Vermilion, OH STR Market Report 2026: $29,012 on Its Own Line

Vermilion, Ohio, a small Lake Erie city spanning Erie and Lorain Counties, published a typical year of $29,012 across 78 active listings on AirROI's trailing-twelve-month extract through July 2026, updated 2026-08-08. Average night was $264, occupancy was 38.4 percent, and revenue per available night was $111. Those four figures, the typical year, ADR, occupancy, and RevPAR, are the numbers that should anchor any pricing conversation or buyer packet built around this specific market, not a rounded impression of "a Lake Erie town" borrowed from a neighboring city's own separate data.

Most Vermilion listings, in practice, still get marketed as a generic Lake Erie stay, a pitch that could describe a dozen other towns along the same shoreline and wastes what actually distinguishes this specific city: Main Street Beach, Vermilion Harbor, Lighthouse Beach, and a walkable downtown shopping district. That same generic instinct that produces vague listing copy also produces sloppy market comparisons, folding a neighboring town's AirROI market into Vermilion's own figures because the two happen to sit on the same lake or share a general regional identity.

This report walks through Vermilion's full published market year: the headline revenue figures, the seasonal calendar, the guest profile, the regulatory desk, and why neither St. Joseph, Michigan's nearby Lake Erie-adjacent market nor Bay St. Louis, Mississippi's Gulf Coast market should ever get blended into this city's own $29,012 figure.

It's worth stating plainly why this precision matters beyond simple correctness. A guest who books a Vermilion stay expecting the specific harbor-town character its name and photos implied, and instead receives listing copy that reads like a generic Great Lakes template, is a guest more likely to book elsewhere next time, even if the actual property was fine. A buyer who underwrites a Vermilion acquisition against a blended figure that quietly folds in St. Joseph's or Bay St. Louis's own numbers is a buyer who will be meaningfully surprised, in either direction, by the real performance the property delivers in its first full operating year on Lake Erie specifically. This is not legal advice.

Twenty-Nine Thousand Twelve Dollars Is the City Year

$29,012 is Vermilion's typical year, per the current AirROI extract, trailing twelve months through July 2026, updated 2026-08-08. That figure sits on a sample of 78 active listings, with an average night of $264, occupancy of 38.4 percent, and RevPAR of $111. Year over year moved minus 7.6 percent, and active supply grew 16.4 percent over the same period, meaning this market absorbed meaningfully more competing listing stock while typical per-listing revenue softened somewhat rather than held flat or grew.

That combination, rising supply against softening typical revenue, is worth sitting with directly rather than skimming past. It suggests new listings entering this market in the recent period have not, collectively, been capturing revenue at the same rate the existing 78-listing base was earning previously, which rewards a host with genuinely differentiated, specific listing copy, built around Main Street Beach, Vermilion Harbor, or Lighthouse Beach specifically, over one running interchangeable generic Lake Erie language.

This is also a genuinely small market by listing count, which means the $29,012 typical year, while a real published figure, carries somewhat more sensitivity to individual property performance than a larger market's average would. A single unusually strong waterfront property, or a single chronically underperforming listing, moves a 78-listing average more than it would move a 400-listing or 4,000-listing average. That doesn't make the figure unreliable, but it does mean a host or buyer should treat it as a genuine directional benchmark rather than a precise prediction for any one specific property's own likely first-year performance.

78 Active Listings Is the Sample

78 active listings is the full sample behind Vermilion's published typical year, a meaningfully smaller sample than a larger nearby metro market would show, which means individual strong or weak performers can move the average somewhat more than they would in a market with several hundred or several thousand listings. That is worth keeping in mind when citing the $29,012 figure in a buyer packet: it is a real, published number, but it comes from a genuinely small-town sample size.

What It Costs to Start a Legal Vermilion, Ohio Stay, already live on Crest & Cove, is a useful companion resource for anyone evaluating entry into this 78-listing market specifically, covering the licensing and startup-cost side of a Vermilion acquisition in more depth than this market report does.

