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Rye, NH STR Market Report for Independent Hosts for Independent Hosts

Updated: 17 hours ago

Rye NH

Rye, New Hampshire was settled in 1623. That's not a marketing flourish , it's one of the oldest permanent European settlements in what would become the United States, older than most of the towns that now market themselves as "historic" New England beach destinations. Rye doesn't need to manufacture a brand. It has one already, built over four centuries, and it happens to sit on some of the most desirable oceanfront real estate in New Hampshire.


That distinction matters more than it might seem for anyone evaluating Rye as a short-term rental market. Most East Coast beach towns worth investing in were built as beach towns , boardwalks, motels, and seasonal infrastructure stacked up over the twentieth century specifically to serve summer tourism. Rye is a working New England town that happens to have three miles of Atlantic coastline, a scattering of salt marshes, a historic harbor, and a year-round population of roughly 5,543 residents who were here long before "vacation rental" was a category. That history shows up in the town's zoning, its civic pace, and , most relevant to this report , in how undeveloped its short-term rental market still is relative to demand.


This is the pillar report for our full Rye, NH cluster. Below, we'll lay out what actually anchors demand here, what the numbers say about revenue potential (and where those numbers disagree with each other), who's already operating in the space, and where the regulatory ground is shifting under everyone's feet in 2025 and 2026.


What Actually Anchors Demand in Rye

Unlike resort towns built around a single strip of beach, Rye's draw comes from several genuinely distinct attractions, which means it doesn't live or die on one tourism narrative. Put together, Rye's draws span history, nature, maritime access, and recreation , a broader base than almost any single-attraction beach town can claim, and one that supports STR demand across more of the calendar than a typical seasonal market.


Wallis Sands State Beach

Wallis Sands, at 1050 Ocean Boulevard, has been a New Hampshire state beach since 1964. It's a compact but heavily used stretch of shoreline , roughly 700 feet of sand , with a full bathhouse offering showers, changing areas, and lifeguard coverage during the summer season. It's also one of the few spots on the New Hampshire coast with a clear sightline out to the Isles of Shoals, the small archipelago sitting roughly six miles offshore. Wallis Sands draws a steady mix of day-trippers from greater Boston and Manchester, along with longer-staying visitors who want walkable beach access without the density of Hampton Beach twenty minutes south.


Odiorne Point State Park

Odiorne Point is the largest undeveloped stretch of shoreline on the New Hampshire coast , roughly 330 acres of rocky headland, tidal pools, salt marsh, and mixed forest. It's also a genuine layer of American military history: the site was condemned by the federal government during World War II and redeveloped as Fort Dearborn, part of the coastal defense network protecting Portsmouth Harbor. Visitors can still walk trails past Battery Seaman and other surviving fortifications. The park is also home to the Seacoast Science Center, which runs aquariums, touch tanks, and a marine-mammal rescue program, giving Rye a legitimate rainy-day and shoulder-season attraction that most beach towns simply don't have.


Rye Harbor and the Isles of Shoals

This is the detail most outside observers get wrong, and it's worth being precise about it. The Isles of Shoals , the small, historic island cluster split between New Hampshire and Maine waters , are most famously associated with the Isles of Shoals Steamship Company, which runs its tours out of downtown Portsmouth. But Rye Harbor is the actual closest mainland departure point to the islands. That role belongs to Island Cruises, Inc., which operates under the "Uncle Oscar" brand (also marketed as Granite State Whale Watch) out of Rye Harbor. Their vessel, the Uncle Oscar, runs Isles of Shoals tours, ferry service to Star Island, lobster-trip excursions, and whale watches. For content and search purposes, this distinction is worth making explicit: travelers searching for Isles of Shoals boat tours are often served Portsmouth-based results first, but Rye Harbor departures are shorter, less crowded, and arguably more central to Rye's own tourism identity than most local marketing currently reflects.


A Genuine Surf Community

Rye also has something most single-season beach towns lack entirely: an active surfing population that treats the coastline as a year-round resource rather than a summer-only amenity. Local surf reports and community activity around spots near Wallis Sands and the Rye town beaches describe conditions and traffic persisting well outside the June-to-August window , into fall storm swells and even winter surf sessions for a dedicated cold-water crowd. That's a meaningfully different demand curve than a typical beach-resort market, where occupancy collapses once Labor Day passes. A market with a built-in shoulder-season and off-season visitor base is a market where a well-positioned short-term rental doesn't have to survive on three months of bookings.


