Is Door County a Good STR Investment in 2026? Village First

Jacob Mishalanie
Aug 17
12 min read

Updated: 9 hours ago

Sunset over Sister Bay in Door County, Wisconsin

Door County is not a buy-the-peninsula short-term rental pitch. The investment thesis starts with a village, then a clerk, then a year that either clears or sits on a watch line. Sister Bay is the only cell on the AirROI extract dated 2026-08-08 that clears: $47,780 annual and $4,254 median month, $453 ADR, 38.3 percent occupancy, $188 RevPAR, 103 listings. Egg Harbor watches the $42,067 year and still clears a $3,835 median. Fish Creek watches $39,173 and $3,526. Ephraim watches $38,448 and $3,179. Blend those four and you have invented a deal none of the clerks will recognize.

August is the peak in every village, and winter is not a second peak. Supply is up 28.7 percent in Sister Bay, 20.3 percent in Egg Harbor, and 22.9 percent in Fish Creek while those revenues moved down 13.2, 16.5, and 18.8 percent. Ephraim's supply is flat and revenue is down 9.4 percent. Destination Door County's $551.6 million is 2025 visitor spend. It is not host revenue and it does not rescue a watch-line year. The July 14, 2026 Court of Appeals holding voided Sister Bay's four-bedroom definition. The license remains, and that is not a cap reversal.

We Keep this for buyers who want a narrow yes or a clean no, not a harbor postcard. For the competitive set, use themarket report. For the clerk map, use thevillage guide. For lender framing, use thefinance and DSCR guide. For paper cost without an invented purchase price, use thestartup stack, and no invented cap rates. No ferry minutes, and no Lake Geneva comps dressed as Door County.

Village is the thesis

Every Door County underwrite should open with the village name before it opens a revenue tab. Sister Bay, Egg Harbor, Ephraim, and Fish Creek in the Town of Gibraltar are four governments and four AirROI cells. Wis, and stat. 66.1014 blocks a municipal ban on residential rentals of seven consecutive days or more and still allows permits. That statute is the floor. It is not a stamp that turns a tourist-map cottage into a licensed door. A live Airbnb published market year is not a license. Tourism Zone registration at 8.0 percent is not a land-use license.

Wrong village is a failed thesis on day one. A buyer who pays a Sister Bay premium for a Gibraltar house will not get Sister Bay paper. A buyer who imports Egg Harbor's $465 ADR onto an Ephraim door will not get Egg Harbor's year. Guests are about ninety-nine percent domestic and they already choose a village. Chicago then Milwaukee in Sister Bay and Egg Harbor. Milwaukee then Madison in Fish Creek, and madison then Milwaukee in Ephraim. The guest is not confused, and the memo should not be either.

Sevastopol and Sturgeon Bay belong in a neighbor folder, not in this four. New non-owner-occupied Sevastopol product is a six-night-or-more underwrite by town rule. Sturgeon Bay has its own Tourist Rooming House path. Neither neighbor lets you average the four village years. Screenshot the parcel line the same week you screenshot the extract. If the line is wrong, stop. Marketing cannot repair a clerk mismatch, and a watch-line year cannot repair one either.

Sister Bay clears; Fish Creek and Ephraim watch

Sister Bay is the conversation year, and $47,780 clears. $4,254 clears, and occupancy is still 38.3 percent, and lowest month is still February. Peak three still include October rather than a winter high. AirROI marks the cell Low, which is a vendor label, not the $1,500 license. A clearing year is a positive gate. It is not twelve Augusts, and it is not a reason to skip Ordinance 2023-006, the July 1 through June 30 license year, or the thirty-mile agent rule.

Fish Creek and Ephraim are watch on both the year and the median. $39,173 and $3,526 in Fish Creek, and $38,448 and $3,179 in Ephraim. Fish Creek bottoms in January and includes September in its peak three. Ephraim occupies 44.3 percent of nights, the highest of the four, and still posts the lowest year. Occupancy is not clearance. Superhost share is 47.7 percent in Fish Creek and 69.4 percent in Ephraim, so the craft bar is not even the same. Underwrite those doors as watch-line peninsula cottages, not as Sister Bay leftovers.

