JB PARCELShort-Term Rental Calculator
Short-term rental gross revenue looks enormous next to long-term rent. Then platform fees, cleaning, supplies, and management take their cut. This shows both numbers so you can compare the one that matters.
How this calculator works
Gross revenue is booked nights times your average daily rate, plus cleaning fees collected. Booked nights is days available times occupancy. Everything after that is subtraction, and there is a lot of it.
The variable costs scale with stays rather than with nights, which is why average length of stay matters so much. A property averaging two-night stays turns over roughly twice as often as one averaging four nights, which doubles cleaning, doubles supplies, and doubles the chance of a bad turnover. Two-night minimums look like more revenue and often are not.
Fixed costs are where short-term rentals surprise people. Insurance costs more than a landlord policy. You pay every utility plus internet plus streaming. Furnishings wear out on a three to five year cycle instead of a fifteen year one. Permits and software are annual. On a typical Tennessee cabin, fixed costs alone can run $13,000 to $16,000 before a single guest arrives.
The comparison that actually matters is the last output: the monthly long-term rent that would net you the same money. A cabin grossing $58,000 might net less than a boring duplex, with ten times the operational work. Sometimes short-term wins decisively. Run it before you commit, not after you have bought the furniture.
Worked example: a Sevier County cabin
$210 average daily rate, 62 percent occupancy, $145 cleaning fee, 3.2 nights per stay.
| Booked nights | 226 |
|---|---|
| Room revenue | $47,523 |
| Cleaning collected | $10,255 |
| Gross revenue | $57,777 |
| Platform, cleaning, supplies | $12,200 |
| Fixed annual costs | $16,980 |
| Net operating income | $28,597 |
A $58,000 gross turns into $28,600 net, or about $2,383 a month before any mortgage. That is a real number and it beats what most Sevier County cabins would rent for long term. But it is half the gross, and the gross is the number people quote at meetups.
Questions investors ask
What occupancy should I assume for a Tennessee short-term rental?
Smokies cabins commonly run 55 to 70 percent annually with heavy seasonality, strong summer and fall, thin January and February. Urban Nashville units vary widely by neighborhood and by event calendar. Do not use a national average. Pull actual comparable listings in your specific submarket, look at their booked calendars over several months, and be conservative on your first year while you build reviews.
How much does short-term rental management cost?
Full-service management runs 18 to 25 percent of gross revenue in most Tennessee markets, sometimes more for a small unit. Co-hosting arrangements that leave you handling some tasks run 10 to 15. Self-managing is genuinely free in dollars and genuinely expensive in time, roughly 8 to 12 hours a month per unit once you are running smoothly, more during your first season.
Should I charge a cleaning fee that covers my full cost?
At least. High cleaning fees hurt conversion, especially on short stays, but subsidizing cleaning out of your nightly rate just hides the cost. The calculator flags it when your fee is below what you pay. If guest resistance is real, the better fix is usually a longer minimum stay, which reduces how many cleanings you buy in the first place.
Do I need a permit for a short-term rental in Tennessee?
Almost certainly, and the rules differ sharply by city and county. Nashville, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Knoxville, and Chattanooga all regulate short-term rentals, with different treatment for owner-occupied versus non-owner-occupied properties and some zoning districts closed entirely. Verify the ordinance for the specific parcel before you write an offer. This is the single most common way a short-term rental plan dies after closing.
Is short-term rental worth it versus long-term?
Sometimes, and the honest answer requires this calculator. Short-term gross revenue often runs two to three times long-term rent, but net is frequently only 20 to 60 percent higher after fees, cleaning, utilities, furnishings, and management, and the work is a different category entirely. The last output here converts your net into an equivalent long-term rent so you are comparing the same thing.
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Screening a real property? Pull its appraised value, assessed value, acreage, land use, and last recorded sale off the JB PARCEL parcel map and drop the real numbers into this calculator instead of guessing. Coverage runs across every county we carry.