South Haven, MI vs. St. Joseph, MI: Two Desks, Two Years

South Haven and St. Joseph both sit on Michigan's Lake Michigan shoreline in southwest Michigan, close enough that a host or investor researching one often gets pitched the other in the same breath. That proximity doesn't make them the same market. South Haven is a larger city in Van Buren County built around South Haven Lighthouse, North Beach, the Black River harbor, and a walkable downtown shopping district. St. Joseph sits farther south in Berrien County, with its own separate permitting desk and a meaningfully smaller listing base.

Both towns have real, independently sourced trailing-twelve-month figures worth citing on their own lines: South Haven shows 546 active listings and $39,291 typical annual revenue; St. Joseph shows 76 active listings and $27,986 typical annual revenue. South Haven's listing count is more than seven times St. Joseph's - a genuinely different market scale, not a rounding difference, and a reason on its own not to blend the two into one composite southwest-Michigan lakefront number.

This page covers what each town's own numbers say, who a host calls about permitting in each town, why a 30-night-minimum-stay figure reported here belongs specifically to South Haven's listing base and isn't a measure of occupancy, and why a third town - Saugatuck - has no business showing up in either town's revenue conversation just because it's also a Michigan lakefront destination. This is not legal advice.

South Haven's Real Numbers

South Haven's short-term rental market has a specific, sourced trailing-twelve-month figure: AirROI puts typical annual revenue at $39,291 across 546 active listings for the period running August 2025 through July 2026, last updated August 8, 2026. The average daily rate over that period was $543, occupancy came in at 32.3%, and revenue per available night worked out to $194. Year over year, that revenue figure moved down 15.3%, a meaningful decline, while active listing supply grew 14.9% - a market absorbing substantial new competition against a real revenue pullback rather than growth.

The three strongest months in this data are August, June, and July, with February the clear slowest month - a classic Lake Michigan summer-driven pattern. Guests book an average of 3.9 nights, arrive booking about 79 days ahead of the stay, and the largest single origin market is Chicago, followed by Indianapolis. Superhost status covers 56.6% of the active listing base, a useful benchmark for a new South Haven host gauging how much guest-experience investment it takes to be competitive in this specific market.

That 15.3% year-over-year revenue decline paired with 14.9% supply growth is one of the more significant combinations in this comparison. A host entering South Haven today is competing against a meaningfully larger pool of active listings than existed a year earlier, and the double-digit revenue decline suggests the new supply has outpaced whatever demand growth occurred. That doesn't make South Haven a bad market - its lighthouse, beach, and harbor draw are real and specific - but it does mean a new listing needs sharper differentiation than it would have needed even a year ago.

It's worth reading the $543 ADR and 32.3% occupancy figures together rather than in isolation. A $543 average night is a genuinely high rate for a Midwest lake town, and it suggests South Haven's listing mix skews toward larger, higher-end properties rather than modest studio units - the kind of premium lakefront home that commands a strong nightly rate even when it doesn't fill every available night. A host with a smaller or more modestly appointed property in this market should benchmark against the town's occupancy figure more than its ADR, since a $543 average is being pulled upward by the market's premium tier and may not be representative of what a smaller property can realistically charge.

The 30-Night Minimum Belongs to South Haven, Not to Occupancy

A recurring figure in this market's research is that 63.7% of South Haven's 546 listings - 348 of them - operate with a 30-night minimum stay requirement. That's a host stay-length choice, not a measurement of occupancy or demand, and it's worth keeping that distinction clear in any packet that cites the figure: it describes how nearly two-thirds of South Haven's host base has chosen to structure their calendars around longer stays, not how busy the town is overall.

A host or investor building a comparison packet should never substitute one figure for the other. Citing "63.7% occupancy" when the real figure is 32.3%, or implying that the high share of 30-night-minimum listings explains a lower occupancy number, misstates what the data actually shows. The two figures move independently, and conflating them anywhere in marketing copy, an investor packet, or a listing description is a factual error worth catching before it goes out. There's no equivalent 30-night-minimum figure confirmed for St. Joseph in the available source data, so this page won't assume St. Joseph's listing base follows the same stay-length pattern South Haven's does.

Who Actually Answers the Phone in South Haven

South Haven's rental compliance runs through the city's STR coordinator, reachable at 269-637-0791. The confirmed requirement is a city two-class short-term rental license - a structure worth confirming directly with the coordinator, since a two-class system typically means the specific fee, inspection requirement, or renewal cadence can differ depending on which class a given property falls into.

