The Supply Slowdown Is Quietly Handing You Pricing Power.

For three years the story was too much supply. That story is over. New short-term rental listings have stopped flooding in, and for operators who are already established, that shift is quietly rewriting the math in your favor. The national data says it, and your own mountain markets prove it.

AirDNA's 2026 Midyear Outlook, released in July, calls it plainly: fewer new listings are entering the market, and that is helping established operators hold occupancy and strengthen pricing. Nationally, AirDNA projects 2026 occupancy to average 57.4%, above the pre-pandemic norm of 57.0%, with demand and available listings both growing about 2.7% and RevPAR up roughly 2.9% on stronger nightly rates. Rate growth accelerated through the year, from under 1% year over year in January to about 3% by spring. The cause is partly financial. AirDNA's Bram Gallagher noted that at the start of the year they expected lower borrowing costs to pull more new supply into the market. That did not fully happen, so the flood of new listings that defined 2021 through 2023 has thinned to a trickle. The behavior underneath is shifting too: booking lead times are shrinking, trips are getting shorter, and travelers are increasingly choosing larger homes that offer more space and better value for groups. Translation: the market is normalizing toward balance, and in a balanced market, the operator who prices well wins.

Here is what that looks like in your backyard. Across three Mountain West resort markets, the same fingerprint shows up: active listings are shrinking, and rates are climbing. In Big Sky, Montana, active listings fell 6.4% year over year while ADR rose 13.9% and RevPAR climbed 13.8%. The market now runs 54% occupancy at a $995 nightly rate. In Ketchum, Idaho, listings dropped 10.2%, ADR rose 4.9%, and RevPAR still ticked up even as occupancy softened. Next door in Sun Valley, listings fell 4.4% while RevPAR jumped 11.7%. Notice the pattern: occupancy is flat to slightly down in most of these markets, but RevPAR is up, because rate is doing the heavy lifting and there is less competition splitting the demand. The play follows directly. This is not the market to buy occupancy with discounts. Hold your rate. Let dynamic pricing push into the peak windows. And watch your local active-listing count, because when supply in your market is contracting, that is your signal you have room to price up, not down. One caution: do not read softer occupancy as softer demand. Demand is steady. There are simply fewer nights being chased by fewer listings, and the operators who stay disciplined on price are capturing more revenue per available night than they did a year ago.

For anyone underwriting an acquisition, the read is the same but the lens is different. A market where listings are contracting and RevPAR is rising favors well-run existing assets over speculative new supply. But underwrite to the right number. Headline occupancy is flat to down across these markets, so a pro forma built on occupancy growth is building on sand. Underwrite to RevPAR and the rate trajectory instead. Big Sky is clearing $520 RevPAR, with the Idaho markets around $280 to $300, and then stress-test what a professional operator can add on top. The behavior shift points the same way: with groups choosing larger homes and booking shorter and later, the properties that win are bigger units with real dynamic pricing, not one-bedroom condos coasting on a static rate. Know the risk, too. This tailwind is a function of constrained supply, and supply can come back. If borrowing costs fall and new listings re-enter, the pricing power narrows. That makes this a window, not a permanent condition, and it rewards moving while the supply picture is still tight. The supply slowdown is a tailwind, but only for operators who treat pricing as the product.

Getting value from Timberline Operator? Forward it to one operator or investor still fighting last year's oversupply war.

What is your active-listing count doing this year, up or down? Hit reply and tell me what you are seeing. I read every response.

— Timberline Operator

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