This week the Missoula City Council discussed raising tourist-home registration fees, you can see in this video, around the 48-minute mark. "Tourist home" is a generic term for an Airbnb and a Vrbo, so it's possible that if registration fees went up, that could impact the number of Airbnbs and Vrbos in Missoula, which begs the question: how many tourist homes are in Missoula right now?

According to AirDNA, a resource for vacation-rental research, today (11/11/22) there are 649 active rentals in Missoula, 63% are Airbnbs, 13% are Vrbos and 24% are listed on both. In Q4 of 2019 the number of tourist homes was 581 and the number fell to 424 by Q1 in 2021, but since then the number rose to a high of 778 in Q3 of this year. Here's AirDNA's percentages for each type of tourist home in Missoula:

9% are studios

34% have 1 bedroom

30% have 2 bedrooms

17% have 3 bedrooms

7% have 4 bedrooms

3% have 5 or more bedrooms

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Reviewing AirDNA's data it looks like 95% of Missoula's Airbnbs were rated at least 4.5 overall, and the overall rating for Missoula's Airbnbs is 4.87. A stat that stuck out to me is that 13% of Airbnbs in Missoula don't have heating, and while some Airbnbs aren't available year round, I still find that strange. I was also disappointed to see that only 3% had hot tubs. Shame on you, Missoula's tourist-home owners— do better. 

With the cost of rent in Missoula still increasing and with home prices being so high since the pandemic-housing boom, it makes me wonder if having this many tourist homes is a contributing factor, and if so, that could be a reason why the Missoula City Council would consider raising the tourist-home registration fees.

All stats are from AirDNA.

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