WNC's Short Term Rental Market: What Asheville Operators Are Doing as the Market Shifts

Two of three Asheville short-term rental operators are not pivoting out of the business, but they are buying differently. The third counsels a pivot to long-term unfurnished. That was the range of views at WNC's Short Term Rental Market, the June 2025 AVLmeetup at The Mule at Devil's Foot Beverage, where 104 people heard Gay Weber of Carolina Mornings, Kyah Ebert of Stay Happy Asheville, and Tyler Coon of Savvy Realty talk through a Buncombe County market that had just turned neutral.

Key Takeaways

Buncombe County had 5.8 months of inventory in May 2025, up 113% year over year and, per the Ruiz Report data that opened the meetup, squarely a neutral market after years of sub-one-month supply.
New Buncombe listings were up 38% year over year in May 2025, while homes sold fell 16% and average sales price fell 11%. The median sale price was $505,000.
Gay Weber manages 163 properties within an hour of Asheville and said five-plus-bedroom homes are where performance is now. A year earlier the threshold was four bedrooms.
Tyler Coon put roughly $300,000 into redesigning a 2023 purchase (pickleball court, landscaping, 900 added square feet), gained about $1,000,000 in appraised value, and pulled out $750,000 to fund three more deals.
Kyah Ebert bought a Weaverville property with a separate ADU for $182,000 using private lending, refinanced into a DSCR loan after a year of income, and now carries a $2,250 mortgage against roughly $10,000 a month gross from both units combined.

Why the Panel Is Staying in Short-Term Rentals

Two of the three panelists are staying in short-term rentals because the skill set, not the asset class, is the business. Kyah Ebert has spent four years on vacation rentals and holds about 50 units across arbitrage, management, and ownership: "I would rather be greedy when people are fearful and continue to grow my business." Tyler Coon, who said he has done about 250 deals here in six years and sold roughly 80 short-term rentals last year, agreed.

Gay Weber was the practical dissent. The market is going through a glut on average daily rate, he said, so if your horizon is short, this is not a great investment model right now. If your horizon is long, the opportunity is still there. Asked for the smartest WNC investment today, he answered long-term unfurnished.

What Is Actually Getting Booked in Asheville

Bedroom count is doing most of the sorting. Weber said three-bedroom listings are now ubiquitous and saturated, four bedrooms were the step up, and lately it takes five. He also noted that inventory roughly halves with each added bedroom, so a six-bedroom home has half the competition a five does. Coon said AirDNA year over year numbers for studios through three bedrooms are down, studios to two bedrooms down double digits, while five bedrooms and up are positive on average. Asked to estimate the market, Coon put the greater Asheville area at roughly 4,500 available rentals, down about 20% since Helene, and argued the units lost were the weakest 20% of the supply.

Amenities do the rest. Weber's advice was to open the Airbnb and VRBO amenity filters and check off as many as you can feasibly add, because those filters show what guests are searching for. Coon called that probably the number one thing an operator can do, and said the same Asheville home modeled with a hot tub, pet friendly, and a king bed comes back at roughly double the average. Weber also stressed the launch window: 7 to 10 days of boost, and if you miss it, you are on the last page.

Budgets, Tools, and Where the Deals Are

Ebert gave rough upfit ranges: about $85,000 scrappy on a high-end property over 3,000 square feet, $200,000 to $250,000 going all out, and $30,000 to $35,000 for a small home like his tiny house. New operators, he said, need exactly one piece of software, dynamic pricing, at roughly $8 to $15 per unit per month, then a property management system as the portfolio grows. Weber's team layers PriceLabs on top of its own in-house pricing algorithm.

Coon's biggest opportunity is unfinished square footage: basements, above-grade space, even garages that already have drywall and ceilings. Ebert agreed, value-add deals with land, an ADU, or added cash flow.

Questions From the Room

Do you own short-term rentals inside Asheville city limits? Tyler Coon said the one he owns in the city came with an existing license he overpaid for. Kyah Ebert added that those licenses are very rare here. Coon said none of the panelists are really operating in the city that often, given its restrictions. Asked whether those laws will change, Coon's answer was blunt: only if you sue the city.
If you are in it for the long haul, what counts as long haul? Gay Weber said plan on three to five years minimum and give the area a chance to heal, noting that updated Explore Asheville guidance had pushed recovery into the following year. Coon cited an Explore Asheville presentation putting average tourism recovery at about 12 months post-hurricane, with outliers like Katrina at 48 months. Ebert's answer was longer still: he is not looking to sell his business for 10 to 15 years.
Why is unfurnished long term the wisest choice right now? Weber pointed to WNC's historic shortage of long-term rental inventory and to holding costs. Utilities go out of your name, you turn the unit far less often, and the money is more consistent even if it is less. You can pivot back to short term later if no bans are in place. His caution: going from furnished to unfurnished and back is a big threshold, so he would not tell a furnished owner to sell everything off.
Outside Buncombe County, which bedroom communities are seeing traction? Weber, whose company works across eight counties, named Transylvania County and Brevard as still popping despite some restrictions, plus Mills River and Burnsville. Coon named Mars Hill and the Hatley Point development, citing demand up 38% year over year February to February, and said probably not Lake Lure. Ebert is focused on Buncombe until his team hits 85 to 100 doors, and is watching the Outer Banks.

Weber is a founding board member of the North Carolina Short-Term Rental Alliance, which meets quarterly and briefs members on statewide regulatory changes. The Ruiz Report data that opened the night has tracked Buncombe County monthly since March 2020. The next month's meetup, How To Find & Fund Your Next Deal, picked up the financing thread this panel kept returning to.