Chicago edges ahead of Dallas on higher occupancy (54% vs 42%), stronger RevPAR (£36 vs £27).
Head-to-head metrics
| Chicago | Dallas | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 54% | 42% |
| Median daily rate | £111 | £99 |
| Median RevPAR | £36 | £27 |
| Active listings | 6,086 | 4,435 |
| YoY occupancy | — | +17.3 pts |
| YoY daily rate | — | +13.6% |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Chicago vs Dallas
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — Chicago finishes decisively ahead of Dallas. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 30.8% higher in Chicago: £36 against £27. Chicago sells 12 more points of its calendar — 54% median occupancy against 42% in Dallas. That is not a rounding difference, and it compounds over a hold period.
Chicago takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £111 against £99 — and still fills more of the year, 54% against 42%. A market that leads on price and utilisation at once is normally one where demand has outrun supply, rather than one where hosts are discounting to keep the calendar busy. RevPAR reflects the double advantage at £36 against £27.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Dallas is not simply the weaker market of the two. Dallas is the less crowded of the two — 4,435 active listings to 6,086 — so a well-run property has fewer near-identical rivals to out-rank. Dallas sits at the cheaper end at £99 a night against £111, which lowers the bar for filling shoulder-season dates and usually tracks a lower purchase price too. If your model leans on that dimension, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither Chicago nor Dallas currently has a verified short-term rental regulation record in our register, so the comparison above is a yield comparison only. Regulation is the single largest source of downside in this asset class — an unverified market is an unpriced risk, not an absent one.
The two calendars also behave differently. Chicago peaks in September at 51.4% and bottoms in February at 25.2%; Dallas runs from 45.4% in November down to 21.4% in February. Both swing by a similar amount across the year, so neither offers meaningfully steadier cash flow than the other.
Who each suits, then. Chicago suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. Dallas answers to the same regulatory profile, so the split between them is operational rather than legal. Every figure above comes from the same Inside Airbnb snapshot pipeline on both sides, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 2,560 active Chicago listings and 2,367 in Dallas.
Frequently asked questions
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