Hawaii vs New York City Airbnb: which market actually pays

NYC's median listing earns $8.3K more per year despite a $60 lower nightly rate. This piece explains why, where each market bites back, and who should still choose Hawaii.

VS

The number that stops most people cold is the nightly rate. Hawaii at $208 looks like it beats New York's $148 by a street. It doesn't — because a listing that sits empty for seven months of the year at a premium rate still loses to one that runs at 60% occupancy year-round, and the median annual revenue figures make that embarrassingly plain: $21.6K in NYC against $13.3K in Hawaii.

What this piece will settle is which market the data actually supports for a buy-to-let investor buying right now, what the regulation picture looks like on both sides, and whether there's any investor profile for whom Hawaii's numbers start to make sense. There is one. It's a narrower profile than the Hawaii marketing would have you believe.

Where the money actually is

NYC's $60 ADR deficit against Hawaii sounds painful until you do the occupancy maths. At 60% occupancy on a 365-day year, a New York listing is generating revenue on roughly 219 nights. Hawaii at 30% manages about 110 nights. Even with Hawaii's higher nightly rate, that gap in active nights is the whole story: NYC produces around $32.4K in gross nightly revenue against Hawaii's $22.9K before you factor in cleaning fees, platform take, or management costs. The $8.3K median revenue gap in the headline figures is, if anything, conservative.

Hawaii's 11.9-point occupancy jump year-on-year is real and worth watching. But 30% is still a low base — it means the market spent the last period recovering from a trough, not entering a boom. NYC's figure has no comparable YoY data in this snapshot, which is the one honest gap here; if New York has softened from a higher peak, the trajectory matters. What the data does show is that NYC's active listing count is less than half Hawaii's at 10,918 versus 22,154, which suggests the supply-side pressure in Hawaii is severe. More listings competing for a smaller occupancy pool is a structural drag, not a blip.

The entire-home share tells a separate story. Hawaii is 94% entire-home listings, NYC just 55%. In New York, nearly half the active market is private rooms — a very different product, at a very different price point, often running in owner-occupied flats. That mix pulls the NYC median down. A whole-home New York listing will outperform that $21.6K median meaningfully. A whole-home Hawaii listing has more room to disappoint it.

The cashflow shape across the year

Hawaii's seasonality is brutal by short-let standards. The spread between peak October at 48% and trough May at 27% is 21 percentage points — you're looking at months where nearly three in four nights go unsold. That creates a cashflow problem that most investors underestimate at the spreadsheet stage: your mortgage, your rates, your management fees and your insurance don't pause in May. A seasonal operator who can genuinely close up and cut costs in the off-months can live with this; a leveraged buyer expecting the rent to cover the debt service through the year almost certainly cannot.

NYC's shape is far more forgiving. Peak November hits 67%, but the floor in January is still 47% — the worst month in New York beats the best month in Hawaii. For a year-round investor who needs consistent income to service a mortgage, that January floor is the number to anchor on, and New York's is nearly twenty points higher than Hawaii's equivalent. If you're running multiple properties and need the portfolio to cashflow as a whole, the NYC profile is simply easier to manage.

Where the rules actually bite

Neither market has a night cap in the data, which removes the single most punishing lever regulators tend to pull — the 90-night annual limit that gutted returns in London and Edinburgh. That's meaningful, and it's the first thing I check on any dashboard. But absence of a night cap is not the same as a permissive environment, and both cities have other friction worth understanding before you buy.

New York's short-let regulation has historically been complex at the building level — co-op and condo boards frequently prohibit short-term letting outright, and Local Law 18, which came into force in late 2023, requires hosts to register and be present during guest stays for listings under 30 days. That registered-host requirement is the reason NYC's entire-home share is only 55% and its active listing count dropped sharply; a lot of whole-home operators simply left the platform. Hawaii's rules sit more at the county and zoning level, varying significantly between Maui, Oahu, and the Big Island — some zones are effectively closed to new short-term rental permits. Neither market is risk-free on regulation, but New York's framework is now at least legible and settled, where Hawaii's is fragmented and still shifting county by county.

The call

NYC is the stronger market for the majority of investors. The occupancy floor is higher, the annual revenue is higher, the listing count is lower, and the regulatory picture — while restrictive — is at least predictable. The $60 ADR premium Hawaii commands is real money, but it doesn't compensate for spending 70% of the year empty at the median. If you're buying a whole-home product in New York and navigating the registration requirement correctly, you're building on a meaningfully stronger cashflow base.

The investor for whom Hawaii still makes sense is a specific one: someone buying at the premium end of the market — a large, high-spec entire-home property in a location with restricted supply, ideally in a county zone that still permits short-term letting — who has the financial cushion to absorb soft months without relying on rental income to cover costs. At $400-plus per night on a well-positioned property, Hawaii's arithmetic can work. At the median, it doesn't. That's the honest hedge. If you're buying at the median or below, the data points one way.

Frequently asked questions

Methodology. Figures are medians across active listings from Inside Airbnb's 2025-09-16 snapshot, refreshed automatically as new snapshots land. The table and chart above always show the latest data; the commentary is re-written when the numbers move materially.