Is Hailey and Bellevue a Good Short Term Rental Investment in 2026

Jul 24

15 min read

Updated: Aug 28

Twelve miles down the valley from Sun Valley Resort, Hailey and Bellevue have spent decades in Ketchum's shadow , the working towns where teachers, ski patrollers, and second-home caretakers actually live, while the postcard money concentrates around Bald Mountain. That gap between reputation and reality is exactly what's starting to draw short-term rental investors south on Highway 75. The pitch isn't that Hailey and Bellevue are the next Ketchum. It's that they let you underwrite to the same Sun Valley demand engine , the ski brand, the four-season recreation calendar, the destination pull , at a fraction of the entry price, and as of July 2026, with a regulatory backdrop that finally works in an owner's favor.

This isn't a story about undiscovered arbitrage that will last forever. It's a story about a specific, time-limited window: real demand spillover from one of the most recognizable ski brands in North America, a valley-wide short-term rental (STR) market that is still fragmented and PM-light outside the resort core, and a new state law that just stripped Blaine County's cities of most of their power to make STR ownership harder. Here's what the numbers, the ownership landscape, and the new regulatory picture actually say , and where a buyer should stay honest about the risks.

The Sun Valley Demand Engine, Twelve Miles South

Sun Valley Resort is where destination skiing in America started, and Bald Mountain , 3,400 vertical feet, a summit around 9,150 feet, and a lift network built to eliminate lines , remains one of the most respected big-mountain ski experiences in the country. That brand doesn't stop pulling visitors at the Ketchum city line. Guests who can't find (or afford) inventory in Ketchum or Sun Valley proper increasingly search the wider Wood River Valley, and Hailey and Bellevue are the next stops south on the same two-lane highway, roughly a 15-20 minute drive to the lifts.

The case for Hailey and Bellevue isn't "skip the mountain, book the valley." It's that both towns sit inside the same demand shed as Sun Valley without carrying Sun Valley's price tag, and that the Wood River Valley's calendar genuinely runs four seasons rather than one. It's that they let you underwrite to the same Sun Valley demand engine , the ski brand, the four-season recreation calendar, the destination pull , at a fraction of the entry price, and as of July 2026, with a regulatory backdrop that finally works in an owner's favor.

Winter: The Anchor Season

Ski season remains the valley's demand anchor. Bald Mountain draws destination skiers from well outside the region, and Hailey's Friedman Memorial Airport , inside city limits, a little over a dozen miles from the resort , puts commercial air service within a short drive of the lifts. Investors underwriting a winter-heavy calendar in Hailey or Bellevue are, in practice, underwriting to Sun Valley's skier visits and simply competing for the overflow booking, not the marquee ski-in/ski-out unit.

Summer and Shoulder Seasons: The Other Half of the Trade

What makes the Wood River Valley a genuine four-season market , not just a ski town with a quiet summer , is the recreation calendar once the snow melts. Bald Mountain itself converts to summer use, with well over 3,000 vertical feet of hiking, running, and downhill mountain-biking terrain. The valley has more than 400 miles of dirt singletrack and roughly 30 miles of paved, car-separated bike paths. Add fly-fishing on the Big Wood River and the famous Silver Creek (accessible from the Bellevue side of the valley), whitewater, hunting, and backpacking, and the region claims roughly 280 sunny days a year with mild summer highs. That's the real thesis: this isn't an one-season bet propped up by a single ski brand , it's a recreation corridor with a credible shoulder-season and summer booking calendar, which is exactly what de-risks an STR purchase outside the primary ski window.

The Numbers: A Materially Lower Basis Than Ketchum or Sun Valley

The entry-price gap between the resort core and the two towns south of it is the heart of this thesis, and it holds up under scrutiny. What's better supported: no single operator appears to control a majority of Wood River Valley STR inventory, and Hailey/Bellevue in particular look under-served relative to the resort core. The case for Hailey and Bellevue isn't "skip the mountain, book the valley." It's that both towns sit inside the same demand shed as Sun Valley without carrying Sun Valley's price tag, and that the Wood River Valley's calendar genuinely runs four seasons rather than one.

