New York City edges ahead of Newark on higher occupancy (32.9% vs 19.7%), stronger RevPAR (£55 vs £25).
Head-to-head metrics
| New York City | Newark | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 32.9% | 19.7% |
| Median daily rate | £152 | £121 |
| Median RevPAR | £55 | £25 |
| Active listings | 10,670 | 1,313 |
| YoY occupancy | -9.3 pts | -1.7 pts |
| YoY daily rate | +31.5% | +56.6% |
| 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 124% higher in New York City: £55 against £25. New York City sells 13.2 more points of its calendar — 32.9% median occupancy against 19.7% 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 — £152 against £121 — and still fills more of the year, 32.9% against 19.7%. 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 £55 against £25.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Newark is not simply the weaker market of the two. Nightly rates are also climbing faster in Newark, +56.6% over the last year against +31.5% in New York City. The twelve-month direction favours Newark too: occupancy there moved −1.7 points while New York City moved −9.3 points. 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 September at 63.7% and bottoms in February at 38.9%; Newark runs from 41.5% in September down to 22.1% in November. Newark is the steadier of the two at 19.4 points peak-to-trough against 24.8 — easier to underwrite against a mortgage — while New York City 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. New York City suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. It is the contrarian side: buying it means buying a market that has cooled. 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, dated 2026-09, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 10,670 active New York City listings and 1,313 in Newark.
Frequently asked questions
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