New York City edges ahead of Newark on higher occupancy (60% vs 30%), stronger RevPAR (£47 vs £16).
Head-to-head metrics
| New York City | Newark | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 60% | 30% |
| Median daily rate | £117 | £77 |
| Median RevPAR | £47 | £16 |
| Active listings | 10,918 | 1,455 |
| YoY occupancy | — | — |
| YoY daily rate | — | — |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: New York City vs Newark
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — New York City finishes decisively ahead of Newark. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 186.1% higher in New York City: £47 against £16. New York City sells 30 more points of its calendar — 60% median occupancy against 30% in Newark. That is not a rounding difference, and it compounds over a hold period.
New York City takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £117 against £77 — and still fills more of the year, 60% against 30%. 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 £47 against £16.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Newark is not simply the weaker market of the two. Newark is the less crowded of the two — 1,455 active listings to 10,918 — so a well-run property has fewer near-identical rivals to out-rank. Newark sits at the cheaper end at £77 a night against £117, 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 New York City nor Newark 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. New York City peaks in November at 67% and bottoms in January at 47.3%; Newark runs from 43.5% in September down to 21.3% 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. New York City suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. Newark 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 3,530 active New York City listings and 818 in Newark.
Frequently asked questions
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