Cleveland OH STR Market Report 2027: Verify Before You Plan

Sep 9

14 min read

Empty Lake Erie walk in Cleveland Ohio, no people

If you host in Cleveland, Ohio, and you're building out your 2027 calendar this summer, you've probably already gone looking for a fresh set of market numbers to plan against. You may not find them yet, and that's worth saying plainly instead of papering over with a number that looks new but isn't. The most recent confirmed figures for the Cleveland short-term rental market come from a 2026 check-in we published earlier this year, and as of this writing, the desk sources and rental-analytics platforms we'd normally re-pull for a true 2027 refresh haven't posted an updated trailing-twelve-month figure that's distinct from what fed that 2026 read.

That matters because Cleveland isn't a small, thin market where you can eyeball trends from a handful of listings. It's a large-n market — 1,918 active listings feeding into that last confirmed figure, which is a meaningfully bigger sample than most of the mid-size metro reports we run. A market that size deserves numbers that are actually current, not numbers that get quietly rolled forward and relabeled. So this piece does something specific: it takes you through exactly what was last confirmed, why we're not manufacturing a 2027 estimate on top of it, and what a Cleveland host should personally re-check before using any of this to set nightly rates or blocking rules for next year.

We also want to be upfront that this 2027 page exists as a companion to a 2026 report already live on the Crest & Cove site at crestcove.co/post/cleveland-oh-str-market-report-2026. That earlier piece carries the full context on where the $17,631 revenue figure, the 1,918-listing count, and the $172 average daily rate came from. Rather than duplicate all of that reasoning here, we're going to treat this page as the honest bridge between last year's confirmed data and whatever 2027 brings once the vendor feeds catch up — and we're going to be specific about the checklist you should run before you lean on any of it.

What the 2026 Snapshot Actually Told Cleveland Hosts

The last confirmed read on the Cleveland market showed roughly $17,631 in annual revenue per active listing, spread across 1,918 listings citywide, with an average daily rate around $172. Those three numbers work together to describe a market that's neither a boom town nor a struggling one — it's a steady, mid-tier Midwest metro where hosts who price sensibly and manage their calendars well tend to land somewhere in a predictable band, rather than swinging wildly between feast and famine months.

A second vendor read is now available again: AirDNA (updated 8 Sep 2026, through Aug 2026) shows about 3,986 tracked listings, roughly $29.4K typical annual revenue, occupancy around 60%, ADR around $147, and RevPAR around $89. Those occupancy and dollar figures disagree with AirROI by more than 20% — keep both labeled on separate lines and never average them into one financing or planning number.

It's worth sitting with what that revenue-per-ADR ratio implies about occupancy. If you divide roughly $17,631 by a $172 ADR, you land in the neighborhood of 100 to 105 booked nights a year, which is well under half the calendar. That's consistent with a market where demand clusters around specific windows — sports seasons, downtown events, medical-center visitor traffic, lakefront summer weekends — rather than spreading evenly across all 365 nights. If your own calendar looked meaningfully different from that shape last year, that's a signal to dig into your own booking history rather than assume the citywide average was wrong.

The 1,918-listing count also tells you something about competitive density. That's a market with real supply — enough that a generic listing with generic photos and a flat year-round rate will get lost in the search results. It's also large enough that averages are more trustworthy than in a market with only a few dozen active listings, where one or two luxury outliers can drag the mean around. Cleveland's size is actually a point in your favor if you're trying to benchmark yourself against a citywide number: the sample is big enough to mean something.

Why a Year-Roll URL Exists Before New Numbers Do

You might reasonably ask why we're publishing a 2027-dated market report at all if we don't have 2027 data yet. The honest answer is that host planning cycles and vendor data-refresh cycles don't move on the same clock. Hosts are building next year's calendars, adjusting minimum-stay rules, and deciding whether to raise rates in June and July of the prior year — well before the annual short-term rental platforms and county tourism desks have closed the books on a full trailing-twelve-month period and republished it.

Rather than leave a gap where a host searching for 2027 Cleveland numbers finds nothing, or worse, finds a stale number presented with false confidence, we're doing something different here: naming the gap directly, telling you exactly which figure is the last one we can stand behind, and giving you a specific list of sources to re-check yourself before you treat anything here as current. That's a deliberate choice, not an oversight. A market report that quietly rolls forward last year's number without saying so is doing you a disservice, especially in a market as large as Cleveland's.