Put together, Rye's draws span history, nature, maritime access, and recreation , a broader base than almost any single-attraction beach town can claim, and one that supports STR demand across more of the calendar than a typical seasonal market. What it does need is operators who understand its particular mix of history, maritime geography, and year-round recreation well enough to market a listing as something more specific than "beach house near Portsmouth.".


The Numbers: What the Data Says, and Where It Disagrees With Itself

Short-term rental data providers rarely agree perfectly on any given market, and Rye is no exception. But what stands out here is that the top-line numbers are unusually close across independent sources , which gives this market more credibility than most of the towns we track in the early stages of a cluster rollout. That history shows up in the town's zoning, its civic pace, and , most relevant to this report , in how undeveloped its short-term rental market still is relative to demand.


Listing inventory:Two independent platforms, AirDNA and StaySTRA, both put active listings in Rye at roughly 113 to 114 properties. That kind of agreement between competing data providers, using different scraping methodologies, is genuinely unusual and suggests the inventory figure is solid ground to build projections on. Separately, a lower "~$16K/year typical host income" figure circulates via Airbtics (and is echoed in Rabbu's market summary for Rye) , but tracing that figure back to its underlying inputs shows it's built on a sample of only about 5 active listings with a reported average daily rate of roughly $76/night, a figure wildly out of step with the $421-452/night ADR that AirDNA, AirROI, and StaySTRA all independently confirm for this same town.


Average daily rate:ADR clusters tightly in the $421 to $452 per night range across three separate sources , AirDNA at $452, AirROI at $421, and StaySTRA at $432. For a coastal New England single-family or multi-bedroom rental market, that's a strong nightly rate, on par with or ahead of many higher-profile Mid-Atlantic and Northeast beach markets.


Occupancy:This is where the sources diverge more meaningfully , reported figures span a wide range from roughly 41.4% up to 61%, depending on which platform and methodology you're looking at. That's a real discrepancy, not a rounding difference, and it should be treated as such. Occupancy estimates depend heavily on which subset of listings a platform indexes (whole-home vs. all types), how it handles owner-blocked dates, and how recently its dataset was refreshed. Anyone underwriting a Rye acquisition should treat the true occupancy figure as a range to stress-test against, not a single confirmed number.


Cross-multiplying ADR, occupancy, and 365 nights per year across these sources produces an implied gross revenue range of roughly AirROI Rye $39,637 as of 2026-07-31 per year, per listing. Even at the low end of that spread, Rye clears a $35,000-per-year viability threshold with real room to spare , a bar that a lot of newer or thinner short-term rental markets we track can't clear at all.


There are two figures worth flagging explicitly rather than quietly ignoring, because both diverge sharply from the ADR-and-occupancy-based range above and both are the kind of number that circulates without its underlying methodology attached. AirDNA separately publishes a headline "average revenue" figure for Rye of roughly $25,700 per year , a number that doesn't reconcile with its own published ADR and occupancy figures for the same market. Multiplying AirDNA's own $452 ADR against even a conservative occupancy estimate produces a number several times higher than that $25,700 headline. Separately, a lower "~$16K/year typical host income" figure circulates via Airbtics (and is echoed in Rabbu's market summary for Rye) , but tracing that figure back to its underlying inputs shows it's built on a sample of only about 5 active listings with a reported average daily rate of roughly $76/night, a figure wildly out of step with the $421-452/night ADR that AirDNA, AirROI, and StaySTRA all independently confirm for this same town. An ADR that low isn't plausible for oceanfront and near-beach New Hampshire coastal inventory, and a 5-listing sample is far too thin to represent a roughly 114-listing market. We treat both the AirDNA $25.7K figure and the Airbtics/Rabbu ~$16K figure as artifacts of small or mismatched samples rather than reliable baselines , not evidence of a genuinely soft market. For underwriting purposes, we lean instead on AirROI's own published estimate of $39,956 per year as the conservative anchor figure for this market , a number drawn from a meaningfully larger, more representative sample than the outlier figures above, and one that still clears the viability bar comfortably. (One caveat worth flagging: a straightforward ADR × occupancy × 365 calculation using AirROI's own $421 ADR and 41.4% occupancy figures would imply a higher number than $39,956. That gap is most likely a function of AirROI's underlying methodology , how it weights newly listed, partial-year, or lower-performing properties in its market average , rather than a data error, but anyone underwriting off this figure should confirm the current number directly with AirROI rather than treating this report's math as the final word.).