Egg Harbor sits between the headlines and still belongs in the same section as a split verdict. The year is $42,067 and watches, and the median is $3,835 and clears. ADR is $465, the highest of the four, with the lowest occupancy at 35.8 percent. A buyer who quotes the nightly rate and the clearing median while burying the watch-line year is doing August theater. Keep all three facts on the same page. Then decide whether the stack you want still works when March looks like the extract, not like July.

Supply is up while revenue is down

Three of the four cells added stock and lost revenue on this market sample. Sister Bay supply plus 28.7 percent against revenue minus 13.2 percent. Egg Harbor plus 20.3 against minus 16.5, and fish Creek plus 22.9 against minus 18.8. That is a thicker set competing for a thinner pie, not a boom. Ephraim is the exception on supply, which is flat, and it still posted revenue minus 9.4 percent. Flat stock did not create a clearing year. It created a smaller dip on the lowest year of the four.

Buyers get hurt when they read visitor spend as a substitute for that pair. Destination Door County's $551.6 million is what visitors spent in 2025. Indirect and induced activity and the $685.8 million total impact are county economy figures. They are not four village years added together, and they are not a number you may divide by 103 or 85 listings. Room-tax remittance is a third object, and keep tourism headlines in the tourism file. Keep supply-up, revenue-down in the purchase memo.

New stock also changes how you read 30-plus settings. Those shares are already 70.9, 57.9, 67.4, and 60.0 percent. They are listing settings, not booked winter occupancy, and they are not a release valve that makes added supply harmless in February. If you need the tourism figure handled cleanly, use thetourism-data guide. If you need the hole months in more depth, use theshoulder-season calendar. This memo only needs you to stop treating rising listing counts as proof the year will rise with them.

The bedroom cap is gone; the license is not

On July 14, 2026, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in Clinton v. Sister Bay voided the village's four-bedroom short-term rental definition as preempted by Wis. Stat, and 66.1014. That sentence has a hard stop, and the license remains. The $1,500 fee remains, and the July license year remains. Neighbor notice within 300 feet remains. The tourist rooming house and Tourism Zone conditions remain. This is not a cap reversal of license counts. It is not a signal that Sister Bay stopped regulating rentals under thirty days.

Do not add bedrooms of income to the $47,780 year because a definition was struck. Do not market the holding as wide-open Sister Bay. Do not import the holding into Gibraltar, Egg Harbor, or Ephraim as if one court case papered the peninsula. Fish Creek still sits in Gibraltar. Egg Harbor still has its own ordinance. Ephraim still renews November 30 with a $200 initial fee and a $150 late fee. A voided definition in one village is not extra ADR in the other three.

Sister Bay also stacks a 0.5 percent PRAT on top of the Tourism Zone tax. That is enacted, and ephraim's PRAT page is a proposal. Do not Keep proposed Ephraim tax into a base case. Screenshot the court holding, the license page, and the tax desks as separate facts. A buyer who treats the July 2026 decision as the whole underwrite will still fail the clerk if the $1,500 check is never written. Paper first, and then the clearing year can start a conversation.

Sevastopol is a different underwrite

Town of Sevastopol is not a fifth village in this four and it is not a leftover Sister Bay file. Any new short-term rental must be six nights or more unless the property is owner occupied. The clerk is the town. The complaint hotline is (920) 241-3251. That minimum is ordinance, not a marketplace 30-plus toggle. Buyers who want weekend density on a new non-owner-occupied Sevastopol house are buying a conflict with the town, not a Door County bargain.

Do not assign Sister Bay's $47,780, Egg Harbor's $42,067, Fish Creek's $39,173, or Ephraim's $38,448 to a Sevastopol parcel. Do not use village occupancy or village Superhost share as Sevastopol proof. Do not treat the town's six-night rule as if it rewrote August in Fish Creek. If the deal only works by borrowing a village year, the deal is the wrong parcel. Price Sevastopol as Sevastopol after you read the live town page, or walk.

