When it comes to making money in real estate, renting out on Airbnb has become one of the best strategies for investors worldwide. Still, that doesn’t mean that simply anyone can make profits from investing in Airbnb.
To thrive in the short-term rental market, you need more than a vacation rental to list on the home-sharing site. The most successful Airbnb investors are those who grow their business using Airbnb API. This helps them get their hands on Airbnb data as well as analytics that they need for their Airbnb investment analysis and making smart decisions.
So what is Airbnb API, how does it work, and how can you get access to it? Keep reading to find all you need to know.
What is Airbnb API?
In a previous blog post, we explained what real estate API is and why it’s beneficial for real estate investors in general to get access to APIs. To summarize, an API (application program interface) is a software tool that acts as the messenger between one application and the data which is produced by another application.
Meaning, if you’re looking for certain property data, it is the real estate API that aggregates this information from many sources and then returns the response back to you.
Just like most real estate websites, Airbnb has its own API. How does the Airbnb API work? At this time, Airbnb is currently not accepting new access requests for its API. Meaning, you can’t have direct access to the Airbnb API.
Instead, Airbnb allows its partners and third-party developers to import listings and synchronize databases. Through this synchronization, professional Airbnb investors can gain the flexibility they need to find the short term rental data they need. Meaning, the only way for you to get Airbnb API access is through a third-party other than Airbnb.
Where to Get Airbnb Data API Access
Airbnb is considered a leader in the short term rental market by many. Therefore, it makes sense that the company doesn’t just hand out their API to anyone with a vague plan of action and a rough sketch illustrating how they plan to execute it.
As mentioned, Airbnb releases the API to its partners and companies that are guaranteed to support the end-user and, ultimately, evolve the Airbnb user experience (both guests and hosts) beyond how it is today. To decode the companies that can get Airbnb API access, Airbnb evaluates them based on three measures:
- The profitability of their business opportunity
- Their technological strength
- Their ability to support a shared user base
If a company measures well in these areas, receiving check-marks in all three boxes, then Airbnb will grant it access to the API documentation. So how could you find a company that provides Airbnb data API? Look no further than Mashvisor – our real estate investment app that provides the necessary data augmented with our own analysis and calculations to help investors make smarter and faster decisions.
Mashvisor API extracts and combines data from a number of different public sources including Airbnb. In fact, Airbnb is one of our partners that we started integrating with since the company was founded in 2014.
Currently, we have over 2 million Airbnb listings available in our real estate database. Data you’ll obtain from Mashvisor Airbnb API include reviews, photos, host information, booking price per night, and yearly calendar for day-per-day booking availability, and all this is augmented by our detailed investment analysis for Airbnb listings in the US.
Our Airbnb analytics and algorithms can also distinguish between booked days and blocked days from booking, provide rental incomes for all the past months for the listing history, and estimate the monthly rental income for Airbnb listings for future predictions.
In addition, Mashvisor developed an occupancy calculator algorithm that has evolved over the last 6 years. This calculates the Airbnb occupancy rate for each listing on the platform month by month based on its historical performance and available future bookings.
Furthermore, we also review occupancy rates calculations with verified Airbnb hosts who have multiple listings. This allows us to guarantee better service introduced to our customers and superiority over our competitors. As a result, you can be confident that you’re getting the most accurate and up-to-date data analytics for your Airbnb businesses when using Mashvisor Airbnb API.
Airbnb Data API from Mashvisor
The Mashvisor API is a real estate analytics tool that provides more than just the basic facts about current and potential rental property. Property listings on Mashvisor also come with AI-powered rental property analysis that provides data that can stop investors from making bad real estate investments.
What makes Mashvisor real estate API superior is that it includes both long-term rental data (traditional) and short-term rental data (Airbnb). When it comes to Airbnb real estate investing, Mashvisor has an extensive set of short term rental data to offer via our Airbnb API. As a result, investors can use our API to get overall market trends or even to zero-in on a detailed Airbnb dataset for specific properties.
Here are all the types of Airbnb data you can access using Mashvisor:
#1 Real Estate Market Data
Using Mashvisor’s search tools, you can find the best properties for sale in any city, neighborhood, and zip code across the US housing market. But as any successful Airbnb host knows, not just any area works for short-term rental business. Using Mashvisor Airbnb API, however, you’ll be able to study market trends for the market of your choice to see whether you’re making a good or bad decision to list in this area. Information that you’ll get to access include:
- The number of active Airbnb listings
- Median listing price
- Price changes
- Comparable short-term rental listings
- Comparable rental income estimates
- The city’s investment performance
- The top neighborhoods in the city for Airbnb investing
- Neighborhood overview
- The top Airbnb rentals available
#2 Property Information
If you’re browsing Mashvisor searching for Airbnb properties for sale, then you probably have certain criteria of what you want to find in a property. For example, you might have a certain number of bedrooms in mind, or the size of the property, purchase price, or what appliances it has.
Thanks to our Airbnb API data, you’ll find detailed information and analysis of any Airbnb listing you’re interested in to make sure it fits your requirements. This information includes the following:
- Property description
- The full street address of the property
- The city, state, county, zip code, and neighborhood where the property is located
- Property full bedrooms and bathrooms count
- Property living area in square feet unit
- The lot size of the property in square feet unit
- The year was constructed in
- The walkscore value of the property address
- Tax History: a collection of all the taxes reported for a property
- The listed price for the property
- Price per square foot value
- Number of days since the property was on the market for sale
- Number of parking spots
- The last sale date of the property
- The last sale price of the property
- The date of the open house occurring
- The time of the open house starting and ending
- The broker’s name, email, phone number, and full address
- The heating and cooling system type
- Virtual tour link for a property
- The date when the property was listed for sale
- The property seller’s name
- Property occupancy status: assumed owner occupancy, owner-occupied or primary residence, or second home.
