Key Takeaways

  • Airbnb listings in Indian cities rose 21 to 72 percent year over year through June 2026, per AirDNA data
  • Nightly rates fell as much as 43 percent in Jodhpur and 6.5 percent in Mumbai amid oversupply
  • Some hosts are shifting to monthly stays or traditional leases as nightly booking premiums erode

Airbnb listings in Hyderabad jumped 72 percent year over year through June 2026, while nightly rates in Jodhpur collapsed 43 percent over the same stretch. The numbers, drawn from AirDNA data, mark a sharp reversal for a market that once promised Indian homeowners returns far above the 2 to 4 percent typical of conventional leases.

One local host in India, Harshdeep Kaur, felt the shift firsthand after converting her home into an Airbnb in 2021, expecting a 25 percent premium over standard rent.

Listings across the Chandigarh Tri-city area have grown from roughly 300 that year to more than 800 now, according to a Livemint report, and Kaur has cut her nightly rate to ₹4,000 (about $48), down from ₹5,500 to ₹6,000 when she started.

“There was a lot of growth in the first 1.5 years, but then the response weakened as more people came to know about it,” according to Kaur.

Actress Parul Gulati – who has appeared in Netflix’s Selection Day and Amazon Prime Video’s Made in Heaven – described a similar squeeze with a two-bedroom villa she bought in Goa’s Nerul area for about $372,000 in 2021. She once expected nightly rates of $480 to $540 but now charges around $132, pulling in an annual yield near 3.3 percent.

Hosts pivot toward monthly stays and traditional leases

Revenue in Jaipur, Goa, Udaipur, Varanasi and Jodhpur has fallen 7 to 14 percent, pushing some owners toward longer-term tenants instead of nightly bookings.

Kaur said extended stays from working professionals and visiting relatives can cut maintenance costs by 10 to 15 percent, while operators in Goa are increasingly filling calendars with monthly deals to avoid turnover and cleaning expenses tied to short stays, a dynamic that echoes broader shifts in vacation rental pricing playing out globally.

Related: HomeToGo revenue jumps 72% as Interhome acquisition reshapes vacation rental business

Magicbricks chief marketing officer Prasun Kumar said short-term rentals can still generate 32.4 percent higher returns than conventional rentals in Tier 1 cities, but that premium narrows to just 6.7 percent in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.

Hosts are also absorbing steeper platform costs. Since October 2025, Airbnb has shifted to a single-fee model in which hosts cover the entire 15.5 percent platform charge, adding pressure on top of falling nightly rates, a trend that mirrors rising scrutiny of platform accountability in short-term rental markets elsewhere.

Bengaluru-based host Shilpa Ralhi, who owns a six-bedroom property in Dehradun, moved away from the nightly-booking model entirely after facing cancellations and maintenance headaches, calling traditional renting a more dependable income source without the extra effort required to stand out.

Whether Tier 1 cities can hold onto their 32.4 percent premium as supply keeps climbing remains an open question hosts and analysts are still tracking.

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