Lancaster PA STR Market Report 2026: $28,791 on 216 Listings

Thomas Garner
Aug 19
20 min read

Updated: 17 hours ago

Central Market brick facade, Lancaster PA

Most Lancaster listings still get sold as generic Amish Country countryside, and most Lancaster buyer packets still quote a revenue number nobody can trace back to a map. Those are the same failure wearing two outfits. A guest who typed Lancaster is comparing a City of Lancaster overnight near Central Market and the named streets around Penn Square against whatever else fits the dates. A buyer underwriting that same driveway needs to know which boundary drew the number in the spreadsheet. Two hundred sixteen active listings sit inside the AirROI city pin, and everything else in this report is labeled against that line.

This is the market report for the Lancaster cluster, and it is the longest page in that cluster on purpose. It does three jobs, in order. First it establishes the current state of the market, with every figure labeled by the desk that published it. Then it reads that state back to hosts already operating here, because a city average only earns its keep once it points at a calendar decision. Then it takes a position on whether this city cell is worth buying into on the data as it stands, which means naming the caveats rather than closing on the strong lines.

The primary year is AirROI trailing twelve months, August 2025 through July 2026, drawn on the City of Lancaster boundary. AirDNA and StaySTRA appear later as separate labeled desks with their own boundaries, and Discover Lancaster tourism figures appear as demand color rather than occupancy. This is not legal advice, and it does not invent occupancy, ADR, or ranking claims beyond what each labeled source already publishes. Every source is linked at the bottom.

The AirROI city year: $28,791 on 216 listings

Typical City of Lancaster listings earned about $28,791 last year across 216 active rentals. That is AirROI trailing twelve months, August 2025 through July 2026. The average night was $204. Occupancy landed at 43.5 percent. Revenue per available night came to $92, which is the figure worth carrying when you compare a high-rate house that sits empty against a lower-rate calendar that stays busy, because it collapses both levers into one number.

Direction matters as much as level here. Revenue on this vintage moved plus 8.5 percent year over year, and active supply moved plus 8.5 percent alongside it. A market where those two climb at the same rate is absorbing new listings rather than diluting them, at least on this map and this vintage. That is a genuinely useful signal for a buyer worried about saturation. It is close to useless for an individual owner, because no city average has ever rescued a title that still says Amish Country and nothing else.

File the whole line or the number quietly stops meaning anything: $28,791 typical year, $204 average night, 43.5 percent occupancy, $92 revenue per available night, 216 listings, City of Lancaster, AirROI, August 2025 through July 2026. Strip the boundary and the vintage off that line and what remains is a slogan with decimal points. Treat any packet that quotes the revenue without the pin as unfinished work rather than as market research.

What sits inside the 216-listing sample

Two hundred sixteen listings is a sample drawn on a city boundary, not a census of every legal overnight in Lancaster County. The stock inside it is unusually consistent, which makes it easier to read than most markets this size. Entire-home share is 91.7 percent, so private-room arbitrage is not what is being measured. Houses are 61.1 percent. One bedroom is the largest single size at 28.2 percent, and capacity four is the most common sleeping configuration at 25.5 percent.

Read those figures together and the sample describes a small-city house, not a resort condo and not a farm compound. A one-bedroom entire home sleeping four is the modal Lancaster listing on this published market year. That has direct consequences for how the public fields should read. A title that promises acreage, or a photo set that leads with a barn the guest will never enter, is selling a product this sample does not contain, and the correction arrives in the reviews rather than in the analytics.

Superhost share is 73.6 percent, which matters operationally more than it looks. Roughly three of every four listings a guest opens in this search already carry the badge, so the badge is table stakes instead of a differentiator. For an owner, that pushes the real edge into specificity: the about section, the house rules, the arrival detail, the first photo. For a buyer, a listing inside this sample without the badge is a question about the operator, not proof that the market is soft.

