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Stay Stax

Market thesis

The easy STR era is over. The edge moved to commercial and mid-term.

Saturation and residential-targeted regulation have compressed the amateur advantage in short-term rentals. The durable demand — and the capital — is moving to commercial and mixed-use space and to mid-term and corporate stays. This is Stay Stax's reading of the evidence, with every number sourced and dated below.

Headline anchors: a ~$72B U.S. short-term-rental market and a ~$74B mid-term market. Figures are facts unless labeled a projection.

See the product side of this thesis: the Permission Layer →

Act 1 — Saturation eroded the easy edge

Stay Stax's view: the category filled in. When supply grows this much faster than it did five years ago, the amateur advantage — just list it and win — is gone. This is not a collapse: in 2025 supply growth actually cooled below demand. The market is simply tighter and more competitive, and winning now takes underwriting discipline rather than good timing.

  • +62% U.S. active Airbnb listings since 2020

    Hostfully via Ensoconnect · as of 2025-12

  • +53% North American listings, 2022–2024

    Lighthouse · as of 2025-03

  • 2025: supply ~+4.7% vs demand ~+7%

    AirDNA · as of 2025-02

Act 2 — Regulation is aimed at the residential model

Our read: the rules that have bitten hardest target one specific thing — whole-home, non-owner-occupied short-term rentals in residential zones. The pattern is city-by-city rather than federal, which is exactly the terrain Stay Stax's compliance and Watchtower layer is built to navigate.

  • NYC registered STR listings: ~38,000 (early 2023) → ~3,000 (mid-2025)

    NYC Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement / Wikipedia · as of 2025

  • Dallas banned STRs in single-family zones (2023); currently enjoined

    Minut · as of 2026-01

  • Houston Ordinance 2025-322 effective Jan 1, 2026

    Awning · as of 2026-04

  • Texas has no statewide STR preemption — city-by-city

    Houfy · as of 2026

Act 3 — The market moved to commercial and mid-term

Stay Stax's view: durable demand has shifted toward longer, employer-backed stays and toward commercial and mixed-use space — often in zones and stay-lengths that sit outside residential STR bans. The economics tend to be better and the demand is growing faster. This edge is real, but it is not universal.

Honest caveat

The commercial edge must be verified jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Some cities are beginning to restrict commercial STRs too:

  • New Orleans (late 2025) restricting commercial STRs in commercial/mixed-use zones

    Service1st RE · as of 2025-11

Act 4 — Institutional capital is following

Our read: professional capital is arriving, and it underwrites conservatively and operates at scale. The edge now goes to operators who screen like institutions do — which is exactly what Stay Stax puts in a solo or small operator's hands.

Built for where the market is going.

This is why Stay Stax targets commercial and mixed-use units and mid-term and corporate models, and why it screens every deal with the same discipline an institution would — effective rent after concessions, forward pacing, a conservative survival case, profit target, payback, and compliance gates that must all pass. We built it for where the market is going, not where it was.

Start screening deals

Sources & as-of dates

Every figure on this page is rendered from a sourced config. Projections are labeled; the institutional-ownership figure is an industry projection from a firm that sells STR funds and is flagged as such.

  1. +62% U.S. active Airbnb listings since 2020 — Hostfully via Ensoconnect (2025-12)
  2. +53% North American listings, 2022–2024 — Lighthouse (2025-03)
  3. 2025: supply ~+4.7% vs demand ~+7% — AirDNA (2025-02)
  4. NYC registered STR listings: ~38,000 (early 2023) → ~3,000 (mid-2025) — NYC Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement / Wikipedia (2025)
  5. Dallas banned STRs in single-family zones (2023); currently enjoined — Minut (2026-01)
  6. Houston Ordinance 2025-322 effective Jan 1, 2026 — Awning (2026-04)
  7. Texas has no statewide STR preemption — city-by-city — Houfy (2026)
  8. 28+ day bookings +136% 2019→2025 (~20M→46M nights), outpacing STR — AirDNA & Furnished Finder via AvenueWest (2026-02)
  9. Mid-term rental market ~$74B (2024) → ~$146B (2033), ~7.8% CAGR — Growth Market Reports (2025-09, Projected)
  10. U.S. serviced-apartment segment $13.8B (2024) → $44B (2033) — CHPA proxy via CHS (2026-01, Projected)
  11. Corporate housing rents 2–3x unfurnished; ~99-night avg stay — CHPA / AvenueWest (2026)
  12. U.S. STR market ~$72B (2025), ~7.4% CAGR 2026–2030 — Lodgify / Grand View (2026-03, Projected)
  13. New Orleans (late 2025) restricting commercial STRs in commercial/mixed-use zones — Service1st RE (2025-11)
  14. STR revenue projected ~$500B globally by 2030; institutional ownership <1% today — Investment Grade STR (2024-03, Industry projection — promotional source)
  15. AvantStay $500M asset vehicle; Evolve $100M raise (Durable Capital) — PE Insights (2024)
  16. Corporate travel spending $1.3T (2023) — GBTA via Market Data Forecast (2026-05)
  17. NYC office-to-resi reforms unlock 136M+ sq ft of convertible space — NYC Dept of City Planning via Moshes Law (2026-03)
  18. Mortgage rates expected low-to-mid 6% in 2026 — AP News via AvenueWest (2025-12, Projected)