Bay St. Louis STR Market Report 2026: $25,594, Not a Blend

Most Bay St. Louis listings get marketed as a generic Gulf Coast stay, a pitch that could describe a dozen other towns along the Mississippi Sound. That framing wastes what actually distinguishes this specific driveway: guests who typed Bay St. Louis are searching for Old Town, the harbor, beachfront, or the marina, not a blended coastal average and not a neighboring town's numbers. About 340 active listings sit in this sample, a real but modest sample worth reading with appropriate care rather than treated as a stand-in for the whole Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Typical listings here earned about $25,594 last year from those 340 active rentals, per AirROI's trailing twelve months through July 2026. Average night ran $279. Occupancy was 31.5 percent. Revenue per available night was $92. Year over year is down 4.5 percent. Active supply moved 0.0 percent, essentially flat. Vermilion published $29,012 on 78 listings, and Crystal Beach published $44,416 on 131 listings — both real, separately sourced Gulf Coast towns, and neither belongs averaged into Bay St. Louis's own figure.

The three strongest months are June, October, and May, with June the busiest and January the slowest. Most guests arrive from New Orleans, then Baton Rouge. Typical stay is 3.8 nights, booked about 60 days ahead. This report walks through what those numbers mean for pricing, positioning, and any buyer or lender packet built around this specific market. This is not legal advice.

$25,594 Is the City Year, on Its Own Line

AirROI's trailing twelve-month figure for Bay St. Louis is $25,594 across 340 active listings, covering August 2025 through July 2026 and last updated 2026-08-08. That figure is specific to this town's own listing listing stock — not a Gulf Coast regional average, not a state-level Mississippi figure, and not a blend with any neighboring market's own extract.

Reading that number correctly means understanding it as a typical or median-style figure across a real but modest sample, not a ceiling and not a guarantee for any specific property. A well-positioned, well-photographed listing with a genuinely differentiated angle can outperform this figure; an undifferentiated listing in a crowded segment of the market can underperform it. The $25,594 figure describes the market's center, not any individual property's outcome, and it should be treated as a starting anchor for underwriting, not the final answer to what a specific address will earn.

This figure should anchor every pricing and positioning decision made about a Bay St. Louis listing specifically. A host or buyer using a rounded 'Gulf Coast average' instead of this town-specific figure is working from a number that doesn't actually describe the market they're operating in, and every decision built on that borrowed figure inherits its inaccuracy.

340 Active Listings Is the Sample Size, and It Matters

A 340-listing sample is real and workable for reading genuine seasonal and pricing patterns, but it's meaningfully smaller than a major metro market's sample, and that size should shape how confidently any single monthly or sub-segment figure gets treated. More natural variance is normal in a market this size than it would be in a market ten times larger.

Supply held essentially flat over the trailing twelve months, a 0.0 percent movement, which is itself a notable data point: this isn't a market currently being flooded with new competing listing stock, unlike some faster-growing nearby markets. That relative stability is worth factoring into how a new host thinks about entering this specific market versus a rapidly expanding one.

For a buyer evaluating whether Bay St. Louis's 340-listing market provides enough comparable data to underwrite confidently, the honest answer is that it provides real signal on the shape of demand — the June-October-May peak, the January hole, the New Orleans-driven origin pattern — while individual month-to-month dollar figures deserve to be read as directional rather than precise to the dollar.

Do Not Average Vermilion Into This File

Vermilion published $29,012 across 78 listings on its own separate AirROI extract — a real figure describing a real, different town, and one that sits close enough in dollar terms to Bay St. Louis's $25,594 that averaging the two might feel harmless. It isn't. Each town's listing listing stock, guest search behavior, and seasonal pattern are distinct enough that blending the figures produces a number that accurately describes neither place.

A host or agent tempted to cite a rounded 'around $27,000' regional figure by splitting the difference between Bay St. Louis and Vermilion is manufacturing a number this data doesn't actually support. Neither town's guests searched for that blended figure, and neither town's actual booking calendar reflects it.

The correct practice is straightforward: cite $25,594 from Bay St. Louis's own 340-listing extract on its own line, and cite Vermilion's $29,012 from its own 78-listing extract on a separate line if both towns appear in the same document. Confirm the specific driveway and jurisdiction before advertising a stay under either town's name.