AirDNA draws a different boundary and prints a different year

AirDNA publishes a Lancaster market that does not share the AirROI city line, and the gap is instructive rather than contradictory. On the AirDNA boundary, annual revenue runs about $27.7 thousand across roughly 548 listings, with an average daily rate near $207 and occupancy around 54 to 55 percent. Revenue is up about 9.3 percent year over year on that boundary while listing count is down about 4 percent. AirDNA also scores the market 93 out of 100 overall, with Demand 85, Investability 85, and Regulation 68.

Those are AirDNA boundary figures and not the AirROI city year. AirDNA counts more than twice the listings, which means it is drawing a wider or differently shaped market, and its occupancy sits roughly eleven points higher partly because the denominator and the active-listing definition both differ. The genuinely interesting part is that typical revenue lands close either way, in the high twenty thousands. Two independently drawn boundaries agreeing on the order of magnitude is a stronger signal than either figure standing alone.

Use the subscores as a directional read on demand and friction, never as numbers to paste beside the AirROI line. A Regulation subscore of 68 next to a Demand subscore of 85 is a fair summary of a city with real visitor volume and real zoning limits at once. It is not a permit, not a legal opinion, and not a substitute for reading the ordinance that governs the specific parcel.

StaySTRA reads the county area, not this city cell

StaySTRA maps a broader Lancaster county area, and its implied typical year runs materially higher, roughly $34.5 thousand to $37.3 thousand. That spread is a boundary artifact rather than a discovery. Pull in farm stays, tourist-corridor houses out toward Bird-in-Hand, and larger county properties, and the average rises, because the county desk holds stock the city pin never counted. Its seasonality subscore is 74 out of 100.

The monthly split on that county desk is the sharpest illustration of seasonality anywhere in this report: about $1,646 at roughly 39 percent occupancy in January against about $3,305 at roughly 68 percent occupancy in August. The management picture there is also a county picture. Evolve appears with 41 listings, Stay Lancaster with 36, Unique Stays with 34, Amish Farm Stay with 30, and Awakened with 18, out of roughly 1,774 listings, which puts the top five near 9 percent of that desk. Vacasa shows about 6.

The refusal here is deliberate and worth stating plainly. Roughly 1,774 county-area listings is not a bigger, better version of 216 city listings, and $37 thousand is not a corrected version of $28,791. They answer two different questions on two different maps. A packet that upgrades a city driveway to the county average has not found extra revenue. It has changed the subject and hoped nobody checked.

Why the three vendor desks disagree, and which line to file

The desks disagree because the boundaries disagree, and that is the whole explanation. AirROI drew a City of Lancaster pin and found 216 listings. AirDNA drew something wider and found roughly 548. StaySTRA drew a county area and found roughly 1,774. Occupancy travels from 43.5 percent to the mid fifties to a January-to-August swing between 39 and 68 percent, and none of that movement is a mistake. Each figure is an honest answer to a differently drawn question.

For a City of Lancaster parcel, file the AirROI line as the case and keep the other two as labeled context. Let AirDNA confirm that typical revenue really does sit near the high twenty thousands on more than one map. Let StaySTRA show you how violent the winter-to-summer swing gets once the county is included. Then stop reconciling. A number that has lost its label cannot be checked by anyone, which is usually why it survived.

Tourism demand: 9.99 million visitors and $2.74 billion spent

Discover Lancaster, working from Tourism Economics research, reports about 9.99 million visitors to Lancaster County, down about 1.7 percent. Visitor spending came to $2.74 billion. Total economic impact came to $3.61 billion. Lodging spending specifically was $387 million, and tourism supported roughly 26,436 jobs. Into 2026, the first quarter showed lodging revenue up 4.7 percent with lodging demand up 2.4 percent.

Read that carefully, because it is the most abused statistic in Lancaster buyer packets. A 9.99 million visitor count is a county demand figure. It is not the occupancy of your listing, it is not the occupancy of the 216-listing city sample, and there is no arithmetic that converts it into nights on a specific driveway that would survive a lender conversation. The $387 million lodging line includes hotels, which is most of it.

What the tourism desk does give you is direction and mix. A slight visitor decline alongside lodging revenue growing faster than lodging demand describes a market where rate is doing more work than volume. That is a rate-discipline signal for a host and a margin question for a buyer. It sits comfortably beside the AirROI observation that revenue and supply both moved plus 8.5 percent without occupancy collapsing, and it stops there. Demand color is not a calendar.

