Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks

Thomas Garner
Aug 16
12 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Eagle Cliff overlook at Starved Rock State Park, Illinois

The canyon is not an asset class. The asset is a house on a parcel that a clerk can name, with a roof, a well or a city tap, and a calendar that AirROI's Ottawa file already says is lumpy. Typical annual revenue on that file, updated August 8, 2026, is Median month is Occupancy is 34.0 percent. Peak-three months are August, June, and July. January is the floor. None of those numbers become larger because Starved Rock State Park drew 2.4 million visits in 2024.

This page will not average AirDNA's 250-listing snapshot with AirROI's 161. It will not treat Ottawa as North Utica. It will not treat Village of Utica's 2022 overhaul story as a live code book. It will not put a pool-house renovation in the pro forma because a different market used one as a punch line. Lake Geneva is a different market. If you have seen a $480 ADR in that lake's direction, leave it there. This file's average daily rate is $236 and its median is about $197.

Chicago is the origin, about 91 miles and an hour forty-five via I-55 and I-80. Themarket reportis the dashboard. Thepermitpage is the desk list. Thefinancepage is the packet. This page is the buy box, and the buy box starts with the published year, not with sandstone. This page will not average AirDNA's 250-listing snapshot with AirROI's 161.

Underwrite the parcel not the canyon

Eighteen sandstone canyons and trail hours from 7 a.m. to sunset are the reason a guest leaves Evanston. They are not a line on a trailing twelve. Underwrite bedrooms, baths, parking, septic or sewer, heat that will survive January, and the municipal name on the tax bill. A two-bedroom house is the largest bedroom slice on the Ottawa file at 42.9 percent. Three-or-more-bedroom stock is 33.5 percent. Entire homes are 96.3 percent and houses are 68.3 percent. Buy inside that product unless you have a reason that is not a photograph.

The parcel also decides the clerk. Village of North Utica wants a license under Ordinance 2020-01. Village of Utica, in the December 16, 2022 Shaw Local reporting, limits vacation rentals to commercial or historic districts and rural parcels of five acres or larger. A pretty canyon drive does not move those lines. If the house is on two acres in the wrong district, you do not have a value-add story. You have a zoning story. Price the land as the land.

Kishauwau's 55 acres and seventeen family-run cabins are a competitor, not a comp set. The Lodge is a CCC building on the National Register. Neither one is your T12. If the seller's packet opens with park photography and does not open with taxes, insurance, and a village name, close the packet. You can walk the canyon after you know whether the door can legally be a door.

Cite

Typical annual revenue on AirROI's Ottawa file is Median month is Those two sentences are the whole yield argument this cluster will let you take to a lender or a partner. Top-quartile months print Bottom-quartile months print Top-decile months print Occupancy averages 34.0 percent; median occupancy is about 33 percent. Average ADR is $236; median ADR is about $197. RevPAR is $80. Lead time is 46 days. Cite them as a file, not as a promise that your closing date inherits the mean.

The mean and the median disagree on purpose. A buyer who underwrites A buyer who underwrites Carry the tails. Theshoulderpage is the calendar underneath those tails. This section is only the refusal to pick the prettier of the two headlines.

Do not annualize a June weekend and do not monthly-ize a year. startuppage. In a buy memo, print both vendor figures, print the date August 8, 2026, and print the window August 2025 through July 2026. Then stop decorating.

AirDNA and AirROI Are Different Datasets

AirDNA, on the snapshot this cluster was handed, prints 250 listings, about $26.4K typical annual revenue, 50 percent occupancy, and a $245 ADR. AirROI prints 161, 0 percent, and $236. Those are different vendors, different n's, and different yield stacks. Averaging them produces a fictional 205-door market with a fictional occupancy in the low forties and a fictional year in the mid-twenty-thousands. No guest booked that market. No cleaner turned that market. Do not hand it to a lender.

Disagreement is information, One file is cooler on occupancy, One file is warmer. They are close on ADR and not close enough on n to pretend they counted the same doors. There is no dedicated Utica AirROI page, Ottawa is the proxy, It is not North Utica, not Village of Utica, and not a blended Starved Rock Country index. If you need a tighter map, open the live tools and filter, then say you filtered, Do not midpoint first.

This page will cite both when a comparison is the point. It will not pick AirDNA because 50 percent looks more financeable, and it will not pick AirROI because 34.0 percent looks more honest. Honesty is printing the name of the vendor next to the number. Thetourismpage makes the same demand of park attendance. Objects keep their labels or they become marketing.

City published year versus county field

A house inside Ottawa, a house inside LaSalle, a house inside North Utica, a house inside Village of Utica, and a house on unincorporated land are five different purchases even if they share a canyon sunset. Ottawa's ordinance was not opened this pass, Oglesby and Peru were not opened, Countywide was not opened. Absence is not unregulated, LaSalle posts a 5 percent hotel and motel tax for bookings on or after April 1, 2019. North Utica posts a license chapter, Village of Utica, in 2022 reporting, posts a locational test and a reported one-million-dollar insurance figure.

