The State of STRs in WNC: What Asheville Short-Term Rental Operators Are Doing to Win

Asheville's short-term rental market still has room to grow, but only for better product. That was the throughline at The State of STRs in WNC, the October 2023 AVLmeetup at Hi-Wire Event Space, where Drew Wyatt of StayAVL, Tom Sherry of Pure Carolina, and Tyler Coon of Savvy Realty walked the room through pricing, design, regulation, and reviews in a market where average no longer cuts it. The night opened remotely with month 43 of the recorded market update before the panel took the stage.

Key Takeaways

Buncombe County's month's inventory sat at 2.5 months in the September Ruiz Report, still firmly a seller's market against a neutral benchmark of five to six months. Active listings were up 4% for the month but overall volume was still down 7% year over year.
Tyler Coon's six-bedroom property near Fletcher, bought in February and launched that June, booked roughly $197,000 from June to June, including over $100,000 booked across weekend dates after his assistant launched Price Labs with no pricing guardrails while he was traveling.
Tom Sherry's former company, recently sold to Avant Stay, lists on 65 platforms and gets 40% of bookings direct, a share he credits to social media marketing and awards like the Shorty Awards.
All three panelists stressed getting ahead of problems through direct communication. Sherry sorts bad reviews into legitimate and illegitimate categories before deciding how to respond, while Wyatt leans on a scripted response system once an issue escalates. Coon said he still holds five-star reviews on a property where the well, hot tub, and fire pit all failed in succession, because he calls guests directly and asks for grace.
Asheville's short-term rental enforcement inside city limits pushed Drew Wyatt into a shared-space house hack that became his entry into the business, and he now targets other restricted markets for arbitrage because restrictions mean less competition.

Does the Market Support More Short-Term Rentals?

The panel's answer was a qualified yes. Tom Sherry pointed to Asheville's location within a day's drive of half the U.S. population and the airport's expansion as demand drivers, while predicting "the average and below average kind of units are gonna go elsewhere." Tyler Coon agreed the market is "shaking out kind of those lower average units," pointing to Maggie Valley cabins that used to run on hand-me-down furniture and are now getting upgraded. Drew Wyatt put it simply: the market can always support more short-term rentals, but each new one raises the baseline everyone else must compete against.

Wyatt described three tiers of leverage on a property's profitability: design, amenities, and the core product, meaning the house itself. Design is available to everyone; amenities take more capital and don't always fit the property; the core product is the hardest lever to pull but the most powerful. Coon's own approach on a recent buy was blunt: he checked every six-bedroom listing within a few miles, catalogued their amenities, and "beat them."

Pricing Tools and the Case for Testing Big

Tom Sherry walked through dynamic pricing software, naming PriceLabs, Beyond, and Wheelhouse, and said "they're only as good as the information that you start with and that you put in, which comes from your own market knowledge." His former company runs a full-time revenue management team, since, in his words, the days of setting seasonal pricing and walking away are over.

Coon offered a counterpoint. His assistant launched Price Labs on his newest property with no guardrails while he was on a cruise, and the property came back with over $100,000 booked on weekends alone, some nights over $1,000. His conclusion: "don't be afraid to go a little bit crazy if you've put the money in to the amenities." The same portfolio has since seen $12,000 bookings for four days over holidays.

Regulation, Platforms, and Direct Booking

Asked how they hedge against Asheville's short-term rental rules, all three said they largely don't. Sherry operates outside city limits and, on his in-city properties, runs 28-plus-day stays to stay compliant, betting the fight over the ordinance eventually lands in court. Coon called the WNC market "very underregulated" compared to the West Coast and said the resale market is liquid enough that regulatory risk doesn't worry him. Wyatt took the opposite lesson: Asheville's shared-space requirement let his own house hack compete, so he now targets other restricted markets for arbitrage because restrictions thin the competition.

The panel split on platforms. Sherry called Airbnb and VRBO "a necessary evil" and pointed to his former company's 40% direct-booking share as the goal. Coon is trending the other way, designing properties good enough to book a year out on the platforms so guests never need managing. Wyatt landed in the middle: his team wins nearly all of its Airbnb resolution disputes by understanding the terms of service, while treating direct booking as insurance against a platform policy change.

Questions

If you had a crystal ball, where would short-term rentals be in Western North Carolina in five years? Tom Sherry said the category keeps going strong with guest expectations climbing further, joking that indoor pools and lazy rivers could be next.
How do you make your design stand out, and do you outsource it? Drew Wyatt said his in-house designer, Lily, has completed about eight new builds in the past year, and that outsourcing pays for itself since the design fee rarely breaks a property's cash on cash. Tyler Coon designed his own property after meeting a designer just a week after closing, which cost him time and roughly $15,000 in mortgage payments during the delay, and admitted outsourcing would have been cheaper. Tom Sherry's company uses both in-house and an outsourced local designer.
What would be your number one value-add amenity? Tom Sherry named a hot tub first, with a fire pit as the most economical option. Drew Wyatt pointed to pickleball courts as trending and flagged cribs as an underrated filter, since guests with children search specifically for that amenity.
What advice would you give someone starting out without much capital or access to resources? Tyler Coon said to find a trusted person already doing it and learn from their mistakes, and cautioned against rushing into partnerships, which cost him money and goodwill even in deals that otherwise went well. Drew Wyatt pointed to free resources first, including YouTube channels and AirDNA access shared by people already in the business, before paid tools.

The panel also fielded quick questions on pets and parties (all three allow pets, none allow parties) and concierge add-ons, with Sherry citing private chef service and discounted Biltmore tickets as offerings that work here. The next AVLmeetup stop was Luxury Real Estate the following month.