Sturgeon Bay stays in the same neighbor folder. It is the county seat with its own Tourist Rooming House permit path. It is not this slug. Washington Island is not a reason to invent ferry minutes in a purchase memo. Lake Geneva is southern Wisconsin and not a Door County comp. The four-village thesis is already strict. Adding a neighbor town without adding that town's clerk is how a narrow yes becomes a no after closing.

Occupancy and the February hole

Occupancy is 38.3 percent in Sister Bay, 35.8 in Egg Harbor, 37.1 in Fish Creek, and 44.3 in Ephraim. That is a mid-thirties to mid-forties underwrite, not a seventy-percent resort. More than half the nights do not clear in three villages. Ephraim fills more nights and still watches the year. RevPAR of $188, $176, $164, and $182 is how you keep from falling in love with ADR while the lights stay off in January. Booked nights pay. Dark nights are the file.

February is the lowest month in Sister Bay, Egg Harbor, and Ephraim. January is the lowest month in Fish Creek. Low-three lists cluster around January, February, March, and April depending on the village. Those months are why a clearing Sister Bay year still needs a reserve and why a watch-line Fish Creek year cannot be patched with ice-fishing stories this cluster will not lock. Festival of Blossoms is a spring event. It is not the extract peak and it does not fill February.

Thirty-plus settings will tempt buyers who want the hole to disappear. They will not make it disappear, and those shares are listing settings. Average stay is still 3.4 to 3.7 nights, and lead times are 84 to 96 days. Instant Book is 14.1 to 21.4 percent. The guest is still a planned drive from Chicago, Milwaukee, or Madison toward August. Build cash arriving unevenly across the year. If your debt service only works when every month looks like August, the deal is fragile before you meet the first February utility bill.

What would make this a no

This is a no when the parcel sits in the wrong clerk and the memo pretends otherwise. It is a no when the buyer needs a blended Door County year to make the payment. It is a no when Sister Bay is underwritten without the $1,500 license, or when the July 2026 holding is treated as a cap reversal and extra income. It is a no when a new Sevastopol house is underwritten as a weekend machine against the six-night rule. It is a no when Lake Geneva comps leak into the file.

This is also a no when the expense stack ignores the watch line. Fish Creek at $39,173 and Ephraim at $38,448 do not love a heavy management split, a luxury reset, and a thin February reserve all at once. Egg Harbor's $42,067 year can look fine next to $465 ADR until 35.8 percent occupancy shows up in the first quarter. Cleaning medians of $216 to $250 in three villages are already a line. Visitor spend of $551.6 million is not a line that repairs those costs.

It is a no when the calendar is a lie. Winter is not a second peak. Blossom week is not August. A 15 to 20 percent weekly discount and a 30 to 40 percent remote discount are not locked tools you can use to force occupancy to seventy percent. AirROI Low is not a reason to walk away from a legal Sister Bay house, and it is not a reason to skip the clerk. If the deal needs any of those stories, the honest answer is no, or it is a second home without investment theater.

What would make this a narrow yes

A narrow yes starts with the right village and the right paper. A Sister Bay house with the $1,500 license, the July clock, the thirty-mile agent if needed, and an underwrite that uses $47,780 and $4,254 instead of twelve Augusts can start a conversation. An Egg Harbor house that keeps the $42,067line year and the $3,835 clearing median on the same page, and that still works after a village-median reset, can be a conversation. Watch-line is not automatically no. Watch-line plus fantasy is no.

A Fish Creek or Ephraim yes is narrower, and the years watch. The medians watch. The buyer has to accept January or February as a hole, accept mid-thirties to mid-forties occupancy, and still want the house as a house. Gibraltar paper for Fish Creek and the November 30 Ephraim clock have to be real before the harbor photos matter. Supply-up, revenue-down in three villages means you are not buying a rising tide. You are buying one cottage in a thicker set.