On the real estate side, Zillow put Ketchum's average home value at roughly $1.56 million, and Movoto put Sun Valley's median sold price at $2.045 million as of June 2026. Hailey, by contrast, has a median sale price in the $749,000-$895,000 range depending on the data source and month (Redfin, Zillow, and Movoto disagree by roughly 15%, likely reflecting differing sample sizes and mix-shift in a low-volume market). Bellevue is cheaper still , Redfin put its May 2026 median sale price at $614,632, and Zillow's typical home value estimate was $636,080, both down mid-single-digits year over year. In plain terms: buying in Hailey costs roughly half of Ketchum, and Bellevue costs closer to a third.

STR performance data tells a consistent story, though the exact figures vary meaningfully by analytics platform and pull date , worth flagging up front rather than presenting as a single clean number. AirDNA's June 2026 snapshot put Ketchum at 102 listings (AirROI Hailey as of 2026-07-31), 48% occupancy, and a $651 average daily rate (ADR), generating roughly $31,740 in average annual revenue per listing. Hailey's numbers, pulled from AirROI's twelve-month dataset (April 2025-March 2026), showed a much smaller and cheaper market: 92-18 listings (AirROI Bellevue as of 2026-07-31), 41-42% occupancy, a $334-$342 ADR, and average annual revenue in the $31,740 / $23,322 range , with 16.5% year-over-year supply growth, a data point worth returning to below. We were not able to independently verify a dedicated, current listing-level dataset for Bellevue specifically , its STR inventory is small enough that most third-party analytics platforms don't break it out as its own market, which is itself informative about how early-stage this micro-market still is.

The takeaway that survives all of that source noise: Ketchum's ADR runs roughly double Hailey's, while the purchase price runs roughly double or more. That's the "Sun Valley demand at a lower basis" trade in one sentence , lower revenue per night, but a proportionally larger discount on the asset itself. Flagged as unverified or lower-confidence: (1) AirDNA's and Red Awning's Hailey "monthly revenue" figures, which appear internally inconsistent with AirROI's annual revenue data and were excluded from the body text; (2) a dedicated, current Bellevue, Idaho STR listing/ADR/occupancy dataset, which we could not locate on any major analytics platform; (3) the "~18 property management companies" figure for the Wood River Valley, sourced from a single non-primary source; (4) whether Bellevue's.

Ownership Landscape: Fragmented, No Dominant Operator

A 2024 study commissioned by the Sun Valley Board of Realtors counted roughly 840 short-term rental units across the Wood River Valley, with about 81% concentrated in Ketchum and Sun Valley. That leaves a relatively small slice , well under 200 units , spread across Hailey, Bellevue, and the rest of the valley. One local report put Hailey's STR count at only about 80 units out of roughly 4,200 homes in the city, reinforcing that short-term rentals remain a minor share of Hailey's housing stock, not a saturated niche.

On the management side, the valley's STR industry is served by a cluster of locally operated companies , Alpine Lodging Sun Valley, Natural Retreats, Mountain Lifestyles Property Services, and several smaller boutique operators , rather than a single dominant national platform locking up inventory. We found figures citing roughly 18 property management companies active in the valley, but that specific count comes from a single marketing-oriented source we could not independently corroborate, so treat it as directional rather than confirmed. What's better supported: no single operator appears to control a majority of Wood River Valley STR inventory, and Hailey/Bellevue in particular look under-served relative to the resort core. For a new owner, that translates into real room to build a direct-booking brand and win on marketing rather than fighting an entrenched, professionally managed monopoly for search visibility.

The Regulatory Picture Just Became a Tailwind

This is the part of the thesis that changed most recently, and it's worth getting precise about. It's a story about a specific, time-limited window: real demand spillover from one of the most recognizable ski brands in North America, a valley-wide short-term rental (STR) market that is still fragmented and PM-light outside the resort core, and a new state law that just stripped Blaine County's cities of most of their power to make STR ownership harder.

Idaho Governor Brad Little signed House Bill 583 on March 16, 2026. Because the bill carried an emergency clause, it took effect on July 1, 2026 , meaning the new rules are live as of this writing. HB 583 passed the Idaho House 54-16 and the Senate 23-12, and its sponsor, Rep. Jordan Redman, framed it explicitly as a response to cities using STR-specific regulation to functionally ban short-term rentals.

The law does three things that matter directly to Hailey and Bellevue owners:. And a market with under 100 active listings in Hailey and an even thinner footprint in Bellevue can absorb new competent competitors quickly; the fragmentation that makes marketing easy today erodes as more owners run the same "Sun Valley alternative" playbook. The pitch isn't that Hailey and Bellevue are the next Ketchum.