Strasburg, Ephrata, and New Holland stay on their own lines

Three nearby towns published usable years. Strasburg came in at $25,205 across 22 listings. Ephrata came in at $21,000 across 39 listings. New Holland came in at $17,841 across 34 listings, at a $184 average night and 36.9 percent occupancy. All three sit below the city figure of $28,791, and all three are small enough samples that a handful of strong or weak operators moves the average. Keep each on its own labeled line, and resist averaging them into the city year or the city year into them.

New Holland is the one worth staring at, because its calendar does not match the city at all. Its peak set runs June, May, and July, and the hole lands in August rather than January. Supply there moved about plus 240 percent across those 34 listings, which describes a very different market from a city pin where revenue and supply both moved plus 8.5 percent together. A rate sheet that borrows a New Holland August to discount a City of Lancaster October has marked down its strongest month on somebody else's evidence.

Lititz, Bird-in-Hand, Intercourse, Columbia, Manheim, Millersville, Paradise, Quarryville, Willow Street, Leola, and Gap have no usable published year on this file. A gap in the data is only a gap. It is not evidence that a town is cheap, not evidence that it is hot, and not evidence that its ordinance is open. It is also not permission to interpolate an ADR from the three neighbors that did publish.

The practical version for a buyer is a single question: which pin published this number. The practical version for an owner is a choice about honesty. If the house sits in Strasburg, market Strasburg, because a guest comparing a Strasburg farmhouse against a city walk-up is making a real decision between two different stays and will notice the moment the listing pretends they are interchangeable.

October, August, and June carry the year

Peak-3 on this AirROI vintage is October, August, and June, with October the single busiest month. That ordering deserves a pause. October leading August means fall, not summer, is the strongest window on this city pin, which inverts the assumption a coastal or lake playbook would import without checking.

October demand in Lancaster reads as a fall pattern with market and heritage traffic behind it, not a beach season stretched late. It rewards a listing that can honestly promise a walkable weekend and a warm interior on a cold morning. Price October as October instead of folding it into an annual rate, because the 43.5 percent annual occupancy already contains these three strong months and therefore understates each of them individually.

The county figure is the useful cross-check on amplitude: roughly $3,305 in August at about 68 percent occupancy on the StaySTRA map. Different map, same shape. Summer and fall carry the calendar in this part of Pennsylvania, and any projection that spreads revenue evenly across twelve months is describing a market nobody here operates in.

January is the hole, and February and April sit with it

January is the slowest month on this cell. February and April sit in the low stretch beside it, which makes April the most dangerous of the three, because spring reads like it ought to be strong and is not. On the wider county map, January prints about $1,646 at roughly 39 percent occupancy, close to half the August figure.

A host planning around that has two honest options and one costly one. You can price the hole aggressively to fill it, you can accept the hole and staff the year accordingly, or you can publish a listing that implies steady year-round demand and then absorb the reviews in February. The full-year 43.5 percent occupancy already includes January, which is exactly why quoting the annual figure while modeling peak-month cash flow is the mismatch a careful reader finds first.

For a buyer, the winter stretch is where a Lancaster deal either works or does not. Debt service does not take January off. Model the hole explicitly, on a vintage and a map you can name out loud, and treat any projection that smooths it into an annual average as an incomplete file rather than an optimistic one.

Stay length, lead time, and what minimum nights reveal

Typical stay on this sample is 4.8 nights, booked about 49 days ahead. That pairing describes a planned trip rather than a spontaneous drive, and it hands a host a concrete operating window. At a lead of roughly seven weeks, a rate change made today mostly lands on bookings for the month after next, so the feedback loop on pricing decisions is slower than the dashboard makes it feel.

Minimum-night settings split the sample sharply. Sixty-seven listings, about 31 percent, sit at a 30-plus night minimum. Another 40.7 percent accept a single night. Nearly a third of the pin has effectively opted out of nightly booking, which is worth knowing before you read the occupancy figure, because those listings are being measured while playing a different game.