The takeaway: don't anchor to a single headline number from any one source. Rye's fundamentals , tight rate clustering, agreement on inventory size, and a wide but plausible occupancy range , support real revenue potential, but both the "$25.7K" AirDNA figure and the "~$16K" figure floating around some Airbtics/Rabbu summaries reflect small, unreliable samples and should not be mistaken for the market's ceiling , or its floor.


Who's Already Operating Here

Competitive density is one of the more encouraging parts of this market, and it's worth stating plainly rather than hedging. Out of roughly 114 total active listings identified in an initial competitive screening, only about 3 belong to Vacasa , the large national property management brand that dominates listing counts in many other coastal markets. That is a strikingly low share for a company with Vacasa's typical market penetration, and it tells you something important: no single operator has consolidated this market.


What you find instead is a long tail of smaller, regionally-focused property managers and boutique operators, including:. Below, we'll lay out what actually anchors demand here, what the numbers say about revenue potential (and where those numbers disagree with each other), who's already operating in the space, and where the regulatory ground is shifting under everyone's feet in 2025 and 2026.

  • Seacoast 2 Summit Vacation Rentals

  • ManagedBNB

  • Rising Tide Rentals NH / Madden Group Real Estate

  • Carey & Giampa Rentals

  • PMI Green Rock / Seacoast Property Management Inc.

  • Universal Property Management

None of these operators appears to hold a dominant share of the market. That's a genuinely open competitive field , the kind of setup where a well-branded, well-optimized independent listing can compete on visibility and guest experience rather than trying to out-discount a corporate consolidator with hundreds of units and an algorithmic pricing advantage. We treat both the AirDNA $25.7K figure and the Airbtics/Rabbu ~$16K figure as artifacts of small or mismatched samples rather than reliable baselines , not evidence of a genuinely soft market.


Regulation: Live Motion, Not a Settled Rule

Any honest market report on New Hampshire short-term rentals in 2026 has to address a legal development that's actively reshaping how towns can regulate this space , and Rye is in the middle of responding to it right now. The practical effect, as New Hampshire municipal law commentators have since noted, is that towns relying on vague or permissive zoning language to informally restrict short-term rentals now have much weaker legal footing.


In May 2024, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled on *Appeal of Hoekstra*, a case involving a short-term rental of a travel trailer in Sunapee, New Hampshire , not Rye, and not a beach town at all. The Hoekstras had been renting out a travel trailer parked on their property, and the town's zoning administrator determined that use wasn't permitted under Sunapee's ordinance. The case worked its way up through the Sunapee Zoning Board of Adjustment and the state Housing Appeals Board, both of which sided with the town, before the Supreme Court reversed. The Court's reasoning turned on how permissively the town's zoning ordinance was written: because Sunapee's ordinance didn't explicitly and clearly restrict short-term rental use, the town couldn't informally read that restriction into it after the fact.


The practical effect, as New Hampshire municipal law commentators have since noted, is that towns relying on vague or permissive zoning language to informally restrict short-term rentals now have much weaker legal footing. If a town wants to limit or ban STRs, it needs to say so explicitly in its zoning ordinance , general silence or ambiguity now favors the property owner, not the town.