Acreage is not charm. In Village of Utica it may be the difference between a legal vacation rental and a house you live in. Five rural acres is the line the 2022 story named, alongside commercial and historic districts. Confirm the live code. A county field that looks like Kishauwau's 55 acres in a listing photo may still sit under a different board, a different well rule, and a different tax coupon. Underwrite the field as infrastructure and jurisdiction, not as a brochure for 55 acres you do not own.

City pins have neighbors, parking fights, and shorter walks to a grocery. County pins have septic, snow, and a 2 a.m. lockout that is farther from whoever you hired. Professionally managed share is already 39.1 percent on the Ottawa file, and Richard Allen already shows 58 listings. Ask whether your published year is a published year those operators want. If they do not want it, ask why, then decide if you are buying a lifestyle property and calling it an investment.

Supply is up 12.6 percent

AirROI prints supply up 12.6 percent and revenue up 11.3 percent on the Ottawa file. Read those two percentages in the same breath. Doors arrived a little faster than dollars. That is not a collapse and it is not a reason to congratulate yourself for buying "before everyone else," because everyone else is already in the plus-12.6. A 161-listing file that just added doors is a file in which a new listing is more supply, not a pioneer.

The mix of those new doors was not broken out in the snapshot this pass used. Some may be thirty-night products, the 23 percent slice already on the page. Some may be two-bedroom houses chasing the 42.9 percent cluster. You will not know until you look at the live map the week you offer. What you can already say is that revenue did not outrun supply. A pro forma that needs revenue to outrun supply by a wide margin is arguing with the last print.

Do not convert plus-12.6 into a housing-theory essay. This is a vendor change-rate on a city file, not a building-permit census for LaSalle County and not a Starved Rock Country inventory study. Pair it with the manager table, 58 doors under one name, one door under Evolve, and you get a market that can add supply through operators as well as through new hosts. Price as a late arrival. Photograph as if the search page is crowded, because the change-rate says it got more crowded.

2.4 million is not a T12

The Governor and IDNR, on May 9, 2025, said Starved Rock State Park in LaSalle County recorded 2.4 million visitors in 2024, the most of Illinois's 290 state parks. Illinois Beach was second at 2 million, Statewide parks and historic sites were more than 41 million, Those figures measure park attendance. They do not measure nights, They do not measure ADR, They do not measure hotel-motel remittance. They do not measure how many of those people slept in a 161-door Ottawa file versus in the Lodge, at Kishauwau, in a tent, or back in Chicago the same evening.

No official Starved Rock Country visitor-spend dollar was opened this pass, A sentence that says 2.4 million people spent their way into your mortgage is a sentence a careful lender should strike. Demand proof and yield proof are different objects, The park is demand proof of a kind, keep them in separate sentences.

Chicago and Evanston as origin cities explain why the park can be crowded and a house can still sit at 34.0 percent occupancy. Day-trippers do not need your kitchen. Thevisitor guideis for the people who stay. The investment memo is for the people who buy. If a broker leads with 2.4 million, ask for the T12 on the actual door, or for an honest "no T12, here is the vendor file." Then use the vendor file.

Who should walk

Walk away if the only way the mortgage clears is a top-decile Walk away if the parcel is in Village of Utica and you cannot satisfy a commercial district, a historic district, or five rural acres under the live code. Walk away if you need Ottawa to be unregulated because this pass did not open an ordinance. Walk away if you cannot carry a January near the Walk away if your renovation budget only makes sense at a Lake Geneva rate.

Stay in the conversation if you can buy the house as a house, rent it as a two- or three-bedroom entire home, and survive a 34.0 percent occupancy year at a $197 median ADR. Stay if you will do the clerk work or pay a person who will put your name on North Utica's application. Stay if you understand Kishauwau and the Lodge will keep winning the guests who wanted those exact products. Stay if Chicago's 91-mile drive is a feeder you can live with rather than a skyline you plan to advertise.

The DIY versus hirepage will tell you whether you are the labor. Theremotepage will tell you whether a thirty-night gate is even your product. Neither page can rescue a bad published year. If you are still in the conversation after those reads, you are buying a lumpy, clerk-split, canyon-adjacent house business. That is a legitimate purchase. It is not a park franchise.

The only investment sentence

Underwrite the parcel, cite That is the only investment sentence this market will sit still for. Supply is up 12.6 percent and revenue is up 11.3 percent. Two point four million is park attendance. Village of Utica is not North Utica. Ottawa is a proxy, not a blessing. January is still the floor.

Do not buy the sandstone. Do not buy the Governor's press release. Do not buy a pool-house story from another county. Buy a house you can explain to a clerk and to a lender without changing the nouns. Thehow-to-marketsentence can come after the closing. The buy box cannot. That is the only investment sentence this market will sit still for.

If you needed the canyon to do the arithmetic, you do not have an investment, You have a weekend you want someone else to fund. Let that someone be you, on a second home, with eyes open, Do not call it a T12. A buyer who needs 2.4 million park visits to make the note work does not have a Starved Rock investment. They have a park-brochure problem, Cite AirDNA and AirROI as separate figures rather than blending them, and don't treat Ottawa as a stand-in for North Utica. Do not treat the Lodge as your T12, Carry January, Confirm GIS. The canyon is the reason a guest leaves Evanston, The parcel is the reason a lender should take the file. They are not the same object.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I invest in a Starved Rock short-term rental?

