Los Angeles edges ahead of Nashville on higher occupancy (54% vs 48%).
Head-to-head metrics
| Los Angeles | Nashville | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 54% | 48% |
| Median daily rate | £122 | £127 |
| Median RevPAR | £34 | £44 |
| Active listings | 23,969 | 7,697 |
| YoY occupancy | — | +15.1 pts |
| YoY daily rate | — | -6.4% |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Los Angeles vs Nashville
Los Angeles finishes narrowly ahead of Nashville on our composite of occupancy, revenue per available night and regulation risk — and it is the calendar rather than the price tag doing the work. Los Angeles's listings run at 54% occupancy against 48% in Nashville, worth 6 extra points of booked calendar every year. Los Angeles is the deeper market at 23,969 active listings against 7,697, which usually means better comparables going in and a wider buyer pool coming out. The margin is thin enough that a single strong year in Nashville would close it, so treat the ordering as a lean rather than a verdict.
The two markets reach their revenue by different routes, which is what makes this pairing worth reading rather than just tabulating. Nashville is the rate market: £127 a night against £122, some 4.5% more, but it converts fewer of those nights at 48% occupancy. Los Angeles is the volume market, filling 54% of its calendar at a lower headline price. Revenue per available night settles it: £44 in Nashville against £34. Rate is what you advertise; RevPAR is what you bank.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Nashville is not simply the weaker market of the two. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 29.3% higher in Nashville: £44 against £34. Across a full year the median Nashville listing grosses £15,920 against £12,324 in Los Angeles. If your model leans on that dimension, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither Los Angeles nor Nashville 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. Los Angeles peaks in August at 52.2% and bottoms in January at 30.5%; Nashville runs from 50.8% in October down to 19.8% in January. Los Angeles is the steadier of the two at 21.7 points peak-to-trough against 31 — easier to underwrite against a mortgage — while Nashville concentrates its return into a shorter window and rewards operators who price the peak aggressively instead of holding a flat rate all year.
Who each suits, then. Los Angeles suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. Nashville 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 11,708 active Los Angeles listings and 3,438 in Nashville.
Frequently asked questions
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