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Is Cannon Beach or Manzanita a Good Short-Term Rental Investment in 2026?

Updated: Jul 18

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Cannon Beach and Manzanita sit close enough together on the North Oregon Coast that out-of-market buyers often mention them in the same breath, as if choosing between them were a matter of picking whichever listing photo looks nicer. It isn't. These are two different investment theses with similar zip codes. Cannon Beach sells landmark recognition — a name that does real work in a Google search or an AI travel recommendation before a single amenity is even listed. Manzanita sells the absence of that same crowd: a quieter, lower-key alternative just south, pulling from the same Portland drive-market base without competing for the same guests. An investor evaluating "the North Oregon Coast" as a single undifferentiated purchase target is going to miss the actual decision in front of them: landmark authority versus quiet-alternative positioning, at two different price points, within two different regulatory systems.


This post lays out that decision honestly — including the parts of it that aren't yet confirmed and shouldn't be guessed at.


Two Towns, Two Counties: The Regulatory Split You Need to Understand First

Before getting into demand drivers or purchase economics, it's worth stating plainly what a lot of coastal-market content glosses over: Cannon Beach and Manzanita are not just two towns, they're two towns in two different counties, each with its own short-term rental rulebook.


Cannon Beach sits in Clatsop County and is itself an incorporated city, which matters because Clatsop County's own STR ordinance work — including a cap on vacation rentals passed for unincorporated areas — explicitly does not apply inside the incorporated cities of Cannon Beach, Astoria, Warrenton, Gearhart, or Seaside. Cannon Beach runs its own short-term rental permitting system under its municipal code, separate from whatever the county is doing outside city limits, and that system currently runs on three permit tiers: lifetime unlimited permits, five-year unlimited permits, and 14-day-only permits. The unlimited tiers (lifetime and five-year combined) are capped at 92 licenses, of which only about 35 are currently active — and that cap has already been fully allocated, meaning a new buyer today can only acquire an unlimited permit through a transfer from an existing holder, not a fresh application. New applicants are instead routed to the 14-day-only permit, which allows a single rental tenancy of up to 14 consecutive days rather than an ongoing unlimited-day operation. On top of that existing structure, the city has been actively working on a formal cap ordinance, with the Planning Commission reviewing a draft as of February 2026. This is exactly the kind of detail that can shift between when this is written and when you're underwriting a specific property — confirm the current version, and current permit-tier availability, directly with the City of Cannon Beach Planning Department before assuming anything about permit availability.


Manzanita sits in Tillamook County — a different county entirely, with a different regulatory posture. The City of Manzanita has long run its own STR cap, set at approximately 17.5% of existing housing stock in the residential zones it applies to — R2, R3, and SR-R. The city's R4, commercial (C-1), and light-commercial (LC) zones fall outside that cap entirely, with no waitlist to obtain a license there. The capped residential zones are a different story: R2 and R3 have already hit their caps and moved to waitlist status, with roughly a dozen applicants currently waiting for a license to open. Tillamook County's broader unincorporated-area ordinance, adopted in 2023 after a lengthy task force process, is a separate, stricter system again — it caps STR growth by community, limits any one owner or company to a single countywide license in unincorporated areas, and does not automatically apply within incorporated cities like Manzanita itself.


The practical takeaway: a property inside Cannon Beach city limits answers to Cannon Beach's municipal ordinance, not Clatsop County's. A property within Manzanita city limits is subject to Manzanita's municipal cap system, not the separate Tillamook County ordinance that governs unincorporated areas like Neskowin or Pacific City. These are not interchangeable rulebooks, and "I checked the county rules" is not the same statement as "I checked the city rules" in either market. Before writing an offer on anything in this pair of towns, get current permit-availability and licensing status directly from the relevant city planning office — Cannon Beach's or Manzanita's — rather than relying on general coastal-Oregon STR content, including this post, for a final answer.


The Cannon Beach Thesis: Haystack Rock and Durable, Built-In Demand

Cannon Beach's investment case starts with a physical asset no competitor can replicate: Haystack Rock, a 235-foot sea stack that is one of the most recognized coastal landmarks on the West Coast. It carries real, formal protected status — it sits within a federally designated wildlife refuge and has been recognized by the state as a protected marine garden environment, with rules against disturbing the intertidal area or approaching nesting seabirds. That protected status isn't just a conservation footnote for an investor — it's a guarantee that the view stays exactly as marketable ten years from now as it is today. Nobody is developing next to Haystack Rock or diminishing what makes it worth photographing.


