Smithville Lake STR Report 2026: $32,889 on 20 Listings
Updated: Aug 28
Twenty listings is a small enough sample that a single new property changes the market's own percentages, and that's exactly the size of the market Smithville Lake is publishing for the June 2025 through May 2026 AirROI window. The typical listing earned $32,889 across that twenty-listing sample, at an average daily rate of $238 and occupancy of 51.8 percent, producing RevPAR of $124. Year over year, that's a gain of 8.5 percent — a real improvement, not a rounding artifact, on a market small enough that the improvement is visible in the raw numbers rather than buried in a statistical footnote.
Smithville Lake itself is a 7,190-acre U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir sitting about thirty minutes north of downtown Kansas City via I-29 and MO-92 — close enough to draw a genuine metro day-trip and drive-market crowd, far enough to be its own distinct overnight desk rather than a Kansas City suburb with a lake view. That distance matters for how this report should be read: Smithville is not a footnote under a Kansas City ADR figure, and it isn't a satellite of the two other Northland short-term rental markets that keep showing up in the same buyer research — Weston, eighteen listings and $47,063 on a separate vintage, and Liberty, fifty-five listings and $36,204 on a third.
This report exists to keep those three years labeled and separate, and to walk through what a twenty-listing commuter reservoir actually looks like once the seasonal pattern, the ownership mix, and last year's leftover figure are laid out next to this year's live number.
None of this is legal, tax, or investment advice — it's a plain read of what the current AirROI extract says about a specific, small, twenty-listing market, written for a host pricing a calendar or a buyer sizing up an acquisition, not a substitute for a property-specific underwriting review, an insurance quote, or a direct conversation with the city desk that handles permitting. This is not legal advice.
$32,889 Is the Live Year
The number to build a Smithville listing around is $32,889 — the typical annual revenue across the twenty-listing AirROI sample for June 2025 through May 2026. That figure comes with ADR at $238, occupancy at 51.8 percent, and RevPAR at $124. Every one of those four numbers describes the same twenty-listing units over the same twelve-month window, and none of them should be mixed with a different vintage or a neighboring town's figures without a clear label attached.
It's worth noting there's a prior, superseded figure floating around some older research: $30,491 typical revenue, 49.3 percent occupancy, ADR $236, RevPAR $117. That number is real, but it's last cycle's read, not this one — and the 8.5 percent year-over-year gain this report is built around is the move from that older figure to the current $32,889. A host or buyer citing the $30,491 number as current is working from a stale extract, not a live one.
For a twenty-listing market, $32,889 is a meaningful number to hit — not because it's a huge figure by national standards, but because it's the actual ceiling and floor a Smithville host is competing inside. A listing pricing itself against a bigger market's ADR, or budgeting against a bigger market's typical revenue, is solving the wrong problem.
Twenty Listings Is a Tiny market — Read It That Way
A twenty-listing sample moves fast. One new professionally managed property entering the market, or one existing listing going dark for a season, shifts the percentages in this report by amounts that would be statistical noise in a five-hundred-listing market and are a real signal here. That's not a flaw in the data — it's simply what a small, tight commuter-reservoir market looks like from month to month, and it changes how a host or buyer should treat every percentage in this report: as a snapshot of a specific, small, real group of properties, not a stable long-run average.
Ownership concentration adds to that read. One operator already runs roughly half the sample outright, and professionally managed listings account for 50.0 percent of the market overall — meaning an independent host self-managing a Smithville property is already matching half the market's operating model, not swimming against some overwhelming professional-management tide. Entire-home listings make up 95 percent of the sample, and superhost status covers 85.0 percent of active listings, both of which describe a fairly mature, fairly competent operator base for a twenty-listing town.
None of that changes the top-line number. It does mean a host reading $32,889 should understand it as the output of twenty specific, largely well-run properties competing for a specific, finite guest pool — not an abstract market average that would hold steady no matter who was operating in it.
Keep Weston's $47,063 Off this market
Weston is a real Northland short-term rental market, and its own AirROI figure — $47,063 across eighteen listings, for the May 2025 through April 2026 vintage — is a genuinely strong number. It is also not Smithville's number, and the two shouldn't be blended into a single "Northland average" in a buyer packet or a host's own budgeting spreadsheet, no matter how close the two towns sit on a map.
