Waveland's $26,638 and Bay St. Louis's $25,594: two towns
Updated: Aug 28
Waveland printed a typical year of about $26,638 from 93 listings. Bay St. Louis printed about $25,594 from 340. Those are two separate towns on the Hancock County map, not one Gulf Coast average, and the gap in listing count between them, nearly four to one, matters as much as the roughly $1,000 gap in typical revenue. A host or buyer treating the two towns as interchangeable because they sit a short drive apart on the Mississippi coast is working from a file that doesn't describe either property accurately.
The two towns also draw different guests to different landmarks. A guest who typed Waveland Beach, Bayside Park, the Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, or the fishing pier into a search bar is not the same guest looking for Old Town Bay St. Louis, even though both are within a short drive of each other and both fall inside the same county. Writing one town's landmark language onto the other's listing loses the exact specificity that makes a guest choose a particular property over a dozen similar-looking ones nearby.
This page keeps the two towns separate: Waveland's revenue, seasonality, and guest pattern on one line, Bay St. Louis's on another, with a third town, Port O'Connor, Texas, mentioned only to rule it out of the comparison entirely. None of the three should ever get averaged into a single blended coastal figure.
The stakes of getting this right aren't purely academic. A buyer underwriting a Waveland acquisition off a blended or mislabeled figure risks overpaying based on a revenue expectation the specific property can't actually meet. A host writing Bay St. Louis listing copy that leans on Waveland's landmarks, or the reverse, risks a guest arriving expecting one town's walkable draws and finding a different one instead. Both mistakes trace back to the same root cause: treating two towns with two separate files as if they were one. This is not legal advice.
Waveland's Town: $26,638 on 93 Listings
AirROI's trailing-twelve-month extract, updated August 8, 2026, puts Waveland's typical listing revenue at $26,638 across 93 active rentals, with an average night of $270 and occupancy at 33.6 percent. Revenue per available night, the figure that blends rate and occupancy into one honest number, comes out to $95. Year over year, revenue moved up 13.4 percent while supply held essentially flat at 0.0 percent change.
Waveland's three strongest months are June, May, and October, with June the busiest and September the clear hole in the calendar. Most guests arrive from New Orleans, then Baton Rouge, with a typical stay of 4.6 nights booked about 49 days ahead. Superhost status covers 59.1 percent of the sampled listings, a genuinely high share that sets a real bar for review quality and response time.
Bay St. Louis's Town: $25,594 on 340 Listings
Bay St. Louis carries a materially larger tracked listing stock, 340 listings against Waveland's 93, close to a fourfold difference. Its typical year prints at $25,594, narrowly below Waveland's figure, but drawn from a sample big enough that a single unusual property barely moves the average, unlike in Waveland's smaller file. That size difference is worth citing alongside the dollar figure any time the two towns get compared.
Bay St. Louis's slow month is January, a different point in the calendar than Waveland's September hole, which is the single detail most likely to get lost if a host tries to run one seasonal calendar across both towns. Guests searching for Bay St. Louis are typically headed toward Old Town, the equivalent draw to Waveland Beach or Bayside Park for its neighbor down the coast, and that's the landmark a Bay St. Louis listing should name specifically rather than defaulting to generic Gulf Coast language that could describe either town equally poorly.
Port O'Connor's $21,172 Belongs to Texas, Not This Comparison
Port O'Connor shows up in some regional Gulf Coast comparisons because it shares a coastal-town shape with both Waveland and Bay St. Louis, but it's a different state entirely, printing its own AirROI year of about $21,172 across 128 listings. It has no bearing on either Mississippi town's figures, no shared regulatory desk, and no overlapping guest-origin pattern worth citing here.
If Port O'Connor appears in a buyer packet or a regional pricing memo at all, it should sit on its own clearly labeled line, separate from both Waveland's and Bay St. Louis's figures. Averaging any of the three into one 'Gulf Coast' number produces a figure that describes none of the three markets accurately, and a diligence reviewer who spots that kind of blend has good reason to distrust the rest of the packet, since it signals the same shortcut may have been taken elsewhere in the underwriting.
Two Different Seasonal Calendars, Not One Coastal Rhythm
It would be convenient if Waveland and Bay St. Louis shared one seasonal pattern, since they're close enough geographically that a single regional festival calendar or hurricane-season narrative might seem to apply to both. The data doesn't support that shortcut. Waveland peaks in June, May, and October and bottoms out in September; Bay St. Louis's own slow month is January. A host pricing both towns off one assumed calendar risks holding a Waveland rate too high through September or discounting a Bay St. Louis January that the neighboring town's file wouldn't even flag as slow.
