Tesch said he was further surprised when he consulted an Airbnb/VRBO survey, showing that almost 24% of the days in the first quarter this year were rentals of 28 days.
“What we like is stability in the marketplace. As a lender it’s very simple, we want to know that our customers can get the tenants in on a recurring basis, so that they can pay their mortgage – and that’s exactly what is happening, according to our data,” he added.
He also spotted that about 60% of people were driving instead of flying to these rentals, indicating that entire families were getting away for longer periods of time, often to locations not necessarily regarded as tourist destinations.
Much of this could be attributed to the pandemic, he suggested.
“People who were doing Airbnb in suburban settings were finding that these short-term rentals were being booked by people who just wanted to get out of their homes and go somewhere else,” he said.