It's also worth noting what a 78-listing sample means for competitive positioning specifically: a new entrant is competing against a genuinely countable, knowable set of existing listings rather than an opaque sea of thousands. A host willing to actually review the existing 78 listings' photography, pricing, and copy directly can identify real gaps, an underused landmark, a weak photo set, a generic description, more easily in a market this size than in a saturated metro market where that kind of direct competitive review isn't practically feasible.

Do Not Average St. Joseph Into This File

St. Joseph, Michigan published its own separate typical year, $27,986 from 76 listings, a genuinely close sample size and dollar figure to Vermilion's own $29,012 from 78 listings, close enough that a careless comparison could mistake the two for one blended Great Lakes desk. They are not. St. Joseph sits on Lake Michigan; Vermilion sits on Lake Erie, a different lake entirely, with its own separate guest base, its own separate seasonal pattern, and its own separate regulatory desk.

Cite the $29,012 figure from Vermilion's own 78 listings specifically, and cite St. Joseph's $27,986 figure from its own separate 76-listing sample specifically, on two separate lines in any packet or comparison. Market a Vermilion Stay, already live on Crest & Cove, covers how to build listing copy around Vermilion's own specific attractions rather than a generic Great Lakes template that could apply equally to St. Joseph or any other lake town.

The temptation to blend the two is understandable given how close the raw numbers sit, $29,012 versus $27,986, 78 listings versus 76. But close numbers on two different lakes, in two different states, with two different regulatory environments and two different guest-origin patterns, are a coincidence of scale, not evidence the two markets behave identically. A buyer evaluating both towns as potential acquisitions should treat them as two separate underwriting cases, each confirmed independently against its own current extract, rather than assuming one town's trend line predicts the other's.

August, June, and July Carry This Desk

The three strongest months on Vermilion's current extract are August, June, and July, in that specific order, with August the single busiest month. Guests come for downtown shops and the lake itself during this stretch, and a host pricing this three-month window should price August specifically as the strongest rather than treating the full June-through-August period as one flat peak block.

Vermilion STR Rules and Vermilion Shoulder, both already live on Crest & Cove, cover the licensing and full seasonal-pricing sides of this same calendar in more depth. Year-over-year revenue moved minus 7.6 percent and supply grew 16.4 percent, a combination that makes differentiated peak-season listing copy meaningfully more valuable now than it would be in a flatter, more stable market.

The specific order of these three peak months, August ahead of June and July, deserves attention in any pricing calendar built off this report. A listing platform's smart-pricing tool may not automatically recognize the local specificity of Vermilion's own August-first pattern, and a host relying entirely on automated pricing without reviewing the underlying assumptions risks underpricing August relative to what this market's own extract actually supports.

January Is the Hole and the Occupancy Low

January is the named slowest month on Vermilion's current extract, and the market's full-year occupancy figure of 38.4 percent reflects that low stretch pulling the annual average down alongside the strong August-June-July peak pulling it up. A host pricing January should treat it as a genuine, named low point, worth either a real discount or a longer-stay strategy, rather than assuming a modest markdown off peak rates captures the actual demand gap this month represents.

Vermilion Shoulder and Vermilion Remote Stays, both already live on Crest & Cove, cover the seasonal-pricing and extended-stay strategies a host can build around this named low point specifically, including the 30-night minimum stay setting that 33.3 percent of this market's listings, 26 of 78, currently use.

January's quiet calendar also functions as a genuine maintenance window, dock repairs, deep cleaning, appliance servicing, and any project best handled between guests rather than around a booked stay during the busier August-June-July stretch. A host who treats the named low month as both a deliberate longer-stay opportunity and a maintenance opportunity gets real value out of what would otherwise be a purely defensive quiet stretch on the calendar each year.

