Seattle edges ahead of San Mateo County on higher occupancy (54% vs 36%), stronger RevPAR (£41 vs £32).
Head-to-head metrics
| San Mateo County | Seattle | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 36% | 54% |
| Median daily rate | £126 | £115 |
| Median RevPAR | £32 | £41 |
| Active listings | 2,302 | 5,378 |
| YoY occupancy | +9.7 pts | — |
| YoY daily rate | +0.6% | — |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: San Mateo County vs Seattle
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — Seattle finishes decisively ahead of San Mateo County. Revenue per available night — rate and occupancy combined, the figure that actually reaches an owner — is 27.9% higher in Seattle: £41 against £32. Seattle sells 18 more points of its calendar — 54% median occupancy against 36% in San Mateo County. That is not a rounding difference, and it compounds over a hold period.
The two markets reach their revenue by different routes, which is what makes this pairing worth reading rather than just tabulating. San Mateo County is the rate market: £126 a night against £115, some 9.7% more, but it converts fewer of those nights at 36% occupancy. Seattle is the volume market, filling 54% of its calendar at a lower headline price. Revenue per available night settles it: £41 in Seattle against £32. Rate is what you advertise; RevPAR is what you bank.
That verdict needs a caveat, because San Mateo County is not simply the weaker market of the two. San Mateo County prices modestly above Seattle — £126 a night to £115, about 9.7%. San Mateo County is the less crowded of the two — 2,302 active listings to 5,378 — so a well-run property has fewer near-identical rivals to out-rank. If your model leans on nightly rate rather than volume, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither San Mateo County nor Seattle 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. San Mateo County peaks in September at 55.7% and bottoms in February at 30.8%; Seattle runs from 58.2% in September down to 31.5% in December. Both swing by a similar amount across the year, so neither offers meaningfully steadier cash flow than the other.
Who each suits, then. San Mateo County suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry and who can hold rate through the shoulder season rather than discounting to fill the calendar. Seattle answers to the same regulatory profile, so the split between them is operational rather than legal: it is the market for an owner whose economics survive high turnover — more bookings, more cleans, more guest contact per pound of revenue. Every figure above comes from the same Inside Airbnb snapshot pipeline on both sides, dated 2025-09, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 1,249 active San Mateo County listings and 2,083 in Seattle.
Frequently asked questions
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