This is also why the 2026 report stays live and unchanged rather than getting edited into this one. If you want the full detail behind how the $17,631, 1,918-listing, and $172 ADR figures were built, that earlier post is the record of it. This 2027 page is meant to sit alongside it as a planning bridge — a place that tells you what's confirmed, what's pending, and what your job is in the meantime as a host who actually has to set rates before Labor Day booking windows open.

The Scale Question: Why 1,918 Listings Changes the Math

It's worth spending a full section on why market size matters here, because it changes how much weight you should put on a citywide average versus your own neighborhood-level data. In a market with 1,918 listings, you're not looking at a number built from twenty downtown apartments and a couple of lakefront cottages. You're looking at a blend of urban core units, near-west-side bungalows, east-side properties, and everything in between, which means the citywide average is smoothing over real variation between submarkets.

That's both reassuring and a caution at the same time. It's reassuring because a large sample is less likely to be an artifact of a few unusual listings skewing the mean. It's a caution because a citywide average, precisely because it blends so many different pockets of the city, tells you less about your specific street or your specific building type than a smaller market's average would. If you're hosting downtown near the stadiums versus hosting in a quieter residential pocket further out, your real performance could sit meaningfully above or below that $17,631 figure even in a year where the citywide number holds steady.

The practical takeaway is to use the citywide figure as a sanity check, not a target. If your own 2026 numbers came in well below $17,631 with an ADR far under $172, that's worth investigating — are you underpricing, is your calendar too restrictive, are your photos undercutting your booking rate? If you came in well above it, that's worth understanding too, so you know what's actually working before you change anything for 2027.

Scale also affects how much a single new competitor or a single new regulatory change can move the needle. In a small market, one new fifty-unit building coming onto the short-term rental scene could meaningfully shift the citywide average within a year. In a market carrying close to two thousand listings, that same building barely registers in the aggregate numbers, even though it might matter a great deal to hosts operating a few blocks away. Keep that distinction in mind when you read headlines about new supply hitting Cleveland — ask whether the story is about a citywide shift or a very local one before you let it change your own pricing plan.

Lakewood and Cleveland Heights: Keep Them Off Your Cleveland Line

One of the clearest instructions carried over from the 2026 report, and one we want to repeat here without softening it, is to keep Lakewood and Cleveland Heights on their own separate lines rather than folding them into a single "Cleveland" figure. These are legally distinct municipalities with their own permitting rules, their own zoning overlays, and in some cases their own short-term rental registration requirements that differ from what applies inside Cleveland's own city limits.

Beyond the regulatory distinction, treating them as one market also muddies your pricing data. Lakewood's rental stock skews toward a different housing type and price point than much of Cleveland's east side, and Cleveland Heights has its own distinct rental character shaped by proximity to University Circle and the cultural institutions there. Blending their booking data into a single Cleveland-wide average would understate or overstate performance in ways that don't actually reflect what's happening in any one of the three places.

If you operate listings in more than one of these municipalities, the discipline here is straightforward: track each one separately in your own spreadsheet or PMS reporting, and don't let a single blended number stand in for three different local markets with three different regulatory postures. When you go to re-verify 2027 numbers using the checklist below, pull them by municipality where the data source allows it, rather than accepting whatever regional rollup a vendor dashboard defaults to.

This separation matters even more when you're comparing performance year over year. If a vendor platform quietly changes how it draws the Cleveland metro boundary — folding in a few more Lakewood or Cleveland Heights listings than it did the year before — your citywide comparison can look like it moved when nothing in your own operation actually changed. Whenever you pull a fresh number for 2027, check the fine print on how the geography is defined, not just the headline figure, so you're comparing the same footprint year over year rather than an expanding or contracting one.

What to Re-Pull Before You Trust Any 2027 Number

Here's the concrete list. Before you use any revenue, occupancy, or ADR figure for Cleveland in your 2027 planning, re-check it against these sources yourself rather than taking last year's number on faith. First, go back to the Cleveland-area official visitor and tourism desk — often the county convention and visitors bureau — and see whether they've published an updated annual lodging or short-term rental report. These desks sometimes lag a full data year behind, so check the publication date on whatever you find, not just the headline.