The practical takeaway for anyone operating or evaluating properties in both towns is to build two separate pricing calendars from the start, cross-checked against each town's own AirROI extract rather than a shared regional assumption. A calendar built correctly for one town and then copied onto the other's listing is a fast way to leave real revenue on the table in the month that town's actual file identifies as strong, while overpricing the month it identifies as weak.
Landmarks Are the Differentiator, Not the Water
Both towns sit on the same general stretch of Mississippi Gulf Coast, which is exactly why generic water-and-sand copy fails to differentiate a listing in either one. Waveland Beach, Bayside Park, the Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, and the fishing pier are the specific draws a Waveland guest is searching for. Old Town is the equivalent draw for Bay St. Louis. A listing that photographs the actual walkable landmark and names it specifically beats a vague 'steps from the Gulf' caption in both search relevance and guest trust, in either town.
The distinction also matters for anyone managing listings in both markets under one brand voice. It's tempting to write one paragraph of coastal Mississippi copy and swap the town name between two listings, but a guest who's done even minimal research on either destination will notice when a Bay St. Louis listing describes Waveland Beach, or vice versa. Keep the landmark language as specific to each town as the revenue figures already are.
What a Comparison Packet Should Actually Carry
A host or buyer evaluating both towns side by side, whether for an acquisition decision or an expansion decision, should carry both figures with their listing counts attached: Waveland's $26,638 on 93 listings, Bay St. Louis's $25,594 on 340. Cite each town's own peak and slow months, its own guest-origin pattern, and its own permit desk contact rather than assuming either applies to the other. That level of specificity is what separates a genuinely useful comparison from a shortcut that happens to look thorough on the page.
The comparison itself is legitimate and useful; the mistake would be resolving it into one blended number instead of two clearly labeled ones. A packet that keeps Waveland and Bay St. Louis as two distinct towns on the map, each with its own file, gives a buyer or an operator something they can actually underwrite. A packet that averages them into one Hancock County figure gives them a number that describes neither town.
Why the Near-Equal Revenue Figures Are the Trap
If Waveland's typical year were dramatically higher or lower than Bay St. Louis's, no one would be tempted to average the two. It's precisely because $26,638 and $25,594 sit so close together, a gap of roughly four percent, that a host skimming the numbers quickly might assume the towns are functionally the same market and treat one figure as a stand-in for both. That assumption breaks down the moment the underlying sample sizes and seasonal calendars enter the picture: a 93-listing town and a 340-listing town carry very different confidence levels even when their headline averages happen to land close together.
The near-equal dollar figures also mask a real operational difference. Waveland's smaller, tighter listing stock means new supply entering the market has an outsized effect on the town's average, visible in the 13.4 percent year-over-year revenue increase against flat supply. Bay St. Louis's much larger base absorbs new listings with less visible movement in its own average. A buyer comparing the two as investment targets should weigh that volatility difference alongside the dollar figures, not just the dollar figures alone, since a smaller market's average can shift meaningfully within a single season while a larger one tends to move more slowly.
Keeping the Two Files Straight in Practice
The discipline that actually prevents the two towns from blurring together is procedural, not just editorial. Every spreadsheet, every listing draft, and every buyer conversation involving either town should carry the listing count alongside the revenue figure, not the dollar amount alone. '$26,638 on 93 Waveland listings' and '$25,594 on 340 Bay St. Louis listings' are harder to accidentally swap or average than '$26,638' and '$25,594' sitting on their own.
The same habit extends to permit and regulatory questions. Waveland's Building department and Bay St. Louis Planning are two separate desks with two separate phone numbers, and a host confirming a fee or a process for one town's parcel should never assume the answer transfers to the other. two towns, two files, two phone calls: that's the actual standard for anyone marketing, managing, or underwriting property in both towns rather than treating Hancock County as one interchangeable Gulf Coast address.
Sales Tax Applies Regardless of Which Town You're On
Whether a stay is booked in Waveland or Bay St. Louis, sales tax can still apply to bookings under 30 days, and that obligation doesn't disappear just because a listing sits in the town with the lower headline revenue figure or the smaller sample size. This is not legal advice, and neither town's permit fee or tax obligation should be assumed from the other's process; confirm both directly with the desk that matches the specific parcel in question.