That landmark pull sits inside a broader arts-colony identity: a walkable downtown, galleries, an established creative-community feel that gives Cannon Beach a demand base that isn't purely "look at the rock and leave." Guests come for a weekend that includes beach access, gallery browsing, and a small-town coastal atmosphere, heavily influenced by the strong Portland drive market that anchors demand along this entire stretch of the coast. The result is a market where the name recognition genuinely does marketing work before a listing description says anything — which is a real advantage, but also means Cannon Beach likely commands a purchase-price premium relative to a market without that built-in recognition. An investor buying into Cannon Beach is paying for the durability of demand, not for undiscovered upside.


Ownership here remains fragmented among independent owners and boutique managers rather than consolidated under a single dominant property-management company, which keeps the door open for a well-marketed, individually owned listing to compete on positioning rather than be steamrolled by a chain's economies of scale. That fragmentation is a meaningful structural point in Cannon Beach's favor for a new independent buyer — but fragmentation is not the same thing as an undersupplied market, and it shouldn't be mistaken for one.


The Manzanita Thesis: Lower Profile, Lower Basis, Different Guest

Manzanita's case is the inverse. It shares the same Portland drive-market feeder base and much of the same coastal beauty, but it doesn't carry Haystack Rock's name recognition, and it isn't trying to. The market's actual pitch is quiet: fewer crowds, a lower-key small-town feel, and a guest who specifically wants proximity to the same coastline without Cannon Beach's higher profile and higher traffic. That's a real, definable audience — a couples or slower-paced-getaway guest rather than a landmark-seeking one — and a listing that leans into that framing rather than trying to out-market Cannon Beach on Cannon Beach's terms is playing the stronger hand.


The practical upside for an investor is a probable lower purchase basis relative to Cannon Beach, tied directly to the lower profile that defines the town's guest experience. On licensing, Manzanita's ~17.5%-of-housing-stock cap applies to its R2, R3, and SR-R residential zones, and those zones currently carry a waitlist — but the city's R4, C-1, and LC zones fall outside the cap entirely, with no waitlist to obtain a license there as of the most recent information available. This is exactly the kind of licensing-status detail that shifts and needs to be confirmed directly with Manzanita's planning office before underwriting a specific address, since a property's zone determines whether you're buying into an open license or a waitlist.


Ownership in Manzanita, like Cannon Beach, is fragmented rather than consolidated — no single manager dominates the market, which again favors a new independent buyer willing to compete on positioning and marketing rather than scale.


What This Post Won't Do: Invent Numbers

It would be easy to fill out an investment post like this with specific ADR figures, occupancy percentages, and cap-rate projections for both towns. This post isn't going to do that, because the source research behind this cluster doesn't confirm current ADR, occupancy, or price-point figures for either Cannon Beach or Manzanita specifically, and inventing them to make the case sound more finished would do a disservice to anyone using this to actually underwrite a purchase. What can be said honestly: Cannon Beach's landmark-driven demand and Manzanita's quiet-alternative positioning are two structurally different theses that should produce different guest profiles, different seasonality patterns, and likely different purchase price points — but the actual numbers behind that need to come from a current comparative market analysis on the specific property you're evaluating, not from a regional overview post.


The same honesty applies to STR rules. Confirm current permit availability, cap status, and any waitlist specifics directly with the City of Cannon Beach Planning Department for a Cannon Beach property, and directly with the City of Manzanita for a Manzanita property — and if the property in question sits outside either city's limits, confirm whether Clatsop County's or Tillamook County's separate unincorporated-area ordinance applies instead. These systems have all been actively revised in the past few years and can change again.


The Actual Decision

Strip away the town names, and this comes down to a straightforward trade-off. Cannon Beach is the pay-for-certainty option: a durable, protected, instantly recognizable landmark that drives demand without requiring a marketing team to manufacture interest, at a likely purchase-price premium, and within a permitting system the city is still actively refining. Manzanita is the pay-for-upside option: a probable lower basis, a genuinely differentiated "quiet alternative" positioning that most listings in the market aren't yet fully leaning into, and a licensing system with more room to move in certain zones — but a guest base you have to earn through positioning rather than borrow from a landmark's name.