June, October, and May Carry This Market

Bay St. Louis's calendar concentrates around three months — June, October, and May — with June the single busiest. That concentration is useful pricing information: a host who prices these three months the same as the rest of the calendar is underpricing real, demonstrated peak demand across nearly a quarter of the year.

October and May likely draw guests seeking a different experience than peak-summer visitors — cooler weather, a quieter Old Town, shoulder-season pricing relative to June. Listing copy and photography that speak specifically to what each of these months offers, rather than uniform summer-beach language across all three, is more likely to convert the specific guest searching for that particular month.

This three-month peak pattern is Bay St. Louis's own, sourced from its own 340-listing extract, and should not be assumed to match a neighboring town's calendar even if the two towns sit along the same general stretch of coastline. Crystal Beach and Vermilion each carry their own seasonal shape, not necessarily identical to this one.

January Is the Hole and the Occupancy Low

January is Bay St. Louis's slowest month by revenue, sitting against a full-year occupancy figure of 31.5 percent. A host pricing January the same as the calendar's peak months, or worse, guessing a promotional hook the market doesn't actually support, risks both lost bookings and guest expectations that don't match reality.

The honest response to a real seasonal hole is honest pricing during that hole, not aggressive discounting chasing volume at any cost and not a fabricated attraction dressed up as a reason to visit. A guest who books January expecting the town's actual quiet off-season character, rather than a manufactured festival atmosphere, is the guest least likely to leave a mismatched review.

January's softness is also the moment a longer, working-oriented stay angle can capture demand a purely leisure-focused listing description misses — a guest seeking a quiet few days away from a colder home climate, evaluated honestly against what the month actually offers rather than an inflated marketing promise.

New Orleans Origin Is This Market's Town, Not a Crystal Beach Mash

New Orleans is Bay St. Louis's top origin market, followed by Baton Rouge — a regional Gulf South guest base, not a distant, nationwide remote-work migration story. That origin pattern is specific to Bay St. Louis's own guest search behavior and shouldn't be assumed identical to a neighboring town's origin mix without its own confirming data.

A New Orleans-based guest choosing Bay St. Louis specifically, rather than a closer or more heavily marketed alternative, is often responding to something particular about Old Town, the harbor, or the marina — the specific draws this town's own listings should be naming plainly rather than relying on generic 'Gulf Coast' language that could describe several competing towns equally well.

This origin data belongs in any buyer or lender packet built around this market, stated as Bay St. Louis's own figure rather than blended with Crystal Beach's or Vermilion's separate guest patterns, which this pass did not extract and therefore cannot responsibly cite here.

AirROI's Low-Regulation Label Is Not the Live Municipal Desk

A platform-level 'low regulation' or similarly labeled tag from a data aggregator like AirROI is a scrape of publicly available listing and regulatory metadata, not a current, authoritative legal reading of Bay St. Louis's actual permitting requirements. Treating that label as equivalent to calling the city desk directly is a mistake that can leave a host operating without current, accurate compliance information.

Bay St. Louis requires a city short-term rental permit, published at a $100 form fee. That published figure should be confirmed as current directly with Planning at 228-466-5516 before a host advertises a new listing, since a published fee can lag what the city actually charges by the time a host goes to apply, and confirming it directly costs a single phone call against the risk of operating on stale information.

Mississippi sales tax can still apply to short-term bookings under 30 nights in Bay St. Louis, a separate obligation from the city permit itself. This page describes marketing and market-data context, not legal or tax advice — confirm both the permit and current tax treatment directly with the relevant Bay St. Louis and Mississippi authorities before advertising a stay.

How a Host Should Read Two Bay St. Louis Halls of Data

A host or buyer evaluating this market is effectively working from two kinds of information at once: the aggregate AirROI extract covered throughout this report, and their own or a comparable specific property's actual operating history where one exists. Neither replaces the other — the aggregate figure gives market context, and specific property history gives ground truth for that individual listing.

When the two disagree — a specific listing consistently outperforming or underperforming the $25,594 aggregate figure — that gap is itself useful information, pointing toward either a genuine competitive advantage worth understanding and replicating, or a specific, fixable weakness in that listing's positioning, pricing, or photography relative to the broader market it's competing in.

A buyer or lender packet that presents only the aggregate figure, without acknowledging that individual property performance can and does vary meaningfully around that center, oversimplifies what this data actually supports. The $25,594 figure is a real and useful anchor — it is not a precise prediction for any single address.

