Financing an Airbnb that has no rental history yet

Investors looking for an Airbnb loan without rental history usually assume the obstacle is the product. It is not. A short-term rental can be financed on the property own income the same way a long-term rental can. What is missing is the operating history that would normally prove what that income is.

So the real question is what a lender will accept in place of history, and the honest answer is that it depends which basis the file is underwritten on. There are two, and they produce different files.

The other route sets short-term income aside and qualifies the property on what it would rent for on an ordinary twelve-month lease, taken from the appraiser rent schedule. You then operate it nightly, but the loan was never sized on the nightly income.

This is the conservative path and the one that most reliably exists. It generally supports a smaller loan than a short-term estimate would, because long-term rent on the same house is usually below what it grosses nightly. The useful consequence is that if a file works on the long-term number, the absence of booking history has stopped being a problem.

After a season or two of operating, the file changes shape. There are statements, and the property can be documented on its own performance instead of on an estimate of it. That case is covered in the guide to documenting short-term rental income on this site.

Short-term rental lending on a property you do not occupy is business purpose, available in any state. Send the address, the purchase price, what comparable properties in that market are doing, and what the house would rent for on a long lease. Both routes can then be checked side by side. Eligibility and terms vary by scenario and by lender guidelines; nothing here is a commitment to lend.