advised to not obsess too much over what is happening externally.

For example, Key Data tracked a massive pullback in demand recently. RevPAR is coming down for the first time since the company launched. Summer occupancy for 2022 is coming out lower than summer 2019. The slide showing ADR on giant screens flanking the DARM stage looked like the track of a roller coaster ride.

Some data points are starting to return to pre-pandemic patterns. Length of stay is back to normal, and the booking window is returning to normal seasonal fluctuations. Knowing these types of data points can guide revenue managers to better decision-making if they are paying attention.

“Don’t care what supply is doing,” said Sprenkle. “Get your team together, and figure out what you’re going to do about it. If you pull back on rates and your supply drops, you might have to make a change.”

Revenue managers were encouraged to use Key Data to communicate with property owners. Their data can be used to explain what happened with bookings this year, not just locally but across the country.

Trust is a big word when it comes to data, Sprenkle stated. He attributed everyone coming together to make this type of data insight possible. Key Data Dashboard aggregates historical and forward-looking data in real-time to show performance analytics and comparative data.

The theme of coming together as an industry surfaced not only in this presentation but was a common thread throughout this year’s conference overall.