It bars cities and counties from requiring a license, fee, permit, certification, or registration specifically to operate a short-term rental.
It classifies STRs as a "nontransient residential use" for zoning purposes, preventing cities from applying stricter rules to an STR than they'd apply to any other single-family home.
It preserves only narrow local safety authority: functioning smoke alarms in every sleeping area, a fire extinguisher and carbon monoxide detector on each floor, removable escape ladders for upper-floor sleeping areas, and occupancy limits tied to International Building Code standards. Airbnb, Vrbo, and similar platforms must still register with the Idaho State Tax Commission and collect and remit state and local lodging taxes.

For Blaine County specifically, this preempts real, documented local rules. Bellevue had required STR owners to obtain a business license , city officials had defended that requirement as their only way to get contact information for owners when problems arose, but HB 583 now forbids conditioning STR operation on any such license or registration. Hailey never adopted a dedicated STR ordinance, but its accessory dwelling unit rules functionally restricted short-term use , permitting only one unit per lot as an STR when the primary home was owner-occupied, and barring non-owner-occupied ADUs and tiny homes on wheels from STR use entirely. A May 2025 Idaho Supreme Court ruling (in a case involving Lava Hot Springs, not Hailey directly) had already found that Idaho's existing STR statute prohibits this kind of category-based ban, and legal observers flagged Hailey's ADU rule as similarly vulnerable even before HB 583 took effect. Ketchum's more built-out ordinance , STR permits, mandatory safety inspections, a two-night minimum, one STR per parcel, and a seasonal rental ban in the Avalanche Zone District , loses its permit, registration, and inspection components under the new law, though the zoning-based restrictions may face separate legal questions the statute doesn't directly resolve.

One nuance worth flagging honestly: HB 583 preempts license, fee, permit, and registration requirements tied to operating an STR , it does not appear to preempt lodging or local-option taxes, which are a tax on the transaction rather than a permit to operate. Bellevue's 3% lodging tax on stays of 30 days or fewer (in effect since July 2022) and Hailey's 4% local option tax on short-term rental revenue both appear to survive HB 583 on that distinction, though we could not find an explicit legal analysis confirming this for Blaine County specifically , flag this as reasoned inference rather than confirmed fact, and buyers should verify current tax obligations directly with each city before closing.

The Honest Caveat: You're Not the Only One Who Noticed

None of this is a secret arbitrage that will hold indefinitely. AirROI's Hailey dataset already shows 16.5% year-over-year growth in active STR listings , a market getting more competitive, not less, over the exact period this article draws its numbers from. A state law that strips away local licensing friction makes it easier for the next owner to enter too, not just you. And a market with under 100 active listings in Hailey and an even thinner footprint in Bellevue can absorb new competent competitors quickly; the fragmentation that makes marketing easy today erodes as more owners run the same "Sun Valley alternative" playbook.

The realistic read: this is a genuine value trade with a real demand engine behind it, not a mispricing that will last forever. The buyers who do best will be the ones who treat Hailey and Bellevue STR ownership as a business , with real direct-booking marketing, a listing built to compete on more than price, and underwriting that assumes occupancy and ADR normalize toward the market average over a 24-36 month horizon rather than staying at today's still-favorable spread.

Who This Trade Actually Fits

This is not a passive, hands-off ski-condo trade. It fits an owner willing to actively market a property rather than rely on OTA algorithm placement in a valley where Ketchum and Sun Valley inventory will always rank first for "Sun Valley Airbnb" searches. It fits a buyer comfortable with a genuinely seasonal but four-season calendar , meaning revenue that's real in both January and July, but requires marketing to two different traveler intents (skiers vs. summer recreationists) rather than one. And it fits an investor who wants regulatory tailwinds now, while acknowledging that Idaho's legislature could revisit STR policy again in a future session, and that valley-wide competition is rising in real time.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is Hailey, Idaho a good place to buy a short-term rental in 2026?

Hailey offers meaningfully lower entry prices than Ketchum or Sun Valley, with a median sale price roughly in the $749,000-$895,000 range versus Ketchum's roughly $1.56 million average home value, while still sitting inside the same Sun Valley demand shed about 15-20 minutes from Bald Mountain. Idaho's new HB 583 preemption law also removes most of the local licensing friction that previously complicated STR ownership here.