Columbus Origin Is This Market's Town, Not a Bay St. Louis Mash

Columbus is the top origin city for Vermilion's guests, followed by Cleveland, both realistic Ohio drive markets for a Lake Erie getaway. Typical stay length is 4.2 nights, booked about 57 days ahead, with a superhost share of 70.5 percent, meaning a large majority of active hosts in this market have earned platform recognition for consistent performance.

Vermilion Remote Stays and DIY vs. Hire in Vermilion, both already live on Crest & Cove, cover the guest-profile and management-decision sides of this specific origin pattern. Bay St. Louis, Mississippi's own guest base, drawn substantially from New Orleans and the broader Gulf South, has nothing to do with Vermilion's Columbus-and-Cleveland-driven Ohio market, and the two origin patterns should never be blended into one assumed regional guest profile.

A 70.5 percent superhost share is genuinely notable for a market this size, suggesting the existing 78-listing base is largely made up of hosts with an established track record on the platform rather than a market dominated by brand-new, unproven listings. That's a meaningful signal for a new entrant: the competitive bar in Vermilion is set by hosts who have already earned platform trust, which makes strong initial reviews and consistent guest communication a genuinely important early priority for any new listing entering this specific market. A new host should budget real attention toward the first several guest stays specifically, since early reviews carry outsized weight in a market where the majority of competing listings already carry superhost status.

AirROI's Own Low Figure Is Not a Confirmation of the Local Desk

A listing-site data extract's low-regulation label or occupancy figure describes market performance, not compliance status, and should never substitute for a direct confirmation with Vermilion's actual permitting desk. Vermilion requires a transient rental permit through the building clerk, reachable at 440-204-2410, with a biennial fee of $300 under Chapter 1484.01, plus a required inspection.

DIY vs. Hire in Vermilion and Who Books a Vermilion Rental, both already live on Crest & Cove, cover the operational and guest-profile sides of running a compliant Vermilion listing. Confirm current 2026 permit requirements directly with the building clerk before advertising, rather than treating a market-data platform's incidental regulation commentary as a substitute for that direct confirmation, since a permit inspection can take real time to schedule ahead of a planned launch date.

How a Host Should Read Two Separate Lake Erie Halls

Vermilion's $29,012 typical year on 78 listings and St. Joseph, Michigan's $27,986 on 76 listings are two separate, similarly-sized Great Lakes markets that happen to publish close dollar figures and close sample sizes, close enough to invite a lazy blend that neither market's own data actually supports. Who Books a Vermilion Rental and Buying a Vermilion Rental, both already live on Crest & Cove, cover the guest-profile and acquisition sides of Vermilion's own market specifically, distinct from St. Joseph's.

Filing Vermilion's $29,012 typical year alongside Bay St. Louis's $25,594 figure, or St. Joseph's $27,986 figure, as one blended average misrepresents all three markets. Keep each city's own figures, its own peak months, its own origin cities, and its own regulatory desk on its own separate line in any buyer packet, market comparison, or internal pricing document. Three separate lakes and coastlines, three separate guest bases, three separate seasonal calendars, and three separate regulatory desks deserve three separate entries, never one averaged row.

What the $264 Average Night and 38.4 Percent Occupancy Actually Imply

An average night of $264 against 38.4 percent occupancy describes a market where individual booked nights carry a genuinely healthy rate, but where a meaningful share of calendar nights across the 78-listing sample still go unbooked over the course of a year. That combination is typical of a seasonally concentrated market like Vermilion's, where the named August-June-July peak carries most of the occupied nights at strong rates, while the shoulder months and the named January low pull the annual occupancy average down considerably from what peak-season alone would suggest.

A host or buyer translating this into a specific property's expected annual revenue should resist simply multiplying $264 by 365 nights; the 38.4 percent occupancy figure is the correction that keeps that math honest. $29,012 divided across 78 listings at $264 a night implies roughly 110 booked nights per listing per year on average, a figure consistent with a market whose demand concentrates heavily in a defined three-month peak rather than distributing evenly across the calendar throughout the full year.