The reason isn't just vintage mismatch, though that matters too — Weston's window runs a month offset from Smithville's June-through-May cycle. The bigger reason is that Weston sells a fundamentally different guest occasion: a distillery-town weekend built around McCormick Distilling, Weston Brewing, the Second Saturday event calendar, and Weston Bend State Park. That's not the guest booking a Smithville commuter-reservoir stay, and a Smithville listing dressed up in Weston's distillery-weekend language is going to miss the guest actually searching for this reservoir.
A buyer or host who sees $47,063 next to $32,889 and reads it as "Smithville is underperforming" is misreading both numbers. They're not two readings of the same market; they're two labeled readings of two different markets, and the gap between them says nothing about whether either town's hosts are doing their jobs well.
March, December, and April Carry This Desk
Smithville's peak-three months are March, December, and April, with November as the clear hole in the calendar. That's a specific seasonal signature worth sitting with, because it doesn't match the ski-town or beach-town rhythm a host might assume applies to a lake property by default. December landing inside the peak three, rather than closing out a slow winter, is the detail most likely to surprise a new host pricing a calendar for the first time.
February and September sit in the low stretch alongside November, rounding out a calendar that rewards a host who prices ahead of the actual peak months rather than defaulting to a generic "summer is busy" assumption. With an average booking lead time of 30 days, a host waiting until March itself to adjust pricing for the March peak is already behind guests who started searching in February.
This seasonal pattern is specific to Smithville's own twenty-listing sample and shouldn't be assumed to describe Weston or Liberty's calendars, both of which run their own peak patterns tied to their own guest occasions — a distillery-weekend calendar for Weston, a county-seat pattern for Liberty.
Kansas City Is Thirty Minutes, Not this market
The proximity to Kansas City — a roughly thirty-minute drive via I-29 and MO-92 — is real demand color and a genuine part of why occupancy sits at 51.8 percent on this reservoir rather than lower. It is not, however, a reason to treat Kansas City's own hotel and short-term rental market data as interchangeable with Smithville's twenty-listing units. A Kansas City day-tripper driving out to the reservoir for a Saturday is a different transaction than a guest booking an overnight stay on this market, and metro-level visitor-spend figures don't translate into Smithville's ADR or occupancy.
Keep the thirty-minute distance in a listing's demand story — it's a legitimate reason a Kansas City-area guest chooses Smithville over a farther drive — but keep it out of the revenue math. The 51.8 percent occupancy figure already accounts for whatever demand that proximity generates; there's no separate metro adjustment to add on top of the twenty-listing extract's own number.
Vintage Is June Through May, Not August
One more label worth being precise about: Smithville's current AirROI window runs June 2025 through May 2026. That's a different twelve-month window than Liberty's August 2025 through July 2026 vintage, and a different window still from Weston's May 2025 through April 2026 cycle. All three are real, current figures for their respective towns — they simply don't share a calendar, which means a side-by-side comparison across all three needs to note the vintage difference explicitly rather than presenting them as three readings of the same year.
For a host or buyer building a comparison packet across the Northland's three short-term rental markets, the discipline is straightforward: label the vintage next to every figure, every time. $32,889 is Smithville's June 2025-May 2026 year. $47,063 is Weston's May 2025-April 2026 year. $36,204 is Liberty's August 2025-July 2026 year. None of the three is wrong; all three need their own timestamp attached.
How a Host Should Read a Commuter Reservoir
Smithville Lake's overall profile — a small, tight, thirty-minute commuter reservoir with a distinct March-December-April peak pattern, roughly half its listings professionally managed, and a genuine 8.5 percent year-over-year improvement — describes a market that rewards precision over volume. There's no path to competing on sheer listing stock count against a five-hundred-listing metro market, and there doesn't need to be; a twenty-listing units earning $32,889 typical and climbing 8.5 percent year over year is a market doing its own job well, on its own terms.