Underwrite the parcel first. North Utica, Village of Utica, LaSalle, Ottawa, Oglesby, Peru, and unincorporated LaSalle County are different desks. 2.4 million park visits are not a nightly rate. Confirm GIS, then the use, then the tax. A house inside Ottawa, a house inside LaSalle, a house inside North Utica, a house inside Village of Utica, and a house on unincorporated land are five different purchases even if they share a canyon sunset. Directly: the answer hinges on invest, rock, short, starved, term for this listing, so the host can act on the question without a memo rewrite.

Which revenue number is typical?

AirROI, August 8, 2026, prints The average is pulled by top-table houses including a pool house at The median is the typical-door conversation. Typical annual revenue on AirROI's Ottawa file is. For independent hosts in Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks, treat this as a listing and clerk-path question first, not a generic STR marketing slogan. Keep the answer tied to what Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks can actually underwrite on the ground, and leave unverified occupancy claims off the first paragraph.

Should I average AirDNA's 250 listings?

AirDNA prints 250, $26.4 thousand, 50 percent, and $245. AirROI prints 161, 0 percent, and $236. Attach the vendor and the date. Underwrite the parcel, cite. For independent hosts in Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks, treat this as a listing and clerk-path question first, not a generic STR marketing slogan. Keep the answer tied to what Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks can actually underwrite on the ground, and leave unverified occupancy claims off the first paragraph. Directly: the answer hinges on airdna's, average, listings for this listing, so the host can act on the question without a memo rewrite.

Is AirROI Moderate a green light?

North Utica 2020-01 still wants a license. Village of Utica still has district and acreage lines. Moderate is a vendor label on an Ottawa file. Village of North Utica wants a license under Ordinance 2020-01. Walk away if the parcel is in Village of Utica and you cannot satisfy a commercial district, a historic district, or five rural acres under the live code.

What does supply +12.6 percent mean?

AirROI prints supply up 12.6 percent and revenue up 11.3 percent. That is the Ottawa year, not a metro boom and not a repeal of a village ordinance. AirROI prints supply up 12.6 percent and revenue up 11.3 percent on the Ottawa file. What you can already say is that revenue did not outrun supply.

Can I underwrite 2.4 million as income?

That figure measures 2024 park visits. Listing revenue is the AirROI file. Do not send a lender park attendance as a T12. None of those numbers become larger because Starved Rock State Park drew 2.4 million visits in 2024. The Governor and IDNR, on May 9, 2025, said Starved Rock State Park in LaSalle County recorded 2.4 million visitors in 2024, the most of Illinois's 290 state parks.

Who should walk away?

Anyone who needs an open residential door the clerk has not allowed, anyone who treats the pool house as the comps set, and anyone who will not confirm GIS before closing. Walk away if you need Ottawa to be unregulated because this pass did not open an ordinance. It will not put a pool-house renovation in the pro forma because a different market used one as a punch line.

Is the ?

It is a vendor median month from the August 8, 2026 snapshot.

the Crest & Cove intro·local SEO keywords that actually book·the five elements of a converting hero·how to compare STR marketing agencies·OTA fees without leftover occupancy lifts·this cluster on named-town facts·Destin against AirROI, not leftover year·the last cluster against named-town facts.

How should a host read this: Cite?

For hosts weighing Cite: Typical annual revenue on AirROI's Ottawa file is Median month is Those two sentences are the whole yield argument this cluster will let you take to a lender or a partner. Top-quartile months print Bottom-quartile months print Top-decile months print Occupancy averages 34.0 percent; median occupancy is about 33 percent. Average ADR is $236; median ADR is about $197. RevPAR is $80. Lead time is 46 days. Cite them as a file, not as a promise that your closing date inherits the mean.

How should a host read this: Underwrite the parcel not the canyon?

For hosts weighing Underwrite the parcel not the canyon: Eighteen sandstone canyons and trail hours from 7 a.m. to sunset are the reason a guest leaves Evanston. They are not a line on a trailing twelve. Underwrite bedrooms, baths, parking, septic or sewer, heat that will survive January, and the municipal name on the tax bill. A two-bedroom house is the largest bedroom slice on the Ottawa file at 42.9 percent. Three-or-more-bedroom stock is 33.5 percent. Entire homes are 96.3 percent and houses are 68.3 percent. Buy inside that product unless you have a reason that is not a photograph.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

A Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks listing fails when the about block sells a costume overnight the driveway cannot keep. Guests who typed this published year deserve the hall and gallery that match the tax map.

We help Is Starved Rock a Good STR Investment? Many Clerks hosts keep listing and marketing copy honest so the canyon is not an asset class stays true before anyone pays for more words. Neighbor mix-ups stay off the first paragraph. If the gallery still could sit on the wrong town, we rewrite the opening until it matches arrival weekend.

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