Revenue Per Available Night Puts the Whole Calendar in One Number

RevPAR, revenue per available night, at $111 is the single figure that already accounts for both the strong per-night rate and the moderate occupancy rate together, making it a useful shorthand for comparing Vermilion against a different market without needing to separately weigh ADR and occupancy each time. $111 RevPAR on a $264 ADR confirms the same story the occupancy figure tells directly: this is a market where booked nights earn well, but a meaningful share of the calendar sits empty across the full year, concentrated specifically outside the named August-June-July peak.

A host evaluating whether a specific property is over- or under-performing this market's own benchmark should compare that property's own trailing RevPAR against the $111 citywide figure, rather than comparing raw occupancy or raw ADR alone, since a property could show above-market ADR while still underperforming on RevPAR if its occupancy lags the 38.4 percent citywide average meaningfully, a gap that a single-metric comparison alone would miss entirely.

What a 2026 Buyer Should Actually Underwrite in Vermilion

A buyer evaluating a Vermilion acquisition in 2026 should underwrite against this market's own published figures specifically: the $29,012 typical year, the $264 ADR, the 38.4 percent occupancy rate, and the $111 RevPAR, applied to a 78-listing sample that, while genuinely small-town in scale, is large enough to give a reasonable first read on the market's shape. That sample size deserves real acknowledgment in any underwriting model; a 78-listing base is more exposed to individual strong or weak performers moving the average than a market with several hundred or several thousand listings would be.

The rising-supply, softening-revenue combination, active supply up 16.4 percent against year-over-year revenue down 7.6 percent, is the single most important trend line for a 2026 buyer to build into acquisition assumptions. A buyer modeling flat or improving revenue without accounting for this trend is modeling against the market's own most recent published direction, not with it, and should build a conservative case around continued competitive pressure rather than an optimistic rebound the data does not currently support. Confirm current permit requirements with the building clerk, 440-204-2410, and confirm the current biennial $300 fee under Chapter 1484.01 before finalizing any acquisition timeline, since permit inspection scheduling can affect when a newly acquired property can actually begin operating and generating the revenue this report describes.

Related Reading

More PLACE, STATE reading already live on Crest & Cove.

• Market a Vermilion Stay: Lake Erie, Not Costume Copy

• Buying a Vermilion Rental: Cite $29,012, Never Average

• Vermilion STR Rules: Biennial Transient Permit, Not AirROI Low

• How Independent Hosts Should Read a Market Report

• First Photos: Airbnb Listing Order

• Access Instructions, Conversion, and Insurance

• Pet-Friendly Vacation Rental Marketing

• Direct Booking UX Patterns That Convert

• Using Video Without Misleading Guests

• Building an Owned Audience as a Host Brand

• Copy Banks for Independent Hosts

• Vacation Rental Marketing Metrics Encyclopedia

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a typical Vermilion short-term rental year in this sample?

AirROI lists Vermilion's typical year at about $29,012 from 78 listings, trailing twelve months through July 2026, updated 2026-08-08. Average night was $264, occupancy was 38.4 percent, and year over year moved minus 7.6 percent while active supply grew 16.4 percent. That combination means this market absorbed meaningfully more competing listing stock while typical per-listing revenue softened somewhat over the same period, a trend worth building into any 2026 pricing plan.

Can I average St. Joseph, Michigan into Vermilion's year?

No. St. Joseph published $27,986 from 76 listings on Lake Michigan, a separate lake entirely from Vermilion's own Lake Erie location, and that's a separate desk that doesn't cancel into Vermilion's own year despite the close dollar figures and sample sizes. Cite the $29,012 figure from Vermilion's 78 listings only, and confirm the current 2026 permit fee at Vermilion's own building clerk, 440-204-2410, rather than assuming St. Joseph's requirements transfer over.

Which months are strongest in Vermilion?