No specific license fee for South Haven is confirmed in the available source data, and this page won't guess one. A host should call the STR coordinator directly and ask which of the two license classes their property falls under, what that class actually costs, and how the renewal schedule works, since none of those specifics are settled by anything available here.

Because South Haven's confirmed permitting detail here is a class structure rather than a specific dollar figure, a South Haven host has real homework to do directly with the coordinator before assuming they understand the full compliance picture. Hours can change, so confirming both the license requirement and the office's current hours in the same call - rather than relying on a secondhand summary, including this one - saves a second call back.

A two-class license structure is also worth asking about specifically in terms of what triggers each class, since a system like this often distinguishes based on factors like owner-occupancy status, whether the property is a primary residence versus a dedicated investment rental, or the number of bedrooms and maximum occupancy. Getting the classification wrong at the application stage can mean paying the wrong fee, being held to the wrong set of operating rules, or needing to refile later - all avoidable by asking the coordinator directly which class a specific property falls under before submitting anything.

St. Joseph's Real Numbers and Its Own Separate Desk

St. Joseph's own trailing-twelve-month figure, from the same source window: $27,986 typical annual revenue across 76 active listings. That's a much smaller listing count than South Haven's - roughly one-seventh the size - on a lower typical per-listing revenue figure as well, describing a genuinely smaller market rather than a scaled-down version of South Haven's numbers.

St. Joseph's own permitting desk is confirmed as a separate matter entirely from South Haven's city coordinator - a different city government in a different county, Berrien rather than Van Buren, with its own requirements. This page doesn't have a confirmed specific fee, ADR, or occupancy figure for St. Joseph beyond the $27,986 revenue and 76-listing figures above, and won't guess those numbers. A host comparing the two markets on rate and occupancy specifically, rather than just typical annual revenue, needs to confirm those figures directly with St. Joseph's own desk or a market data source before building a pricing plan around them.

Sales tax can still apply to a stay in either town even when it runs under the 30-day mark sometimes associated with longer-term rental exemptions - a detail worth confirming directly with the relevant Michigan tax authority rather than assuming a short stay is automatically exempt from state and local lodging tax obligations in either market. That confirmation matters regardless of which town's license a host is holding, since the tax obligation and the local permitting requirement are two separate compliance layers that don't automatically satisfy each other.

Why Listing-Count Size Changes How Each Market Should Be Read

A 546-listing market and a 76-listing market don't just differ in scale - they behave differently in how much any single listing's performance can move the reported average. In St. Joseph's much smaller sample, a handful of unusually strong or weak listings can shift the town-wide $27,986 figure more than a similar handful would move South Haven's $39,291 average, since South Haven's figure is spread across more than seven times as many properties. A host in St. Joseph should treat the town average as a noticeably less stable benchmark for any individual property than a host in South Haven should for theirs.

That same size difference cuts the other way for competitive intensity. South Haven's much larger listing count means a new host entering that market is one of many more comparable options in front of a prospective guest, which raises the bar for differentiation through photography, pricing, and listing copy - especially with supply having grown 14.9% in a single year on top of an already large base. St. Joseph's smaller field means a well-executed listing has more room to stand out against fewer direct competitors, even though the overall market itself is considerably smaller in absolute size.

None of this is a case for choosing one market over the other in the abstract. It's a case for reading each town's own numbers on their own terms, confirming the current license class, fee, and requirements directly with each town's own desk before listing, and building a pricing and booking strategy around the specific figures each market's own data actually shows - rather than assuming a script that works in one Lake Michigan town will translate cleanly to the other just because both sit on the same shoreline. A host weighing an entry into either market should treat this comparison as a starting point for their own confirmation calls, not a substitute for making them.

Why Saugatuck Doesn't Belong in Either Town's Revenue Line

Saugatuck shows up in some of the same research pulled for this comparison, with $48,084 typical annual revenue across 294 listings. That's a real, separately sourced figure - but it describes a different town entirely from both South Haven and St. Joseph. The fact that all three sit on the same stretch of Michigan's Lake Michigan shoreline doesn't make them comparable markets any more than three towns sharing the same coastline would automatically share one revenue figure.

The specific risk here is a packet or listing description that averages Saugatuck's higher figure into a "southwest Michigan lakefront typical revenue" number alongside South Haven and St. Joseph, producing a blended figure that doesn't accurately describe any of the three markets. South Haven's $39,291, St. Joseph's $27,986, and Saugatuck's $48,084 need to stay on three separate, clearly labeled lines in any document that references more than one of them - never averaged, blended, or presented as interchangeable lakefront benchmarks.