Second, re-pull AirROI and AirDNA data for the Cleveland market specifically, filtered to the trailing twelve months rather than a static annual snapshot. Both platforms update more frequently than annual desk reports, but they can also still be showing a rolled-forward figure if the underlying market hasn't shifted enough to trigger a meaningful recalculation. Look at the "as of" date stamped on whatever report or dashboard view you pull, and if it matches the window that fed the 2026 figures, treat it as the same vintage — not as new confirmation.

Third, if you use a channel-specific analytics tool through your listing platform, compare your own booked-night pace for the first half of 2027 against your own first-half 2026 pace. Your own calendar is the most current data you have access to, and it will tell you faster than any citywide report whether demand is tracking ahead of, behind, or in line with last year. Fourth, if pricing or permitting decisions ride on any of this — for example, deciding whether to add a unit, adjust a minimum-stay rule tied to a local ordinance, or make a claim to a lender or partner about expected revenue — get your own current, source-dated numbers before committing, and loop in a local advisor for anything with legal or compliance weight. This is not legal advice, and Cleveland's short-term rental registration and zoning rules are specific enough by municipality that a general market report is the wrong place to make that determination for you.

Building Your Own 2027 Season Plan From Confirmed 2026 Data

None of this means you should wait around for a fresh number before doing any planning. The last confirmed figures still give you a usable starting point, as long as you're honest with yourself about their vintage. Start by mapping your own 2026 performance against the $17,631 revenue and $172 ADR benchmarks. If you tracked close to those numbers, you have reasonable evidence that the citywide read reflected your actual segment of the market reasonably well, and you can use it as a baseline while you wait on a true 2027 refresh.

From there, build your 2027 calendar in stages rather than locking in a full year of pricing at once. Set your baseline nightly rate using your 2026 actuals adjusted for any known cost changes — cleaning fee increases, higher utility costs, a new HOA assessment if you're in a condo building — rather than adjusting purely off a citywide percentage change you haven't verified. Layer in your known 2027 demand drivers next: any confirmed downtown event calendar, stadium schedules, convention center bookings, or graduation and move-in weekends tied to the local universities and hospital systems that consistently drive Cleveland visitor traffic.

Once you have that baseline and event calendar in place, revisit your pricing every four to six weeks through the rest of 2026 and into 2027, rather than setting it once and leaving it. Each time you revisit, check whether any of the sources from the checklist above have posted something newer. The moment AirROI, AirDNA, or the local visitor desk posts a genuinely new trailing-twelve-month figure for Cleveland, that's your signal to update this planning cycle — and honestly, that's also your signal that we'll be publishing a real, non-rolled-forward 2027 or 2028 update ourselves.

Seasonal Calendar for Cleveland Hosts Heading Into 2027

Layering a seasonal lens onto the confirmed 2026 numbers gives you a more usable planning tool than the annual averages alone. Cleveland's demand curve, based on the booking patterns that fed last year's figures, tends to build through late spring, peak across summer lakefront and downtown-event weekends, hold reasonably well through early fall around Browns home games and the tail of the convention calendar, then taper through the winter months outside of specific holiday and event windows.

If you're setting your 2027 calendar now, that shape argues for a few concrete moves. Consider tightening minimum-stay requirements around your highest-demand summer weekends to protect your ADR rather than letting single-night bookings erode it. Consider loosening those same rules in the shoulder months — late winter and early spring — where filling nights at a lower rate is usually better than sitting empty. And if you haven't already, build a specific pricing bump around any known 2027 event dates you can confirm now, since those tend to be the windows where the citywide average understates what a well-positioned listing can actually capture.

None of this replaces watching your own booking pace in real time. Seasonal patterns built off a prior year's data are a starting scaffold, not a guarantee, especially heading into a year where the underlying market numbers themselves haven't been freshly confirmed. Treat the calendar above as your working hypothesis for 2027, and be ready to adjust it the moment your own bookings or a genuine data refresh tells you it needs revising.

It's also worth building in a specific checkpoint for late summer, since that's typically when Cleveland hosts start locking in fall pricing and when any updated tourism-desk or platform data is most likely to surface. Put a recurring reminder on your own calendar to revisit this page, the 2026 sibling report, and your chosen data sources together in one sitting, rather than checking each one at a different random moment. A consistent review rhythm will do more for your 2027 season than any single number, confirmed or otherwise, and it keeps you from making a big pricing decision off a stale figure simply because you didn't think to double-check the date on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the $17,631 figure a real 2027 number for Cleveland?

