Same-store rent is up 11.8% this year on a higher rate, every submarket is pacing ahead of its market, and December is already at double last year's pace. What is left is daily work: the gap night between two stays, the August that priced ahead of demand, the owner block placed six days out. That is the job a dedicated revenue manager does on 200 homes that a weekly review cannot.
On the 94 homes that hosted guests in both years, January through September rent rose from $3.58M to $4.00M. The rate did most of it: ADR went from $535 to $579 while occupancy edged up. That is the healthy version of growth. The book absorbed a higher price without giving nights back.
| Jan to Sep | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | $3,575,843 | $3,997,086 | +11.8%▲ |
| Booked nights | 6,678 | 6,898 | +3.3%▲ |
| ADR | $535 | $579 | +8.2%▲ |
| Occupancy | 33.9% | 35.7% | +1.8 pts▲ |
| RevPAR | $181 | $207 | +14.0%▲ |
| Peak, Jun to Aug | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | $1,995,579 | $2,160,185 | +8.2%▲ |
| Booked nights | 3,404 | 3,471 | +2.0%▲ |
| ADR | $586 | $622 | +6.2%▲ |
| Occupancy | 52.5% | 53.3% | +0.8 pts▲ |
| RevPAR | $308 | $331 | +7.7%▲ |
Rent is rental revenue before OTA commission and excludes cleaning fees, extra charges and taxes. Occupancy counts booked nights against nights that were open to book, so owner and maintenance blocks are removed from the denominator.
On the 129 homes in service across both years, every long weekend ran fuller than the year before, and three of the six did it at a higher rate.
| Weekend | 2025 occ | 2026 occ | 2025 ADR | 2026 ADR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MLK | 55% | 75% | $502 | $549 |
| Presidents' Day | 62% | 85% | $579 | $549 |
| Memorial Day | 72% | 86% | $606 | $603 |
| July 4 | 82% | 84% | $589 | $655 |
| Labor Day | 77% | 90% | $552 | $637 |
| Columbus Day | 80% | 90% | $591 | $573 |
PriceLabs tracks the occupancy of the listings around each home. Over the next 60 days Red Cottage's 197 active homes sit at 35% booked against a 20% market average, and the lead holds in every submarket.
| Submarket | Homes | Next 60 days, Red Cottage | Next 60 days, market |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Catskills | 41 | 32% | 18% |
| Hudson Valley | 35 | 35% | 24% |
| Berkshires | 23 | 47% | 22% |
| Eastern Catskills | 16 | 53% | 22% |
| Stowe | 16 | 32% | 18% |
| Catskills, other | 12 | 36% | 24% |
| Northern Catskills | 9 | 39% | 20% |
| Vermont, other | 17 | 19% | 16% |
Market figure is PriceLabs' nearby-listing occupancy for each home, averaged by submarket, as of the October 2 refresh. Smaller submarkets (Maine, Poconos, Connecticut, Hamptons) are in the 197 total but not shown.
| 129 homes, rent | 2025 final | Same time last year | On the books today | Pace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | $626,701 | n/a | $679,827 | +8.5% vs final, 8 nights left |
| November | $420,959 | $267,771 | $320,212 | +19.6%▲ |
| December | $503,137 | $141,776 | $282,962 | +99.6%▲ |
On the books as of October 23, 2026, against bookings made by October 23, 2025 for the same month. Across the whole book, November and December hold $842K on 197 homes against $458K at this point last year on 157 homes.
About a third of 2026 rent arrives outside the OTAs (booking engine 18%, manually entered 16%), with Airbnb at 53% and Vrbo at 10%. Fifty-one homes hosted their first guests in 2026. The 18 that launched between January and May ran 43% peak occupancy at a $546 rate against 53% and $622 for established homes, which is a normal first-summer ramp.