Is Bellevue, Idaho a good short-term rental investment?

Bellevue is the cheapest entry point in the Wood River Valley, with a median sale price around $614,000-$636,000 as of mid-2026, roughly a third of Sun Valley's median, and about 30 minutes from Ketchum and Sun Valley. Its market is small enough that most third-party analytics platforms don't track it as a standalone dataset, which signals both an under-marketed opportunity and thin comparable data to underwrite against.

How does Idaho's HB 583 affect short-term rental owners in Blaine County?

HB 583, signed March 16, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026, bars cities and counties statewide from requiring a license, fee, permit, certification, or registration specifically to operate an STR, and prevents STRs from being regulated more strictly than other single-family homes. Locally, it preempts Bellevue's STR business-license requirement and strips the permit and inspection components of Ketchum's ordinance, leaving cities authority only over baseline safety equipment and occupancy limits.

Do Hailey and Bellevue still collect lodging taxes on short-term rentals after HB 583?

Based on available reporting, yes: Hailey's 4 percent local option tax and Bellevue's 3 percent lodging tax on stays under 30 days appear to remain in effect, since HB 583 targets STR-specific licensing rather than tax collection. Airbnb and Vrbo are separately required to register with the Idaho State Tax Commission and remit applicable taxes, though owners should confirm current obligations directly with each city since this distinction wasn't found in an explicit legal ruling.

What is the average daily rate and occupancy for Airbnbs in Hailey versus Ketchum?

AirDNA's June 2026 snapshot puts Ketchum at 48 percent occupancy and a $651 ADR. Hailey's own twelve-month AirROI dataset showed a smaller, cheaper market at 41-42 percent occupancy and a $334-$342 ADR. Annual revenue figures varied meaningfully between platforms and weren't reliably confirmed, so treat the ADR and occupancy spread as directional and pull current data before underwriting a specific property.

Is the Wood River Valley short-term rental market dominated by one big property manager?

No. Reporting points to a fragmented management landscape, with locally operated firms like Alpine Lodging Sun Valley, Natural Retreats, and Mountain Lifestyles Property Services serving the valley, and roughly 81 percent of the valley's approximately 840 STR units concentrated in Ketchum and Sun Valley. No single company was confirmed to control a majority of inventory, and Hailey and Bellevue in particular appear under-served by dedicated STR marketing.

Is competition increasing for short-term rentals in Hailey and Bellevue?

Yes. AirROI's data shows Hailey's active STR listing count grew roughly 16.5 percent year over year through early 2026, indicating owners are already catching onto the value trade this market represents. HB 583's regulatory relief likely accelerates that trend by lowering the friction to enter, which is the central honest caveat to the investment thesis for Hailey and Bellevue.

How far is Hailey or Bellevue from Sun Valley Resort and Bald Mountain?

Hailey sits roughly 12-14 miles south of Sun Valley and Bald Mountain, about a 15-20 minute drive. Bellevue is farther, roughly 17-19 miles from Ketchum and Sun Valley, closer to a 25-30 minute drive. Friedman Memorial Airport, the region's commercial airport, sits inside Hailey city limits between the two towns, putting commercial air service within a short drive of the lifts.

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 like Hailey and Bellevue, Idaho. The buyers who do best will be the ones who treat Hailey and Bellevue STR ownership as a business , with real direct-booking marketing, a listing built to compete on more than price, and underwriting that assumes occupancy and ADR normalize toward the market average over a 24-36 month horizon rather than staying at today's still-favorable spread.

