San Francisco edges ahead of Rochester on higher occupancy (36.2% vs 21.9%), stronger RevPAR (£75 vs £26).
Head-to-head metrics
| Rochester | San Francisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 21.9% | 36.2% |
| Median daily rate | £124 | £194 |
| Median RevPAR | £26 | £75 |
| Active listings | 742 | 4,543 |
| YoY occupancy | +0.5 pts | +3 pts |
| YoY daily rate | +59.7% | +60.8% |
| Regulation risk | — | high |
| Annual night cap | None | 90 |
| License required | No | Yes |
Full analysis: Rochester vs San Francisco
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — San Francisco finishes decisively ahead of Rochester. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 187.5% higher in San Francisco: £75 against £26. San Francisco sells 14.3 more points of its calendar — 36.2% median occupancy against 21.9% in Rochester. That is not a rounding difference, and it compounds over a hold period.
San Francisco takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £194 against £124 — and still fills more of the year, 36.2% against 21.9%. 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 £75 against £26.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Rochester is not simply the weaker market of the two. Rochester is the less crowded of the two — 742 active listings to 4,543 — so a well-run property has fewer near-identical rivals to out-rank. Rochester sits at the cheaper end at £124 a night against £194, 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.
We hold a verified regulation record for only one side of this pairing. San Francisco caps entire-home letting at 90 nights a year and requires a licence, on a high risk rating. Rochester should be read as unverified rather than unregulated: check the local authority's own register before you underwrite anything there.
The two calendars also behave differently. Rochester peaks in September at 51.4% and bottoms in February at 21.5%; San Francisco runs from 67.4% in September down to 39.8% 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. Rochester suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. San Francisco suits an owner who expects to use the property personally for part of the year, or to run a hybrid calendar around the 90-night ceiling. It is also the momentum side of this pair. 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 742 active Rochester listings and 4,543 in San Francisco.
Frequently asked questions
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