What Belongs in Each Town's Listing Copy

South Haven's genuine landmarks are specific and worth naming directly: South Haven Lighthouse, North Beach, the Black River harbor, and the town's downtown shops. A listing that names these gives a guest specifically searching for South Haven a concrete reason to book it over a generic "Lake Michigan getaway" listing that could describe a dozen other shoreline towns in the region.

None of South Haven's landmark, guest-origin, or permitting detail applies to a St. Joseph listing, and the reverse is equally true. A host running listings in both markets, or a marketing packet covering both, should keep every fee, phone number, landmark, and performance figure attributed to its own town in any document that touches both markets, since the two towns share only a loose "southwest Michigan lakefront" category and comparatively little else once you get past that surface-level label. A listing description that borrows South Haven's lighthouse-and-harbor language for a St. Joseph property, or vice versa, reads as generic to a guest who has actually visited either town and knows the difference - and it fails the more basic test of simply describing the property accurately.

Related Reading

Related reading for South Haven Mi, MI hosts: same-town spine first, then nearby geo lines. Skip costume national dumps that do not underwrite this driveway.

• South Haven Mi Vs

• Holland Mi STR market report

• Saugatuck Douglas STR market report

• Union Pier Chikaming Township STR market report

• How to market a Holland stay

• How to market a Union Pier stay

• How to market a Saugatuck Douglas stay

• What it costs to start in What It Actually Costs

• Airbnb Legal In Saugatuck

• Is Saugatuck Douglas A a good STR investment?

• A Str Marketing Agency

• Buying a Holland rental

• Saugatuck Douglas Diy Vs

• DIY vs hire marketing in Holland

• Union Pier Diy Vs

Frequently Asked Questions

What is South Haven, Michigan's typical annual short-term rental revenue?

AirROI's trailing-twelve-month data through July 2026 puts typical annual revenue at $39,291 across 546 active listings, with a $543 average daily rate and 32.3% occupancy. Revenue moved down 15.3% year over year while active supply grew 14.9%, suggesting substantial new competition has outpaced demand growth over the past year.

What is St. Joseph, Michigan's typical annual short-term rental revenue?

The same source window puts St. Joseph's typical annual revenue at $27,986 across 76 active listings. That's a much smaller listing count than South Haven's, roughly one-seventh the size, on a lower typical per-listing revenue figure as well - a genuinely smaller, separate market rather than a scaled-down version of South Haven's numbers.

Who do I call about South Haven's short-term rental license?

South Haven's STR coordinator handles permitting at 269-637-0791. The confirmed requirement is a city two-class short-term rental license. No specific fee is confirmed here, so confirm directly with the coordinator which class applies to a given property and what that class currently costs.

Who do I call about St. Joseph's short-term rental permit?

St. Joseph's permitting runs through its own separate city desk in Berrien County, distinct from South Haven's Van Buren County coordinator. This page doesn't have a confirmed specific phone number or fee for that desk, so look up St. Joseph's current city contact and confirm requirements directly before listing.

Can I average Saugatuck's revenue into a South Haven or St. Joseph figure?

No. Saugatuck published $48,084 from 294 listings, a separately sourced figure describing a different town entirely. South Haven's $39,291 and St. Joseph's $27,986 need to stay on their own labeled lines. All three sitting on the same Michigan shoreline doesn't make them one market.

Does a 30-night minimum stay mean South Haven has low occupancy?

No - those are separate measurements. About 63.7% of South Haven's 546 listings, or 348 properties, use a 30-night minimum stay structure, which reflects a host's own calendar choice, not a measurement of the town's overall demand. South Haven's occupancy figure, 32.3%, is reported independently of that stay-length pattern.

Which town has more short-term rental listings, South Haven or St. Joseph?

South Haven, by a wide margin - 546 active listings compared to St. Joseph's 76. That larger supply base sits alongside a higher typical annual revenue per listing, $39,291 versus St. Joseph's $27,986, though South Haven's 14.9% year-over-year supply growth and 15.3% revenue decline suggest that larger market is also more competitive right now.

What months are strongest for South Haven short-term rentals?

August, June, and July are the three strongest months, with February the clear slowest month. Guests booking a South Haven stay average 3.9 nights and book about 79 days ahead, with Chicago and then Indianapolis as the largest origin markets - a pattern tied to the town's beach, lighthouse, and harbor draw for Midwest drive-market visitors.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

South Haven runs more than seven times St. Joseph's listing count, but a 15.3% revenue decline against 14.9% supply growth means that bigger market is also getting more competitive by the year.

We help hosts compare Michigan lakefront markets like these on each town's own confirmed numbers and permitting desk, never a blended guess. Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502. Send the live listing draft and the facts you can actually cite.

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