The three strongest months are August, June, and July, with August the busiest. January is the slowest, and occupancy for the full year sits at 38.4 percent on a typical $29,012 year from 78 listings. Treat this as a specific three-month ranking rather than a flat summer block: August specifically deserves the strongest pricing, with January treated as the market's genuine named low point requiring a deliberate discount or longer-stay strategy.

Where do guests come from?

Columbus is the top origin, followed by Cleveland, both realistic Ohio drive markets for a Lake Erie getaway. Typical stay is 4.2 nights, booked about 57 days ahead, with a superhost share of 70.5 percent. Serve the guest who's actually searching for Vermilion specifically, using Main Street Beach, Vermilion Harbor, and Lighthouse Beach by name, rather than a blended regional Great Lakes persona that could describe several neighboring towns equally.

Does a low-regulation label mean there is no local permit?

No -- that label is just a listing-site scrape describing market data, not a compliance confirmation. Vermilion requires a transient rental permit through the building clerk, 440-204-2410, with a biennial fee of $300 under Chapter 1484.01, plus a required inspection. Confirm the current 2026 requirements directly with the clerk before advertising, since a market-data platform's regulation summary doesn't substitute for a direct confirmation of the actual local ordinance.

Is a 30-night minimum the same as occupancy?

No. 33.3 percent of Vermilion listings, 26 of 78, set a 30-night minimum, but that's a platform filter a host controls directly, not a measurement of actual occupancy. Real typical stay length across the full sample is 4.2 nights, so a host shouldn't sell a filled month based on the minimum-stay setting alone; genuine longer-stay demand, particularly through the named low month of January, needs to be built and verified through actual bookings.

What should a buyer packet carry for Vermilion?

Cite the $29,012 typical year from 78 listings, the August-June-July strong months in that order, January as the slowest, Columbus as the top guest origin, a 4.2-night average stay, a 57-day booking lead, and the building clerk's permit number, 440-204-2410. Keep St. Joseph's $27,986 and Bay St. Louis's $25,594 figures clearly labeled on their own separate lines, never blended into Vermilion's own Lake Erie numbers.

Is Bay St. Louis the same market as Vermilion?

No. Bay St. Louis published $25,594 from 340 listings on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, an entirely different market from Vermilion's $29,012 from 78 listings on Lake Erie, with a different climate, a different guest base drawn substantially from the Gulf South rather than Ohio's Columbus-and-Cleveland pattern, and a different seasonal calendar. Confirm Vermilion's own permit desk, 440-204-2410, before advertising, and never reuse a Bay St. Louis pricing template for a Vermilion listing.

How large is Vermilion's short-term rental market compared to its Lake Erie neighbors?

Vermilion's 78-listing sample is genuinely small-town scale, close in size to St. Joseph, Michigan's 76-listing sample on Lake Michigan, though the two lakes and markets are entirely separate. A smaller sample size means individual strong or weak performers can shift the published average somewhat more than they would in a larger metro market, which is worth factoring in when citing Vermilion's $29,012 figure with appropriate confidence in a buyer packet or pricing model.

What should a 2026 pricing plan account for given rising supply and softening revenue?

Active supply grew 16.4 percent while year-over-year revenue moved minus 7.6 percent on the current extract, meaning new listings have collectively not matched the prior revenue rate of the existing 78-listing base. A host entering or repricing in 2026 should expect real competition, particularly outside the named August-June-July peak, and should lean into specific, differentiated listing copy tied to Main Street Beach, Vermilion Harbor, or Lighthouse Beach rather than generic Lake Erie language that blends into the growing pool of competing listings.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

Filing Vermilion's $29,012 typical year alongside St. Joseph's $27,986 or Bay St. Louis's $25,594 as one blended figure misrepresents all three Great Lakes and Gulf Coast markets.

Crest & Cove keeps Vermilion's own $29,012 figure on its own line in every packet we build. Get your Vermilion listing built on real 2026 data at crestcove.co/audit 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.