A 30-plus minimum is a setting a host chose, not a calendar that filled. It signals that a meaningful slice of owners here are chasing month-length stays, winter included, but it proves nothing about whether that demand arrived. If you set 30-plus, the listing has to describe the workspace, the internet, and the block a month-long guest actually needs. If you leave it at one night, you are competing on a busier and more forgiving field.

New York is the top origin city on this sample

New York is the leading origin city in this AirROI sample, and that one fact reframes a lot of Lancaster marketing. The largest identifiable group of guests is not the local weekender and not a Philadelphia day-tripper who wandered west. It is a household planning a trip from out of state, and an out-of-state trip is exactly the kind of booking that sits behind the 49-day lead time this sample already reports.

The drive-shed reaches further. Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington all fall inside a workable weekend radius and each sends traffic. Those cities are geography rather than identity. Origin tells you who booked and how far they were willing to drive for a stay of about five nights. It does not license a listing to borrow another metro's product, and it does not let a memo borrow another metro's rate as this ADR.

What origin actually changes is the writing, and not toward one metro. Any household driving in from out of state for an October weekend needs parking answered before arrival, a walkable radius described in named streets instead of the word downtown, and an honest read on how quiet a city block is at eleven at night. Those are the sentences that survive contact with a real guest. A costume farm photo does not.

Management share is thin, and the leader is a local name

Professionally managed share on the AirROI city sample is 7.4 percent, and the leading manager is Justin And Krista at eight listings. That is the top of the professional field on this published market year, which tells you the City of Lancaster desk is carried by independent owner-operators rather than by a national brand with a regional office.

Set that beside the county desk, where StaySTRA shows Evolve at 41 listings and Vacasa at roughly 6 across a far larger map, and the contrast is the point. Brand presence in the county is not brand dominance in the city. An owner inside the city line is competing mostly against other independents, which means the realistic edge is earned in the operating detail a stranger can read before booking rather than bought from a manager.

A listing scrape is not a city permit

A vendor can count 216 listings and still not be the zoning file. This is not legal advice, and nothing here replaces reading the ordinance or calling the city. The City of Lancaster handles short-term use through zoning plus a city-issued rental license, and the shape of that framework changed twice in recent years in ways that still drive where a new listing can legally open.

On May 10, 2022, the city moved to limit new short-term rental units in the R3 and R4 residential zones. In May 2023, council approved a carve-out allowing short-term rentals above storefronts, which reopened commercial and mixed-use space that residential zoning had closed. Short-term rental use is permitted by right, with conditions, in the RO, MU, CB1, CB, C1, and C2 zones. Owner-occupied homestay is a separate use with separate treatment.

Two traps follow. First, county hotel tax remittance is a tax obligation and not a land-use permit: paying it does not make a use lawful, and being lawful does not excuse you from paying. Second, roughly sixty municipalities outside the city line write their own rules, so a township driveway is not governed by anything described on this page. Confirm the zone and the license with the municipality that owns the parcel before any figure in this report becomes a decision.

What this means if you already host in Lancaster

Start with what the AirROI year changes about your calendar rather than what it says about your worth. The annual 43.5 percent occupancy is an average of a strong October and a thin January, so managing to it leaves money on the table in fall and leaves you short in winter. Set the fall rate against fall demand instead of against the annual line. Then decide before December which of the two honest winter plans you are running, filling the hole on rate or accepting it and taking the month back for the work a full calendar never lets you do.

Then look at who you are actually competing against, because on this published market year the answer is unusually specific. Professionally managed share is 7.4 percent and the largest manager, Justin And Krista, holds eight listings, so nobody here is out-spending you. The house sitting next to yours in a guest's search is another owner-operator running a one-bedroom entire home that sleeps four and already carrying the Superhost badge, which is why the badge is not the edge. The edge is whether your title names Central Market and Penn Square instead of Amish Country, whether the first photo shows a room the guest will actually sleep in, and whether parking is answered before arrival rather than in a message thread.