Rye is not sitting on the sidelines of this shift, though it's worth being precise about what's actually confirmed versus what's circulating secondhand. Some earlier commentary on Rye references a "Short-Term Rental Task Force" tied to the Select Board, with a meeting recorded June 4, 2025 , but we were unable to confirm a body by that specific name, that specific Select Board connection, or that specific meeting date through the town's own published minutes and agendas. What is confirmed: Rye's Planning Board maintains a standing Rules & Regulations Sub-Committee (drawn from Planning Board members and alternates) that works through zoning and ordinance language on an ongoing basis , a general-purpose body, not one with a documented short-term-rental-specific charge. The town also separately completed a Land Use Regulation Audit , produced with the Rockingham Planning Commission on behalf of the Rye Planning Board, funded through an InvestNH Housing Opportunity grant, with drafts circulated from summer through fall 2024 , but having reviewed that document directly, it's a general housing-strategy audit covering tools like accessory dwelling units, adaptive reuse, age-friendly housing, cluster housing, and form-based codes, and it does not mention short-term or vacation rentals anywhere in its text. It's evidence that Rye is actively revisiting its housing-related zoning generally, not evidence of a completed or in-progress STR-specific regulatory review. In plain terms: Rye has a real Planning Board process working through zoning and ordinance language, and a real (but STR-silent) housing audit , the actual driver of STR-specific pressure is statewide, via *Hoekstra*, not this particular local audit. Not, as far as we can confirm, a body specifically named a "Short-Term Rental Task Force" meeting on June 4, 2025, and not yet a published short-term-rental-specific ordinance proposal. This is motion, not a settled outcome , the process could produce anything from a permissive registration system to a more restrictive ordinance, and the timeline for any formal vote isn't yet public. Anyone relying on this for a compliance decision should verify current status directly with Rye's Planning & Zoning Department or Select Board rather than any single blog post, including this one.


We cover this regulatory landscape , what Rye's Planning Board and its Rules & Regulations Sub-Committee have discussed, what neighboring Seacoast towns have done post-*Hoekstra*, and what operators should watch for , in more depth in the companion regulatory guide for this cluster. If you're evaluating Rye as an acquisition or a listing to launch, that guide is required reading before you commit capital, not optional background.


What This Means for an Operator Evaluating Rye

Put the pieces together and Rye reads as a market with real structural opportunity that most operators outside the immediate Seacoast area haven't fully priced in yet:. That is a strikingly low share for a company with Vacasa's typical market penetration, and it tells you something important: no single operator has consolidated this market. That gap is most likely a function of AirROI's underlying methodology , how it weights newly listed, partial-year, or lower-performing properties in its market average , rather than a data error, but anyone underwriting off this figure should confirm the current number directly with AirROI rather than treating this report's math as the final word.).

  • Multi-source agreement on both inventory count (~AirROI Rye as of 2026-07-31 listings) and nightly rate ($421-452) gives more confidence than the usual single-source projection.

  • A conservative revenue anchor (AirROI's ~$39,956/year), drawn from a larger sample than the outlier figures we flagged above, clears viability comfortably, even before accounting for the higher end of the ADR × occupancy range.

  • Competitive density is low relative to demand , roughly 3% Vacasa penetration and no single dominant boutique operator, leaving room for a well-positioned independent brand to stand out.

  • Demand isn't purely seasonal. Between the state beaches, Odiorne Point and the Seacoast Science Center, Rye Harbor's maritime tourism, and a genuine year-round surf community, Rye has more shoulder-season and off-season pull than most single-attraction beach towns.

  • Regulation is in motion, not settled. *Hoekstra* has shifted the legal defaults in property owners' favor statewide, pushing towns including Rye toward explicit STR ordinances, and Rye's own Planning Board (via its Rules & Regulations Sub-Committee) continues working through zoning and ordinance language generally , worth monitoring closely rather than assuming today's rules are permanent. (The town's separate Land Use Regulation Audit is a housing-policy document , ADUs, cluster housing, and similar tools , and doesn't itself address STR rules.)

Rye isn't a market that needs to be "discovered" in the sense of being unknown , it's one of New Hampshire's most historically significant towns, sitting on some of its best coastline. What it does need is operators who understand its particular mix of history, maritime geography, and year-round recreation well enough to market a listing as something more specific than "beach house near Portsmouth.".


There are two figures worth flagging explicitly rather than quietly ignoring, because both diverge sharply from the ADR-and-occupancy-based range above and both are the kind of number that circulates without its underlying methodology attached.


Related Reading

Keep reading on same-cluster Crest & Cove pages that stay on labeled local lines without costume-corridor copy.


Frequently Asked Questions

Is Rye, NH a good market for short-term rental investment in 2026?

The fundamentals support it. Multiple independent data platforms agree closely on average daily rate ($421-452/night), and even the most conservative internally-consistent revenue estimate (AirROI's roughly $39,956/year) clears a $35,000 annual viability threshold with room to spare. Active listing counts land in the 113-114 range on AirDNA and StaySTRA. Competitive density is also low, with only an estimated 3% of listings run by the national Vacasa brand.


