Seattle edges ahead of Washington Dc on higher occupancy (54% vs 48%), stronger RevPAR (£41 vs £34).
Head-to-head metrics
| Seattle | Washington Dc | |
|---|---|---|
| Median occupancy | 54% | 48% |
| Median daily rate | £115 | £97 |
| Median RevPAR | £41 | £34 |
| Active listings | 5,378 | 4,576 |
| YoY occupancy | — | +6.9 pts |
| YoY daily rate | — | -5.4% |
| Regulation risk | — | — |
| Annual night cap | None | None |
| License required | No | No |
Full analysis: Seattle vs Washington Dc
On the money side of this comparison — what a listing actually earns against the nights it has available — Seattle finishes clearly ahead of Washington Dc. Seattle turns its rate and occupancy into £41 per available night against £34 in Washington Dc, a 20.7% edge on the only yield figure that nets the empty nights out. Seattle's listings run at 54% occupancy against 48% in Washington Dc, worth 6 extra points of booked calendar every year. Those gaps are wide enough to survive a normal year's variance.
Seattle takes both halves of the yield equation, which is less common than it sounds. It charges more per night — £115 against £97 — and still fills more of the year, 54% against 48%. 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 £41 against £34.
That verdict needs a caveat, because Washington Dc is not simply the weaker market of the two. Washington Dc sits at the cheaper end at £97 a night against £115, which lowers the bar for filling shoulder-season dates and usually tracks a lower purchase price too. Its strongest submarket, West End, Foggy Bottom, GWU, clears £89 RevPAR on its own — city medians hide that kind of spread. If your model leans on nightly rate rather than volume, the ordering above can reasonably flip.
Neither Seattle nor Washington Dc 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. Seattle peaks in September at 58.2% and bottoms in December at 31.5%; Washington Dc runs from 52.9% in September down to 26.3% 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. Seattle suits buyers who want a conventional, lightly regulated entry. Washington Dc 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 2025-09, filtered to listings with at least one booking in the last twelve months. Occupancy medians are drawn from 2,083 active Seattle listings and 1,995 in Washington Dc.
Frequently asked questions
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