The last piece is zoning literacy, and it stays part of operating even when your listing has been live for years. This is not legal advice, but a host who can separately name the zone the parcel sits in, the city-issued rental license, and the county hotel tax duty is a host who does not get surprised by a letter. The May 10, 2022 limit on new R3 and R4 units and the May 2023 storefront carve-out both still shape what can open near you. Fix the honesty of the public fields first, then argue about rate.

Is this a market worth buying into on these numbers

On the data as it stands, the honest read is yes for a patient operator and no for a deal that only works on an annual average. The supportive evidence is real. Revenue moved plus 8.5 percent while active supply moved plus 8.5 percent on the same AirROI vintage, which describes a city absorbing new listings rather than diluting them, and AirDNA landed on a similar typical revenue in the high twenty thousands from a differently drawn boundary. Two independent maps arriving in the same range is the strongest single thing this cell has going for it.

The caveats are just as real, and each one has already sunk a Lancaster packet somewhere. A county-area figure of $34.5 thousand to $37.3 thousand pasted onto a city parcel is the most common failure, and it is a relabeled question rather than found revenue. January prints about $1,646 at roughly 39 percent occupancy on the county map, and debt service does not take the month off. Zoning moved in May 2022 and again in May 2023, which tells you the framework here is legislated rather than settled. And 9.99 million county visitors describes the size of a pool, never the occupancy of one driveway.

So the stance is this: buy the cell, not the story. The test is whether the deal still clears on $28,791 typical at 43.5 percent occupancy with January modeled at its own number, on the AirROI city pin and that vintage, before any upside gets credited. Clear it there and Lancaster is a defensible small-city market with thin professional competition and a fall peak you can genuinely work. If it only clears on the county average, on a smoothed twelve-month line, or on a tourism total, the deal has not been underwritten yet. It has been narrated.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did typical City of Lancaster listings earn on the AirROI year?

About $28,791 across 216 active listings, AirROI trailing twelve months from August 2025 through July 2026. The average night was $204, occupancy was 43.5 percent, and revenue per available night was $92. Revenue moved plus 8.5 percent year over year and active supply moved plus 8.5 percent alongside it. File that whole line together, boundary and vintage included, because the revenue figure stops meaning anything once the pin that produced it goes missing.

Why do AirDNA and StaySTRA print different Lancaster numbers?

Because they draw different boundaries. AirROI found 216 listings on a City of Lancaster pin. AirDNA reports roughly 548 listings on a wider market shape, with ADR near $207 and occupancy around 54 to 55 percent. StaySTRA maps a broader county area of roughly 1,774 listings. None of those is an error, and none is a correction of the others. Each answers a differently drawn question, so each has to travel with its label attached.

I already host in Lancaster. What should I change first?

Your calendar assumptions, then your public fields. Managing to the annual 43.5 percent occupancy leaves money behind in October and leaves you short in January, so price the strong month on its own and pick a winter plan before December rather than during it. Then read your own title and first photo the way a stranger comparing dates would. With professionally managed share at 7.4 percent, your real competitor is another owner-operator whose listing is either more specific than yours or less.

Can I use the county-area figure for a city house?

No. The StaySTRA county-area desk implies a typical year closer to $34.5 thousand or $37.3 thousand because it contains farm stays and larger county properties the city pin never counted. That is a boundary difference, not extra revenue waiting on your driveway. If a buyer packet quietly swaps the county average onto a city parcel, it has relabeled the question rather than improved the case. Ask which map published the figure before anyone spends it.

What kind of stock sits inside the 216-listing sample?

Entire homes are 91.7 percent of it, so private-room arbitrage is not what is being measured. Houses are 61.1 percent. One bedroom is the largest single size at 28.2 percent, and capacity four is the most common configuration at 25.5 percent. Superhost share is 73.6 percent. The modal listing here is a one-bedroom entire home sleeping four with the badge already earned, which is a different product from the acreage some Lancaster titles still promise.

Which months are strongest, and which month is the hole?