None of these call for a different approach to peak season. They come from daily attention, which is hard to give 200 homes when pricing is reviewed every week or two.
| Opportunity | What the data shows | What Pacer does |
|---|---|---|
| Gap nights in peak | 297 unsold nights sat inside 1 to 3 night gaps between stays on the 94 same-store homes, 86 of them Friday to Sunday. About $185K at the $622 peak rate. | Per-gap pricing and minimum-stay relaxation sized to the gap, checked every day. |
| August priced ahead of demand | August rate rose 15% and occupancy fell 6 points, so rent grew 5.7% on 108 fewer nights. July did the opposite: rate +3%, occupancy +8.7 points, rent +16%. | Daily pacing per home against last year's pickup curve. Push where July-type pickup shows. Hold where it does not. |
| Owner blocks | 993 owner blocks in 2026 so far, about 6,300 nights, 15% of the July and August calendar, 804 of them on peak Fridays and Saturdays. 26% were placed under 7 days out. | Owner-impact reporting per home, and pricing the nights on either side of each block. |
| Holiday fill at a higher rate | Christmas week is on the books at an $822 rate against a $600 final last year, with nights ahead of pace. Last year 74% of Christmas nights booked inside 61 days. | A fill target by lead date per home. Hold rate while pickup leads the curve, step down in measured moves only where it trails. |
From June 1 to September 7, the 94 same-store homes had 158 gaps of one to three nights bounded by a stay on each side. Those nights are the hardest to sell with a weekly review and the easiest with a daily one, because the rule that fills them (relax the minimum to the gap length, price it for the lead time) changes home by home and day by day.
| Gap length | Gaps | Unsold nights |
|---|---|---|
| 1 night | 70 | 70 |
| 2 nights | 37 | 74 |
| 3 nights | 51 | 153 |
| Total | 158 | 297 |
86 of the 297 nights fell on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Valued at the same-store peak ADR of $622, the total is $184,839. Pacer's estimate; actual recovery depends on the rate each gap clears at.
| Most gap nights | Nights |
|---|---|
| Spruce Cove Cabin | 14 |
| Kripplebush Hollow | 12 |
| Belleayre Barn | 12 |
| Stowe Woods Chalet | 12 |
| Belleayre View | 11 |
| Coal Cabin | 11 |
| Moon Meadow Farmhouse | 11 |
| Post Haus | 11 |
| Hudson Victorian | 10 |
| Spirit Cabin | 10 |
Orphan-night rules per home: minimum stay drops to the gap length only for that gap, with a price step sized by how many days remain. Single nights inside 14 days get the deepest step; three-night gaps 60 days out get almost none. We would start with the ten homes above and leave alone any home whose owner or association sets a fixed minimum or changeover day. The 69% of Red Cottage bookings that are two or three nights says the demand for short gaps is there.
The same-store months tell two different stories. In July, a 3% rate increase came with 8.7 points more occupancy and rent rose 16%. In August, a 15% rate increase cost 6 points of occupancy and rent rose 5.7%. September is the model month: rate up 27%, occupancy up 7 points, rent up 49%. April cut the rate 14% and bought 1% more rent.
| Same-store month | 2025 ADR | 2026 ADR | 2025 occ | 2026 occ | Rent change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April | $412 | $353 | 20.3% | 23.9% | +1.2%● |
| May | $540 | $591 | 25.4% | 23.1% | -2.1%▼ |
| June | $547 | $534 | 36.9% | 36.9% | 0.0%● |
| July | $599 | $616 | 56.4% | 65.1% | +15.8%▲ |
| August | $597 | $685 | 63.8% | 57.8% | +5.7%▲ |
| September | $493 | $628 | 29.3% | 36.5% | +48.5%▲ |
94 same-store homes. August 2026 ended with 933 unsold nights that were open to book, 107 of them on a Friday or Saturday.
Each home gets a pickup curve built from its own 2025 and 2026 bookings. When August pickup fell behind the curve in June, the rate would have come down in two or three small steps on the homes that were trailing, not across the portfolio. When July pickup ran ahead, we push harder, as it did. The weekly review sees the month after it happened. The daily one sees the week it is happening in.
Nearly every Red Cottage owner is a second homeowner, so owner stays are part of the model, not a problem to fix. The opportunity is to make the cost of each block visible to the owner who places it, and to price the nights around it so the block does not strand a weekend.
| 2026, 197 homes | Owner nights | Share of calendar |
|---|---|---|
| June | 784 | 11.5% |
| July | 997 | 14.9% |
| August | 740 | 14.9% |
| September | 599 | 11.3% |
| Notice given, 993 blocks | Blocks | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under 7 days | 261 | 26% |
| 7 to 29 days | 284 | 29% |
| 30 days or more | 448 | 45% |
A per-owner impact report: nights blocked, the weekend share, the notice given, and the rent those nights earned in the same weeks last year. Red Cottage's owner team gets it monthly and can use it in the renewal conversation. On the calendar side, every block gets the same orphan-night treatment as a guest stay, so the Thursday before an owner's Friday arrival is priced to sell. No change to any owner's rights.