A host running listings in both towns, or a buyer weighing a purchase in either one, should treat the tax and permit questions with the same separation applied to the revenue figures throughout this comparison. Waveland's Building department, at 228-466-2549, and Bay St. Louis Planning, at 228-466-5516, are the two calls to make, and neither desk will speak for the other's jurisdiction. Confirming the current fee, the current process, and the current tax obligation for the actual parcel in question is the last step in making sure the two towns on this map stay correctly labeled from the listing description all the way through to the closing costs, and it's worth doing before a purchase agreement is signed rather than after.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How does Waveland's typical STR revenue compare with Bay St. Louis's?
AirROI puts Waveland at roughly $26,638 per year across 93 listings, versus Bay St. Louis at roughly $25,594 across a much larger sample of 340 listings, both for the August 2025 through July 2026 window updated August 8, 2026. Waveland's per-listing revenue runs slightly ahead, but the two towns are separate towns on the map, and Hancock County holds both without either figure standing in for the other.
Why shouldn't Port O'Connor's figures be blended into this comparison?
Because Port O'Connor is a different market entirely, a Texas town showing about $21,172 per year across 128 listings, with no connection to the Mississippi Gulf Coast pair being compared here. Folding it into a 'Gulf of Mexico' average would blur three distinct local markets into one misleading number. Each town's figure should stay cited on its own line, separate from the other two.
When is Waveland's peak season, and when is the slow month?
June, May, and October are Waveland's three strongest months in the current sample, with June running as the single busiest. September is the clear slow month and should be priced and marketed accordingly rather than treated like a second summer month. Year-round occupancy across the sample sits at 33.6 percent, so even peak months aren't running near full.
Where do most guests booking a Waveland stay come from?
New Orleans leads as the top origin market, with Baton Rouge close behind, both within a manageable weekend drive of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The typical stay runs about 4.6 nights, booked roughly 49 days out from arrival. Superhost status covers about 59.1 percent of the sampled listings, a high share that sets a real bar for guest expectations.
How many Waveland listings run a 30-night-or-longer minimum stay?
About 32.3 percent of the sample, roughly 30 listings, are set to a 30-night-or-longer minimum. That's a booking-policy choice rather than an occupancy figure, so it shouldn't be read as a sign that nearly a third of Waveland's supply sits empty; it means a meaningful slice of listing stock is competing as a longer-stay product instead of a typical weekend rental.
Is Bay St. Louis really a bigger STR market than Waveland by listing count?
Yes, by a wide margin. Bay St. Louis carries roughly 340 tracked listings versus Waveland's 93, even though Waveland's average per-listing revenue runs slightly ahead at $26,638 versus $25,594. That combination, fewer listings but marginally higher average revenue, is worth knowing for anyone comparing the two towns as an acquisition target, since a smaller, tighter market can behave differently than a larger one right next door.
Does Waveland's $270 average nightly rate mean listings earn close to that every night?
No, the $270 figure is the average nightly rate, not the amount each available night actually nets. Revenue per available night, which blends rate and the market's 33.6 percent occupancy together, works out to $95, a meaningfully lower figure. Quoting ADR alone without occupancy context overstates what a typical night in this market actually returns.
What specific landmarks should a Waveland or Bay St. Louis listing name instead of generic Gulf Coast language?
For Waveland, name Waveland Beach, Bayside Park, the Ground Zero Hurricane Museum, or the fishing pier, whichever a guest can actually walk to from the property. For Bay St. Louis, Old Town is the equivalent draw. A guest who searched for one of these specific landmarks isn't looking for a generic Gulf of Mexico stay caption, and naming the actual walkable landmark differentiates a listing more than regional charm language does.
Is Bay St. Louis's slow season the same as Waveland's?
No. Bay St. Louis's slowest month is January, while Waveland's is September, a genuinely different point in the calendar. A host operating in both towns or comparing them for a purchase decision should build two separate pricing calendars rather than assuming a shared coastal seasonality, since discounting the wrong month in either town leaves real revenue on the table during a period the data actually shows as strong.
Work with Crest & Cove Creative
Waveland's $26,638 on 93 listings and Bay St. Louis's $25,594 on 340 aren't interchangeable, and a listing that borrows either neighbor's season sells one this driveway doesn't have.
We keep Waveland and Bay St. Louis on separate revenue, listing-count, and season lines so neither town's numbers drift into the other's copy. Start at crestcove.co/audit or call (256) 998-7502. Send the live listing draft and the facts you can actually cite.
Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.
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