Peak-3 on this AirROI vintage is October, August, and June, with October the single busiest month. January is the hole, and February and April sit in the low stretch with it. On the broader StaySTRA county map the swing is stark: about $1,646 at roughly 39 percent occupancy in January against about $3,305 at roughly 68 percent occupancy in August. The annual 43.5 percent already blends both ends, which is why it flatters January and understates October.

Do 9.99 million county visitors mean my listing stays full?

No. Discover Lancaster, working with Tourism Economics, reports about 9.99 million visitors, down about 1.7 percent, with $2.74 billion in visitor spending and $3.61 billion in total economic impact. Lodging spending was $387 million, most of which is hotels. Tourism supported roughly 26,436 jobs. Those are county demand figures and they describe the size of the pool, not the occupancy of one driveway inside a 216-listing city sample.

What do stay length, lead time, and minimum nights reveal?

Typical stay is 4.8 nights booked about 49 days ahead, which describes a planned trip and gives you a real pricing window: a change today mostly lands on the month after next. Sixty-seven listings, about 31 percent of the sample, sit at a 30-plus night minimum, while 40.7 percent accept a single night. A 30-plus setting is a choice a host made, not proof that month-length demand showed up to meet it.

Who actually manages listings inside the city boundary?

Professionally managed share on the AirROI city sample is only 7.4 percent, and the leading manager is Justin And Krista at eight listings. Vacasa does not lead this city market. On the wider StaySTRA county map the picture changes, with Evolve at 41 listings, Stay Lancaster at 36, Unique Stays at 34, Amish Farm Stay at 30, and Awakened at 18. County brand presence is not city brand dominance, and independents still carry the city desk.

What does the top origin city actually tell a host?

New York is the top origin city on this AirROI sample, and the more useful part is what that does not settle. A top origin is a plurality rather than a majority, so the rest of the calendar still arrives from somewhere else, and the sample does not publish a full origin mix. Read it as a hint about planning distance and trip length for a 4.8-night stay booked about seven weeks out. It is not a reason to write the listing for one metro or to price against another market's rate.

Does a listing scrape mean the city allows a short-term rental?

It does not, and this is not legal advice. A vendor can count 216 listings and still not be the zoning file. The city handles short-term use through zoning plus a city-issued rental license, limited new units in R3 and R4 on May 10, 2022, and opened a storefront carve-out in May 2023. Use is permitted by right with conditions in RO, MU, CB1, CB, C1, and C2. County hotel tax remittance is a tax duty, not a land-use permit.

Is Lancaster PA a good short-term rental market to invest in?

Answering good / invest / lancaster / short / term: On this data, yes for a patient operator and no for a thin deal. Revenue and active supply both moved plus 8.5 percent on the AirROI city year, and AirDNA reached a similar typical revenue from its own wider boundary, so the demand is not imaginary. The deal has to clear on $28,791 typical at 43.5 percent occupancy with January modeled at its own number, on the city pin rather than the county average. Zoning also moved in May 2022 and again in May 2023, so treat the framework as legislated rather than settled and confirm the zone with the municipality that owns the parcel.

Sources

Every figure above came from one of the following, and each belongs to its own map. AirROI supplied the City of Lancaster pin and the trailing twelve months from August 2025 through July 2026. AirDNA supplied the wider market boundary and the market scores. StaySTRA supplied the county-area desk, the monthly split, and the manager counts. Discover Lancaster, working from Tourism Economics research, supplied the visitor and lodging totals. The city and council coverage supplied the zoning history.

Vendor estimates are modeled from public listing activity, so they move when a map, a vintage, or an active-listing definition changes. Check the figure against the source before you quote it in a packet, and check the ordinance against the municipality rather than against any vendor regulation score. If a number in a Lancaster memo has no source beside it, that is the first thing to fix.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Lancaster listings lose trust when a county average gets pasted onto a city driveway, or when a farm costume replaces the walkable overnight guests actually booked. Owners and buyers need the boundary named before the number gets spent.

We help independent hosts and buyers read City of Lancaster stays against the AirROI city year, not a blended county number. Send the live listing if the same place questions keep arriving, or if a buyer packet still quotes revenue with no map attached.

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