How does Rye compare to Hampton Beach or other nearby New Hampshire beach towns?

Rye is a fundamentally different kind of market. Hampton Beach is built as a dense, boardwalk-style resort town oriented almost entirely around summer tourism. Rye is a historic residential town, settled in 1623, with beach access, a state park, and harbor-based maritime tourism layered on top of a year-round community. That typically means lower density of short-term rental competition and demand that extends further into the shoulder seasons thanks to attractions like Odiorne Point and the Seacoast Science Center.


What is Wallis Sands State Beach, and how does it affect rental demand?

Wallis Sands is a New Hampshire state beach at 1050 Ocean Boulevard, established in 1964, with roughly 700 feet of shoreline and a bathhouse offering showers and lifeguard coverage. It's one of the more heavily visited public beaches on the Rye coastline and offers clear views out to the Isles of Shoals. Listings within walking or short driving distance of Wallis Sands typically command a premium tied to beach proximity, a common pattern in coastal STR markets nationwide.


Can you actually take a boat to the Isles of Shoals from Rye, or do you have to go through Portsmouth?

Both options exist, but Rye Harbor is the closer departure point. The Isles of Shoals Steamship Company runs its well-known tours out of downtown Portsmouth, but Island Cruises, Inc., operating as Uncle Oscar and also marketed as Granite State Whale Watch, departs directly from Rye Harbor and offers Isles of Shoals tours, Star Island ferry service, and whale watches. This is a meaningful local differentiator that Rye-based listings can market directly, since many visitors researching Isles of Shoals trips default to Portsmouth-based results first.


Why do occupancy estimates for Rye vary so much between data sources?

Reported occupancy for Rye ranges from roughly 41.4% up to 61%, depending on the platform. That spread reflects differences in each provider's methodology, including which listings get counted (whole-home only vs. all property types) and how owner-blocked dates are treated. Rather than anchoring to any single occupancy figure, treat it as a range and stress-test revenue projections at both the conservative and optimistic ends.


Is New Hampshire cracking down on short-term rentals?

The legal trend is actually running in the opposite direction for now. The May 2024 Appeal of Hoekstra New Hampshire Supreme Court decision, a case involving a short-term rental of a travel trailer in Sunapee, determined that towns can't rely on vague or permissive zoning language to informally restrict short-term rentals after the fact. Towns now need explicit ordinance language to limit STRs. Rye's Planning Board has been working through its own zoning and ordinance language via its Rules & Regulations Sub-Committee, so owners should confirm the town's current posture directly before assuming nothing has changed.


Does Rye have year-round rental demand, or is it purely a summer market?

Rye has more of a year-round demand base than most single-attraction beach towns. Beyond peak summer beach season, the town supports an active surfing community that uses the coastline into fall and winter, plus attractions like Odiorne Point State Park and the Seacoast Science Center that draw visitors regardless of beach weather. That gives well-positioned listings a real shot at meaningful shoulder-season and off-season bookings rather than a hard seasonal cliff after Labor Day.


How many short-term rental listings are actually in Rye right now, and is any single company dominating the market?

Independent data from AirDNA and StaySTRA both estimate roughly 113 to 114 active listings in Rye, an unusually tight agreement between two separate platforms. Of those, only an estimated 3 listings are managed by Vacasa, the large national property management brand. The rest of the market is spread across a long tail of smaller regional operators, including Seacoast 2 Summit Vacation Rentals, ManagedBNB, Rising Tide Rentals NH, Carey & Giampa Rentals, and PMI Green Rock/Seacoast Property Management, meaning no single operator has consolidated the field.


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 New Hampshire. What is confirmed: Rye's Planning Board maintains a standing Rules & Regulations Sub-Committee (drawn from Planning Board members and alternates) that works through zoning and ordinance language on an ongoing basis , a general-purpose body, not one with a documented short-term-rental-specific charge.


Sources


Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Rye doesn't need a manufactured historic brand pasted from another New England beach town, since its 1623 settlement and undeveloped short-term rental market relative to demand are already the actual selling points here.


We help Rye hosts write listing copy built on this town's own centuries-old identity and current market data, not a generic coastal-New England template. Send your listing and we'll show you where the story still reads borrowed.


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

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