A narrow yes also keeps the piles apart, and village year is host revenue. $551.6 million is visitor spend, and room tax is remittance. The voided bedroom definition is a legal holding, not a revenue add. August is the peak, and winter is quiet. If those sentences can live in the offer memo without being rewritten, the file can stay in diligence. If any of them have to be blurred so the payment works, the honest product is a second home on a seventy-five-mile peninsula, not a short-term rental investment that needs a monthly performance narrative.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Door County a good short-term rental investment in 2026?

Sister Bay clears a $47,780 annual and a $4,254 median month. Egg Harbor sits close behind at $42,067 annual with a $3,835 median that also clears. Fish Creek and Ephraim both run thinner. August is the peak in every village, and winter is not a second peak. A blended, peninsula-wide year isn't a real underwrite; the honest product is village-by-village math, not a single Door County average.

Does Sister Bay's July 2026 court case remove the short-term rental license requirement?

No. The July 14, 2026 Court of Appeals ruling voided Sister Bay's four-bedroom occupancy definition as preempted by state law, but the village's STR license itself remains in place, including the $1,500 fee and the July 1 through June 30 license year. That's not a cap reversal on license counts and not extra income for existing owners.

Can I average the four Door County village years into one number?

No. Sister Bay, Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, and Ephraim are four separate governments and four separate AirROI market cells, each with its own clerk and its own rules. Averaging Sister Bay's $47,780 with Ephraim's $38,448 invents a fifth market no guest actually books in; underwrite each village on its own numbers.

Is rising listing supply a problem for Door County short-term rentals?

It's part of the underwriting thesis, not a footnote. Sister Bay supply is up 28.7 percent while revenue is down 13.2 percent; Egg Harbor is up 20.3 percent supply against down 16.5 percent revenue; Fish Creek is up 22.9 percent supply against down 18.8 percent revenue. More competing doors against lower per-listing revenue changes the math for a new buyer entering now.

Is Sevastopol the same underwrite as Fish Creek or the other villages?

No, Sevastopol is a separate town with its own rule: any new short-term rental there must book six nights or more unless the property is owner-occupied. Neighboring Sturgeon Bay is also a separate city with its own tourist-rooming-house permitting path. Neither lets a buyer average against the four main resort villages.

Does Destination Door County's $551.6 million visitor-spend figure prove a house will clear its numbers?

No. That figure is 2025 total visitor spend across the county's tourism economy, not per-listing host revenue, and it doesn't offset a thin village-level year. Use each village's own AirROI figures for host-level underwriting, and treat the countywide tourism number only as broader destination context.

What would make a Door County short-term rental purchase a clear no?

Needing a blended peninsula-wide number instead of a single named village's real figures, building the model on August occupancy alone, skipping the correct village clerk's rules, treating the voided Sister Bay bedroom definition as new income, or pricing a property as if it were in a different, higher-performing Wisconsin lake market.

What would make a Door County short-term rental purchase a narrow yes?

One named village underwritten on its own dated AirROI extract and its own clerk's paperwork, a realistic plan for the January or February low season, and acceptance of mid-30s to mid-40s percent occupancy rather than resort-level numbers. Sister Bay is the strongest starting point among the four villages because its year currently clears.

What does the roughly 38 percent occupancy figure mean for a Door County listing?

It describes Sister Bay's blended annual occupancy on the current AirROI extract, alongside a $453 ADR and $188 RevPAR across 103 listings. A busy festival weekend or a strong summer walk doesn't change that annual blended figure; the slow season still needs its own realistic rate plan rather than being priced as if summer demand carried through the year.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

A Door County listing that quotes Sister Bay's $47,780 clearing number on an Ephraim or Fish Creek parcel is importing the wrong village's paper before a guest ever sees the pricing.

We write village-specific Door County copy, Sister Bay, Egg Harbor, Ephraim, or Fish Creek, matched to that parcel's real numbers.

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