Parkville, a fourth Northland town publishing $32,166 on twenty-seven listings, sits close enough in raw dollar terms to Smithville's own figure that it's occasionally used as a rough sanity check for the region — but it's still its own labeled market with its own guest occasion, not a substitute for Smithville's own extract. The through-line across every comparison in this report is the same: Smithville's $32,889 is the number that belongs on a Smithville listing, and every neighboring town's figure is useful context precisely because it stays labeled as someone else's year.
What 51.8 Percent Occupancy Actually Means for a Booking Calendar
Occupancy of 51.8 percent sounds like a coin-flip calendar until it's broken down against the seasonal pattern this report already laid out. A twenty-listing market carrying just over half its available nights booked, concentrated heavily into March, December, and April, means those three months are running considerably above 51.8 percent while November, February, and September drag the annual average down. Reading 51.8 percent as a flat, evenly distributed rate across every month of the year misses the actual shape of the calendar entirely.
That distinction matters for pricing strategy. A host trying to smooth occupancy evenly across all twelve months — chasing a flat 51.8 percent in every single month — is fighting the market's own seasonal signature rather than working with it. The stronger play on a market this size is leaning into the peak-three months with pricing that reflects genuine demand concentration, while treating November specifically as the month that needs the most deliberate promotional or pricing effort, since it's the clear structural hole rather than an ordinary slow month.
A busy festival weekend or a full boat ramp on any given Saturday is a real demand signal, but it isn't the same thing as this occupancy file, and it doesn't retroactively fill November on its own. Shoulder-season thinking on this market means pricing the specific months the extract actually names as strong, not assuming a generic summer bump will show up in a market whose real peak runs March through April with a December spike in between, and whose slow stretch runs through late winter and early fall instead.
What This Report Does Not Claim
It's worth being explicit about the boundaries of this report, because a market-report post is an easy place for a reader to over-extend a real number into a claim it never made. This report does not claim that every Smithville listing earns $32,889 — that figure is a typical value across a twenty-listing sample, and individual listings inside that sample vary meaningfully above and below it depending on property size, condition, and how well the listing is marketed. It also doesn't claim that the 8.5 percent year-over-year gain will repeat at the same rate next year; it's a description of what already happened, not a forecast.
This report also isn't legal or tax guidance. Nothing here should be read as a statement about permitting requirements, insurance obligations, or occupancy tax remittance for a Smithville property — those questions belong with the city desk that handles Chapter 625 filings, not with a market-data report built from AirROI figures. The two subjects sit near each other in a host's overall planning, but they're answered by different sources, and this report only speaks to the revenue and occupancy side of that planning.
It also doesn't claim that any single amenity, photo set, or listing description caused the 8.5 percent gain — the extract describes an outcome across a twenty-listing sample, not the specific marketing decisions behind any individual property's performance. A host reading this report for what actually moves an individual listing's numbers should treat it as market context first, then look at their own calendar, pricing, and photo set as the actual levers that respond directly to that context.
Reading This Report Alongside a Purchase Decision
A buyer looking at Smithville Lake as an acquisition target should treat this report as one input among several, not the whole underwriting file. $32,889 typical revenue on twenty listings is a real, current number, and the 8.5 percent year-over-year gain is a genuine positive signal — but a twenty-listing sample also means the specific property under consideration could sit meaningfully above or below that typical figure depending on its size, its proximity to the water, and how well its existing listing has been marketed, if it's already operating.
The temptation in any small-market acquisition is to reach for a bigger, more impressive number from a neighboring town to justify a purchase price — pointing to Weston's $47,063 as evidence of what a Smithville property "could" earn with the right marketing. That reasoning doesn't hold up. Weston's higher figure reflects a different guest occasion entirely, not a management gap Smithville hosts have simply failed to close. A defensible underwriting model for a Smithville property should be built on Smithville's own $32,889 figure, adjusted for the specific property's own characteristics, not inflated by a neighboring town's entirely unrelated guest base.
Where this report is genuinely useful to a buyer is in the seasonal detail: knowing that March, December, and April carry the year, that November is the structural hole, and that 30-day booking lead times mean pricing needs to be set well ahead of each peak month. That's operational information a buyer can act on immediately after closing, regardless of which specific property in the twenty-listing units they end up purchasing.