What Belongs in a Bay St. Louis Buyer or Lender Packet

A packet built around this market should cite $25,594 across 340 listings, $279 average night, 31.5 percent occupancy, and $92 revenue per available night, all sourced to AirROI's trailing twelve-month window through July 2026, last updated 2026-08-08. Each figure should carry its source and date rather than appearing as an unattributed round number.

It should carry the seasonal shape — June, October, and May as the strong months, January as the hole — alongside the trend context of flat supply against a 4.5 percent year-over-year revenue decline. A buyer evaluating cash flow timing and market trajectory needs both the shape of the calendar and the direction the market is currently moving, not just the trailing twelve-month total.

Finally, it should carry the permitting contact plainly — Planning at 228-466-5516 — with a note to confirm the current live fee rather than relying on the published $100 figure alone, and it should keep Vermilion's $29,012 and Crystal Beach's $44,416 figures on clearly labeled, entirely separate lines if either appears anywhere in the same document.

What $279 Average Night and $92 RevPAR Actually Mean Together

Bay St. Louis's $279 average night and $92 revenue per available night, read side by side, describe a market where rate is relatively strong but occupancy is the limiting factor on total revenue — a $92 RevPAR against a $279 ADR implies occupancy well below full, consistent with the 31.5 percent figure this sample reports directly.

That combination points a host toward a specific lever worth examining before assuming rate is the problem: a listing underperforming the aggregate figure is more likely losing ground on occupancy — visibility, photography, listing completeness, calendar availability — than on nightly rate itself, given that the market-wide rate already sits at a healthy $279.

A buyer comparing Bay St. Louis to a market with a lower ADR but higher occupancy should model both scenarios rather than assuming higher-ADR automatically means higher total revenue. Two markets can produce similar RevPAR figures through very different combinations of rate and occupancy, and the underwriting implications differ meaningfully depending on which lever a specific property is actually pulling — a rate-driven market rewards premium positioning and photography, while an occupancy-driven market rewards calendar management and broader visibility.

What This Report Won't Guess

This report won't estimate what a specific new listing would earn without its own actual booking history, because that depends on positioning, photography, pricing discipline, and calendar management that vary property to property in ways the aggregate $25,594 figure can't capture on its own.

It won't project next year's figure from this year's, because AirROI's trailing twelve-month window is a backward-looking measurement, not a forecast, and the 4.5 percent year-over-year decline this pass shows describes what already happened, not a guaranteed trajectory for the year ahead. A buyer wanting a genuine forecast needs a different kind of analysis than a historical extract can honestly provide.

It won't blend Bay St. Louis with Vermilion, Crystal Beach, or any broader Mississippi Gulf Coast regional average, for the same reason repeated throughout this report: each of those figures describes a specific, different listing listing stock, and combining them produces a number accurate to none of the underlying markets, however convenient a single rounded regional figure might be for a quick pitch.

Reading This Report Alongside the Rest of the Bay St. Louis Cluster

This market report is one piece of a broader set of Bay St. Louis-specific pages covering seasonality in more depth, STR permitting and licensing detail, tourism data versus occupancy, and remote-worker or longer-stay positioning. Each of those pages goes deeper on its specific topic than this report's summary treatment allows.

A host or buyer who reads only this report gets the core annual figures and the top-line seasonal shape; a host who also reads the seasonality-specific page gets the month-by-month pricing logic in more detail, and a host who reads the STR-rules page gets the fuller permitting picture beyond the summary given here.

Together, these pages are built to stay internally consistent — the same $25,594 figure, the same 340-listing sample, the same June-October-May peak — rather than drifting into slightly different numbers depending on which page a reader happens to land on first.

A Note on the Year-Over-Year Decline

Revenue is down 4.5 percent year over year even with supply essentially flat, which is a meaningfully different situation than a market where falling revenue is explained by a supply surge diluting demand across more listings. Here, roughly the same number of listings earned less in aggregate over the trailing twelve months than the year before.

That pattern is worth sitting with rather than explaining away. Possible contributors include broader travel-spending softness along the Gulf Coast, a shift in guest booking patterns toward other nearby markets, or simply normal year-to-year variance in a 340-listing sample where a handful of underperforming listings can move the aggregate figure more than they would in a larger market.