Neither is the objectively better buy. They're different bets that happen to sit fifteen minutes apart on the same stretch of coast, fed by the same Portland travelers, and an investor who treats them as interchangeable "north Oregon coast" inventory is leaving the actual decision — and the actual marketing advantage that comes with understanding it — on the table.


Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Ready to put this strategy to work in North Oregon Coast?

Crest & Cove Creative partners with a select group of independent hosts in the Pacific Northwest each quarter — focused on listing quality, organic search visibility, and direct booking growth. If your property isn't reaching the guests it should be, that's exactly the kind of problem we solve. Reach out directly at crestcove.co or call (256) 998-7502 — we'll take an honest look at where your listing stands and tell you plainly whether we can help.


Frequently Asked Questions

Are Cannon Beach and Manzanita in the same county? No. Cannon Beach is in Clatsop County, and Manzanita is in Tillamook County — two separate counties with separate short-term rental regulatory histories. Cannon Beach also runs its own municipal STR permitting system independent of the county, and Manzanita does the same in Tillamook County.


Does Clatsop County's short-term rental cap apply to Cannon Beach? No. Clatsop County's cap and ordinance revisions for vacation rentals apply to unincorporated areas of the county, not to incorporated cities like Cannon Beach, which sets and enforces its own STR permitting rules through the city.


Does Tillamook County's short-term rental ordinance apply to Manzanita? Not directly. Tillamook County's 2023 ordinance governs unincorporated areas of the county. Manzanita, as an incorporated city, has historically run its own separate STR cap system, and that municipal system — not the county's unincorporated-area ordinance — governs licensing within city limits.


Why is Haystack Rock significant for Cannon Beach's rental market? Haystack Rock is a 235-foot sea stack with formal protected status, located within a federally designated wildlife refuge and recognized by the state as a protected marine garden. It's one of the most visually recognized landmarks on the Oregon coast, and its protected status means the view and the draw it creates are effectively permanent — no future development can diminish it.


Is a property near Haystack Rock the only good investment in Cannon Beach? No. While proximity to Haystack Rock and the beach is a strong draw, Cannon Beach's broader arts-colony identity — its walkable downtown, galleries, and creative-community atmosphere — supports demand for listings throughout the town, not only those with a direct view of the rock.


What makes Manzanita different from Cannon Beach as an investment? Manzanita positions as the quieter, lower-key alternative to Cannon Beach, drawing from the same Portland-area guest base but appealing to travelers who want coastal access without Cannon Beach's higher profile and traffic. That positioning, combined with a likely lower purchase basis, is the core of Manzanita's investment case rather than landmark-driven demand.


Should I expect the same ADR and occupancy in both towns? That isn't something this post can answer with confirmed figures — current ADR, occupancy, and price-point data for both Cannon Beach and Manzanita need to be verified through a current comparative market analysis on the specific property, not assumed from general market character. Directionally, a landmark-driven market like Cannon Beach and a positioning-driven market like Manzanita would be expected to perform differently, but the actual numbers require direct verification.


Is ownership consolidated under a big property management company in either town? No, in both Cannon Beach and Manzanita, ownership remains fragmented across independent owners and boutique local managers rather than consolidated under a single dominant manager. That fragmentation is part of what makes strong, town-specific marketing genuinely valuable in both markets, rather than a wasted effort against an already locked-up competitive set.


About the Authors

Crest & Cove Creative is a short-term rental marketing agency founded by Thomas Garner and Jacob Mishalanie. We build direct-booking brands, listing-optimization systems, and market-specific content strategies for independent STR operators nationwide, including emerging corridors such as the North Oregon Coast.


Related Reading

Explore more North Oregon Coast short-term rental insights and host guides:


Sources

Verified via web search at publish:


Not verified — flagged for confirmation before this informs a purchase decision:

  • Current ADR, occupancy, and typical purchase price figures for Cannon Beach and Manzanita listings specifically.

  • Active STR listing counts and current permit/waitlist status by zone for both cities as of the reader's purchase timeline — these systems have been under active revision and should be confirmed directly with the City of Cannon Beach Planning Department and the City of Manzanita, respectively, immediately before any offer.

  • Whether a specific target property sits inside city limits (subject to municipal rules) or in an adjacent unincorporated area (subject to the separate county ordinance).

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