Local Airbnbs raked in $17.5M last year

As COVID-19 travel restrictions have lifted, people have been on the move and they are particularly interested in traveling to rural communities like Humboldt County.

The number of people booking overnight stays at Airbnbs in rural areas grew 110% in 2021 from 2019, according to data from Airbnb, leading to rural hosts in the U.S. earning a collective $3.5 billion. In California, rural hosts earned more than $205 million in 2021 and those in Humboldt County earned $17.5 million.

The typical Airbnb host in rural California earned roughly $20,000 last year.

Farm stays have been particularly popular, seeing a 40% rise in bookings between 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2021. The typical host for a farm stay earned about $10,300 last year.

Humboldt County ranked No. 5 in terms of how much the county’s hosts earned in 2021 compared with the state’s other rural counties. It came in after Mendocino ($22 million), Mariposa ($23 million), Nevada ($33 million) and Mono ($52 million) counties.

California was fourth overall in the country in terms of how much its rural hosts earned during the past year. Colorado ranked first with $364 million, followed by Tennessee ($249 million) and North Carolina ($224 million).

Cities like Arcata and Trinidad have talked about putting caps in place for short-term rentals like Airbnbs in the past in order to preserve the local housing stock.

Housing in Humboldt County is growing increasingly expensive; only 30% of households could afford a median-priced home in the county as of the first quarter of 2022.

In April, the median home price in the county increased 8% from the month prior and 9.2% from the year prior to $464,300.