A buyer or host shouldn't treat this decline as proof of a market in structural trouble, nor dismiss it as noise without examination. The honest position is to note it plainly in any packet or pricing conversation, alongside the fact that this specific figure — down 4.5 percent, on flat supply — is what the trailing twelve-month extract actually shows, whatever the underlying cause turns out to be, and alongside the reminder that next year's extract is the only thing that will actually confirm whether this was a single soft year or the start of a longer trend.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is a typical Bay St. Louis STR year in this sample?

AirROI lists a typical Bay St. Louis year at about $25,594 across 340 listings for August 2025 through July 2026, last updated 2026-08-08. Average night ran $279 with occupancy at 31.5 percent and revenue per available night at $92, and year over year is down 4.5 percent while supply held flat. Treat this as a smaller-sample market and keep it separate from Vermilion's $29,012 or Crystal Beach's $44,416 figures.

Can I average Vermilion into this year?

No. Vermilion published $29,012 from 78 listings, a different town with its own extract — the two figures don't combine into one Gulf Coast number. Cite $25,594 from Bay St. Louis's 340 listings on its own line, and confirm the specific driveway before advertising a stay under either town's name.

Which months are strongest in Bay St. Louis?

The three strongest months are June, October, and May, with June the busiest. January is the slowest month, against a full-year occupancy of 31.5 percent on a typical revenue of $25,594 from 340 listings. Treat the sample size as modest when weighing month-to-month swings.

Where do guests come from?

New Orleans is the top origin market, followed by Baton Rouge. Typical stay runs 3.8 nights, booked about 60 days ahead, with a Superhost share of 62.4 percent among active listings. Those figures describe Bay St. Louis guests specifically and shouldn't be swapped in for a neighboring town's booking pattern.

Does a low-regulation label mean there is no local permit?

No — a 'low regulation' label from a data platform is a scrape, not a legal reading. Bay St. Louis requires a city short-term rental permit, published at a $100 form fee; call Planning at 228-466-5516 to confirm the current live fee before advertising, since a published figure can lag what the city actually charges. This is not legal advice.

Is a 30-night minimum the same as occupancy?

No. About 98 listings, roughly 28.8 percent of active listing stock, carry a 30-night minimum, but that's a booking-platform filter, not a measure of how full the calendar runs. Typical stay length is still 3.8 nights in this sample.

Does sales tax still apply on stays under 30 days?

Yes. Mississippi sales tax can still apply to short-term bookings under 30 nights in Bay St. Louis, separately from the $100 short-term rental permit. Confirm current tax treatment along with the permit at Planning, 228-466-5516, before advertising a stay. This is not legal advice.

What should a buyer packet carry for Bay St. Louis?

Cite $25,594 from 340 listings, the June-October-May strong season with January as the slow month, New Orleans as the lead origin market, a 3.8-night average stay with about 60 days' lead time, and 228-466-5516 as the Planning contact. Label Vermilion's $29,012 and Crystal Beach's $44,416 separately rather than folding either into the Bay St. Louis number.

Is Crystal Beach the same market as Bay St. Louis?

No. Crystal Beach published $44,416 from 131 listings, a distinct market that belongs on its own line. Bay St. Louis runs $25,594 from 340 listings with January as its slow month — confirm the Planning line at 228-466-5516 before advertising either town under the other's numbers.

How large is Bay St. Louis's active listing sample?

340 active listings sit in this sample, real and workable for reading genuine seasonal and pricing patterns but meaningfully smaller than a major metro market. Individual month-to-month dollar figures should be read as directional given that sample size, while the overall seasonal shape carries real signal.

Did supply grow in Bay St. Louis over the past year?

No. Active supply moved essentially 0.0 percent over the trailing twelve months, meaning this market isn't currently being flooded with new competing listing stock the way some faster-growing nearby markets are. Revenue fell 4.5 percent year over year even with supply flat.

How should a host reconcile their own listing's performance against the $25,594 aggregate figure?

A gap between a specific listing's actual results and the market aggregate is useful information, not a contradiction to resolve. It can point toward a genuine competitive advantage worth replicating, or a specific, fixable weakness in pricing, positioning, or photography relative to the broader 340-listing market.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Town $25,594 on Bay St. Louis's own 340 listings and leave Crystal Beach's $44,416 and Vermilion's $29,012 as clearly labeled, separate figures — never a blend.

Send us the Bay St. Louis address and we will build market-report copy against its own $25,594 extract, never an averaged Gulf Coast number borrowed from a neighboring town. Send the live listing draft and the facts you can actually cite.

Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.