- The property’s agent ID associated with it
- Collection of all the expenses reported for an Airbnb rental: maintenance fee, HOA fee, building insurance, parking fee, utility fees, and many others
- A description of the appliance as provided
- The year the property received updates
- The half bathrooms value for a property
Want to start and end your search for an Airbnb for sale in less than 15 minutes? Click here to find and analyze the best properties in your city and neighborhood of choice.
#3 Property Ownership Data
As a potential Airbnb investor, having access to property ownership records helps you in a couple of ways. First, you may be eyeing a certain property in your area to buy and rent out as an Airbnb rental. In this case, you’ll want to find out who owns the property to contact them and, hopefully, score a deal.
Second, maybe you’re not looking to invest in your area, but rather opt for out-of-state Airbnb investing where you can find opportunities that bring better ROI. This means you need a way to find homeowners anywhere in the US housing market.
This is possible with Mashvisor’s homeowner data. If you sign up with the Professional or Expert plans, you’ll get to use one of our tools called Mashboard. With this tool, you can enter a specific address and the filters related to the location (city, state, and zip code) will auto-fill.
If you don’t have an address, you’ll need to set these filters and others (like the property type, year built, and sales date). Then, our API will then provide a list of homeowner data you’re looking for which include, but are not limited to:
- Owner first name and last name
- Phone number including area code
- Email address
- Street address
- State, city and zip code
- Age range
- Occupation
- Gender
- Marital status
- Education
- Length of residence
- Household income
- Own or rent household
- An estimated price of home purchase
#4 Airbnb Investment Analysis Data
As mentioned before, every Airbnb listing on Mashvisor comes with its investment analysis. This helps investors ensure that the property they’re interested in for real estate investing will actually make money as an Airbnb rental.
Using Airbnb analytics, Mashvisor provides readily estimated and available data regarding your Airbnb return on investment. And, most importantly, you can even get a rental strategy comparison to make sure that renting out the property as a short-term rental will generate higher returns than renting it out traditionally.
In addition, the investment analysis includes financing data and data of the expenses associated with buying and owning the property. Here’s a list of analytics that Mashvisor provides through Airbnb API for iyour nvestment analysis:
- The expected monthly Airbnb rental income
- The Airbnb monthly cash flow
- Airbnb cash on cash return: returns of a property based on the amount of cash invested
- The Airbnb cap rate: the potential return of a property as if it is paid off
- Airbnb occupancy rate: the expected number of days a property will be rented per year
- Down payment
- Loan type
- Interest rate
- Payment type: loan or cash
- Max bid: sets the property listing price to its value
- One-time startup cost: closing costs, repairs, inspection costs, furniture and appliances
- Monthly expenses: maintenance costs, management costs, property tax, insurance, etc.
- Total Expenses
You can get an investment analysis for your property on Mashvisor’s Airbnb Profitability Calculator where you’ll also see the above-listed data.
#5 Rental Rates
When renting out on Airbnb, setting the right rent amount for your rental is important to attract guests and make positive cash flow. In order to know what the right amount is, hosts have to look up data on the historical rental rates of the area and set their rent accordingly. However, looking for this data can take time and you may not always find what you’re looking for.
Using analytics based on Airbnb API, on the other hand, allows you to get access to data that is accurate and up-to-date in a matter of minutes. Mashvisor’s Airbnb dataset includes an estimated rental rate for short term rentals in any area across the US. Moreover, to guarantee that you’re receiving accurate Airbnb data API, Mashvisor’s estimates are:
- Based on the 12-months historical performance for the target area as provided by Airbnb
- Categorized by the number of bedrooms of the property you’re trying to get the estimates for
- Calculated over several similar Airbnb listings rented in the area or are currently available for rent
#6 Predictive Scores
Besides the Airbnb dataset, Mashvisor also offers unique functions using machine learning algorithms to help you predict whether or not you’re making good investment decisions. These are:
- Investment Likelihood: This gives you a score of each listing that determines whether or not it’s suitable for a real estate investment.
- Mashboard: This is a unique Mashvisor-designed score that shows an overall evaluation of the neighborhood investment opportunity as a percentage.
- Property Recommender: This predicts the most preferred property specifications for you in terms of property type, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and home value.
To request more information and details about Mashvisor’s tools and API, click here.
#7 Rental Comps Data
A part of your Airbnb investment analysis requires you to get a list of rental comps. These are similar rental properties in your area that are available for rent. Airbnb rental comps data shows you how Airbnb rentals are actually performing by comparing them to one another.
While getting this kind of data used to take weeks, now Mashvisor – through Airbnb API data augmented with AL-powered investment analysis, made it possible to find comps online. And Mashvisor API provides you with lists of Airbnb rental comps in any neighborhood along with data including their:
- Similarity
- Distance
- Address
- Airbnb occupancy rate
- Nightly rent
- Rental income
- Ratings and reviews
In addition, you can also export Excel sheet reports that include all Airbnb comps in the area that you’re looking at, their info, zip codes, size, ROI metrics, and all the other info. All of this will help you whether you’re thinking of buying an Airbnb investment and want to know which property is best, or if you already own a short term rental and want to see how it’s performing compared to other properties in the area.
As a result, you no longer have to run a rental market analysis to gather this data thanks to Mashvisor API.
Want to get Airbnb API access? Register for a new Mashvisor account from here.