No. That figure is the last confirmed annual revenue number from our 2026 Cleveland market report, built from 1,918 listings at a $172 average daily rate. We have not seen a genuinely new trailing-twelve-month figure distinct from that dataset, so we're presenting it here as the last-confirmed vintage rather than inventing a 2027 estimate. Treat it as your starting reference point, and re-verify it against current sources before relying on it for firm pricing decisions.

Where can I read the full 2026 Cleveland market report this page is based on?

The full 2026 report is live at crestcove.co/post/cleveland-oh-str-market-report-2026. It walks through how the $17,631 revenue figure, the 1,918-listing count, and the $172 ADR were built, along with the original reasoning on why Lakewood and Cleveland Heights are tracked separately from Cleveland proper. This 2027 page is meant to be read alongside that report, not as a replacement for it.

Should I treat Lakewood and Cleveland Heights as part of the Cleveland market?

No, keep them separate. Lakewood and Cleveland Heights are distinct municipalities with their own permitting and zoning rules, and blending their data into a Cleveland-wide figure distorts both the regulatory picture and the pricing picture. If you operate in more than one of these areas, track revenue, occupancy, and ADR separately for each rather than relying on a single combined number.

How large is the Cleveland short-term rental market compared to other Ohio metros?

Based on the last confirmed count, Cleveland has roughly 1,918 active short-term rental listings, which makes it a genuinely large-n market compared to many of the smaller Midwest metros we cover. That size is useful because it makes the citywide average more statistically reliable, but it also means the average blends together very different neighborhoods, so your own submarket may perform noticeably above or below the citywide figure.

What specific sources should I re-check before setting 2027 rates?

Start with the Cleveland-area convention and visitors bureau or county tourism desk for an updated annual lodging report, then re-pull AirROI and AirDNA data filtered to the current trailing twelve months rather than a static annual view. Compare whatever you find against your own booked-night pace for the first half of 2027 versus the same period in 2026, since your own calendar is the freshest data point available to you.

Does the $172 ADR figure account for seasonal swings across the year?

The $172 figure is an annual average, so it smooths over Cleveland's seasonal pattern rather than showing it directly. Based on the booking behavior that fed the 2026 numbers, rates tend to run above that average during summer lakefront weekends and major downtown events, and below it during the slower winter months outside specific holiday windows. Use the annual figure as a benchmark, but build your actual pricing calendar around the seasonal pattern, not a flat rate.

Why publish a 2027 page at all if there's no new data yet?

Hosts plan their 2027 calendars well before annual data sources close out and republish a fresh trailing-twelve-month figure, so waiting for perfect data would leave a real planning gap. We chose to publish a page that names that gap directly, states the last confirmed numbers clearly, and gives a specific re-verification checklist, rather than either leaving nothing here or quietly presenting a rolled-forward number as if it were new.

How many booked nights does the $17,631 figure imply for a typical listing?

Dividing roughly $17,631 in annual revenue by a $172 ADR points to somewhere around 100 to 105 booked nights per year for the average listing, which is under half the calendar. That pattern is consistent with demand clustering around specific event and seasonal windows rather than spreading evenly across the year. If your own occupancy looks very different from that range, it's worth reviewing your pricing and calendar settings rather than assuming the citywide figure is wrong.

Is now a good time to add a second Cleveland listing based on these numbers?

The last confirmed figures suggest Cleveland is a steady mid-tier market rather than one showing dramatic new upside, so a second listing decision should rest more on your own operating numbers and local zoning research than on this report alone. Confirm current permitting requirements for the specific municipality you're considering, since Cleveland, Lakewood, and Cleveland Heights each handle short-term rental registration differently, before committing to a new property.

How often will this 2027 Cleveland report be updated with real numbers?

We'll update this page, or publish a follow-up, as soon as a genuinely new trailing-twelve-month figure for Cleveland becomes available from the desk sources or rental-analytics platforms we track. Until then, this page stays anchored to the last confirmed 2026 figures so hosts have an honest reference point rather than a number presented with false confidence.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Cleveland's summer booking window is open, and the hosts who plan around real numbers instead of guesswork are the ones filling their calendars first. See exactly what's confirmed, what's pending, and how to price your 2027 season with confidence.

Ready to turn last year's Cleveland numbers into a sharper 2027 pricing plan? Explore Crest & Cove's host resources and start building your season calendar today. We stay on listing clarity, photos, SEO, and channel mix for independent hosts, not finance or legal work.

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