Owner tagging in Guesty appears consistently from March 2025, so there is no reliable year-over-year comparison for owner nights yet. Median owner block is 4 nights.
Thanksgiving, Christmas week and New Year's all hold more nights today than they did at this point last year, and every one is priced well above where last year finished. That is a good position to defend and an easy one to overstay. Last year, 74% of Christmas-week nights were booked inside 61 days, and the fill came in at about $600.
| 129 homes | 2025 final occ | 2025 final ADR | Nights booked, same time last year | Nights on the books today | Rate on the books | Days out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thanksgiving, Nov 25 to 28 | 72% | $583 | 137 | 156 | $708 | 33 |
| Christmas week, Dec 23 to 29 | 74% | $600 | 119 | 188 | $822 | 61 |
| New Year's, Dec 30 to Jan 1 | 91% | $682 | 48 | 90 | $816 | 68 |
| Days before Dec 23 | Nights booked | Share of final | Rate so far |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90 | 65 | 14% | $606 |
| 61 | 119 | 26% | $648 |
| 30 | 261 | 58% | $660 |
| 14 | 367 | 81% | $621 |
| Arrival | 452 | 100% | $601 |
Across all 197 active homes, Thanksgiving is 39% booked, Christmas week 30% and New Year's 33%. 64 homes have Christmas week fully open and unblocked today.
Each home gets a nights-by-lead-date target drawn from its 2025 curve. Homes ahead of the curve keep the higher rate; that is most of the book right now. Homes that fall behind it get a measured step at 45, 30 and 14 days out, not a portfolio-wide cut on December 10. We would start with the 64 open homes and watch the Thanksgiving fill daily from here, since the 2025 fill from this point forward came in below the rate currently on the books.
Twelve homes are more than 15 points behind their own market over the next 60 days. Four same-store homes slid this year while their peers held. These are the first conversations, not conclusions. Some will have a reason (seasonal close, a renovation, an owner hold) that the data cannot see.
| Behind the market at 60 days | Home | Market |
|---|---|---|
| Manderley House, Hudson Valley, 3BR | 3% | 27% |
| La Estancia, Southern Catskills, 3BR | 0% | 22% |
| Drift House, Northern Catskills, 3BR | 7% | 28% |
| Zenwood Manor, Southern Catskills, 3BR | 2% | 22% |
| 840 Route 214, Catskills, 2BR | 2% | 22% |
| Cedar Brook Cabin, Maine, 2BR | 7% | 26% |
| Enchanted Views, Stowe, 3BR | 2% | 20% |
| Steepletop Lodge, Berkshires, 4BR | 5% | 22% |
| Deer Hill Cabin, Southern Catskills, 3BR | 3% | 20% |
| Reservoir House, Western Catskills, 3BR | 8% | 24% |
| Sleepy Hollow Lake, Hudson Valley, 3BR | 12% | 28% |
| Red Hill House, Southern Catskills, 3BR | 2% | 18% |
| Slid while peers held, Jan to Sep | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Meadow Top Cottage, Berkshires, 3BR Rate halved, occupancy flat | $45,996 $613 ADR | $21,120 $271 ADR |
| Myers Ridge, Hudson Valley, 5BR Rate +30%, occupancy 36% to 24% | $35,431 | $25,414 |
| Onyx A-Frame, Northern Catskills, 3BR Rate +11%, occupancy 42% to 27% | $33,748 | $24,306 |
| Belleayre Barn, Western Catskills, 3BR Rate -12%, occupancy 42% to 33% | $44,335 | $31,609 |
Myers Ridge and Onyx A-Frame are the single-home version of the August pattern: the rate moved up and demand did not follow. Meadow Top Cottage looks like a configuration change rather than a pricing one and needs a question, not a fix.
Red Cottage is running a book that beats its markets and grows on rate. The pricing problem to solve is not the peak. It is the 297 gap nights, the August weeks, the holiday fill from here, and the owner block nobody priced around. All four are daily-attention problems, and all four scale badly from 200 homes to 500.
Jon will take Matt and Joey through the four opportunities home by home and the first 90 days. Reply to the email this came with, or write Jon directly.
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