Sources

Rent Responsibly: "Idaho governor signs bill limiting local restrictions on short-term rentals", HB 583 signed by Gov. Brad Little March 16, 2026; effective July 1, 2026 via emergency clause; preempts local licenses, fees, permits, certifications, registrations; preserves smoke alarm, fire extinguisher, CO detector, escape ladder, and IBC occupancy-limit authority; requires OTA platforms to register with Idaho State Tax Commission.
Boise Dev: "Short-term rental reform passes both Idaho statehouse chambers", HB 583 passed Idaho House 54-16, Senate 23-12; sponsor Rep. Jordan Redman; details Ketchum's permit/inspection/noise ordinance, Bellevue's business-license requirement, Hailey's ADU-based STR restriction (~80 of 4,200 homes rented short-term), Sun Valley's non-regulatory stance, and the 2024 Sun Valley Board of Realtors study counting 840 valley-wide STR units (81% in Ketchum/Sun Valley).
5B Gazette: "Idaho Supreme Court ruling upends short-term rental restrictions, exposing flaws in Ketchum and Hailey ordinances", May 21, 2025 Idaho Supreme Court ruling (Lava Hot Springs case) interpreting the state's existing STR Act; details on Ketchum's Avalanche Zone seasonal restriction and Hailey's ADU/tiny-home STR ban.
AirROI: Hailey, Idaho Airbnb Data, dataset covering April 2025-March 2026: 92-18 listings (AirROI Bellevue as of 2026-07-31), 41.4-42.3% occupancy, $334-$342 ADR, ~$31,740 / $23,322 average annual revenue, 16.5% year-over-year listing growth.
AirDNA Market Minder, Hailey, Idaho overview (via search snippet; direct page fetch blocked by site) , cited 18 listings (AirROI Bellevue as of 2026-07-31), 52% occupancy, $455 ADR; monthly revenue figure of $32,507 could not be independently verified and appears inconsistent with AirROI's annual figures, so it is flagged as unverified and excluded from the body text.
AirDNA, Ketchum, Idaho overview (via search snippet; direct page fetch blocked by site) , June 2026 data: 102 listings (AirROI Hailey as of 2026-07-31), 48% occupancy, $651 ADR, ~$31,740 average annual revenue.
Redfin housing market pages for Hailey and Bellevue, Idaho , Hailey median sale price ~$880K (down 11.6% YoY); Bellevue median sale price $614,632 (May 2026, down 8.9% YoY).
Zillow home value pages for Ketchum, Hailey, and Bellevue, Idaho , Ketchum average home value $1,556,144 (~$1.56M); Hailey typical home value $780,999; Bellevue typical home value $636,080 (down 3.4% YoY).
Movoto market trends, Sun Valley and Hailey, Idaho , Sun Valley median sold price $2,045,000 (June 2026); Hailey median sold price $895,000 (December 2025); Hailey median list price $749,000 (June 2026). Included to show the range/disagreement across real estate data sources.
World Population Review , Hailey, Idaho 2026 population estimate 10,362; Bellevue, Idaho 2026 population estimate 2,613.
Distance-cities.com , Bellevue to Ketchum approximately 17 miles by road; Bellevue to Sun Valley approximately 19 miles by road.
Sun Valley Resort (sunvalley.com) and Visit Sun Valley , Bald Mountain trail/lift statistics (3,400 vertical feet, ~9,150-foot summit), summer trail conversion (3,100+ vertical feet), 400+ miles of valley singletrack, 30+ miles of paved bike paths, ~280 sunny days per year.
Wood River Digital, "Best Property Managers in Sun Valley, Idaho , 2026 Guide" , cited figure of ~18 property management companies serving the valley and Alpine Lodging Sun Valley as the largest locally operated vacation rental company; this is a single marketing-oriented source that could not be cross-verified against an independent directory, so the specific count is flagged as lower-confidence in the body text.

Flagged as unverified or lower-confidence:(1) AirDNA's and Red Awning's Hailey "monthly revenue" figures, which appear internally inconsistent with AirROI's annual revenue data and were excluded from the body text; (2) a dedicated, current Bellevue, Idaho STR listing/ADR/occupancy dataset, which we could not locate on any major analytics platform; (3) the "~18 property management companies" figure for the Wood River Valley, sourced from a single non-primary source; (4) whether Bellevue's and Hailey's local-option/lodging taxes definitively survive HB 583 as a matter of law , treated here as a reasonable inference from the statute's text (which targets licenses/fees/permits/registration for STR *operation*, not taxation) rather than a confirmed legal conclusion.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Hailey and Bellevue listings that copy Ketchum's ski-town pitch miss the actual selling point: sitting twelve miles down the valley from Sun Valley without carrying Ketchum's roughly $1.56 million average home value. A borrowed resort-town template hides that gap.

We build Hailey and Bellevue listing copy around the Wood River Valley's real four-season calendar and the value gap from Ketchum, not a recycled resort pitch. Send your current listing and we will show you what is underselling it.

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