It's also worth weighing the ownership mix from an acquisition standpoint. With professionally managed listings at 50.0 percent and one operator already running roughly half the sample, a buyer entering this market isn't stepping into an unfamiliar, all-independent field — there's an established professional-management presence already competing for the same guest pool, which is useful competitive intelligence heading into a purchase, separate from the revenue figure itself.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What did the typical Smithville Lake short-term rental earn last year?
The typical listing earned $32,889 across the June 2025 through May 2026 AirROI window, drawn from a twenty-listing sample. That comes with an average daily rate of $238, occupancy of 51.8 percent, and RevPAR of $124. Those four figures all describe the same twenty-listing units over the same twelve-month period and shouldn't be split apart or mixed with a different town's numbers or an older vintage.
How much did Smithville's market grow year over year?
Revenue is up 8.5 percent year over year, moving from a prior, now-superseded figure of $30,491 typical revenue to the current $32,889. That older number came with 49.3 percent occupancy, ADR of $236, and RevPAR of $117, so the gain shows up across occupancy and rate together, not just one metric moving on its own. On a twenty-listing sample, an 8.5 percent move is a real, visible shift rather than statistical noise.
Should Weston's $47,063 figure be used to benchmark a Smithville listing?
No. Weston's $47,063 across eighteen listings describes a separate market on a separate vintage, May 2025 through April 2026, built around a distillery-town guest occasion tied to McCormick Distilling and the Second Saturday event calendar. Smithville's own guest is booking a commuter-reservoir stay, not a distillery weekend, so Weston's higher figure isn't evidence Smithville is underperforming — it's evidence the two towns sell different trips.
What are Smithville's peak months?
March, December, and April form the peak three, with November as the clear seasonal hole and February and September rounding out the low stretch. December landing inside the peak months rather than closing out a slow winter is the detail most likely to catch a new host off guard, since it doesn't match a typical ski-town or beach-town assumption about when a lake property should be busiest.
How close is Smithville Lake to downtown Kansas City?
About thirty minutes via I-29 and MO-92. That proximity is real demand color and part of why occupancy sits at 51.8 percent, since it puts the reservoir within easy day-trip and short-getaway range of the metro. It isn't a reason to blend Kansas City's own market data into Smithville's twenty-listing extract, though — the two are separate overnight markets even though they're a short drive apart.
What does the twenty-listing sample size mean for how this report should be read?
It means every percentage in this report moves faster than it would in a larger market. One new professionally managed listing entering the market, or one existing property going dark, shifts the numbers meaningfully. That's not a data quality problem, it's simply the nature of a small commuter-reservoir market, and it means treating each figure as a snapshot of twenty specific properties rather than a stable long-run average.
How professionally managed is the Smithville market?
Professionally managed listings account for 50.0 percent of the twenty-listing sample, with one operator already running roughly half the market. Entire-home listings make up 95 percent of active properties, and 85.0 percent carry superhost status. An independent host self-managing a Smithville property is matching half the market's operating model, not competing against an overwhelming professional-management tide.
How does Smithville compare to Liberty's published figures?
Liberty published $36,204 across fifty-five listings for its August 2025 through July 2026 vintage — a different window from Smithville's June-through-May cycle and a different guest occasion tied to the Clay County seat. The two towns are useful side-by-side context in a Northland comparison packet as long as both figures keep their own vintage label attached rather than getting presented as the same year.
What's the average booking lead time on Smithville listings?
About 30 days. That's meaningful heading into the March peak specifically, since a guest planning a March stay is often already searching in February — well before the peak month itself begins. A host who waits until March to adjust pricing and availability for the March peak is already behind the booking window guests are actually operating on.
Does Parkville's $32,166 figure describe the same market as Smithville?
No, though the two dollar figures land close together. Parkville published $32,166 across twenty-seven listings, its own labeled Northland market with its own guest occasion — not a substitute for Smithville's twenty-listing extract. The similarity in raw dollars is a coincidence worth noting in a regional comparison packet, not evidence the two towns can be safely treated as one market or one guest profile.
Work with Crest & Cove Creative
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