Edition one, published August 2026
Melbourne Short-Stay Market Report
Thirteen months of guest revenue across our own Melbourne book, month by month, with the labels left on. Written by Jordan Pham, Terence Mok and Stanley Ma.
Read from our booking system and NightlyIQ on 27 August 2026. Gross booking revenue is what guests paid, before rent, cleaning, platform fees and every other cost. It is not profit.
What this is built on
One operator’s complete book, read straight out of the system that runs it. We had 83 short-stay properties in Melbourne on 27 August 2026, and this edition covers every one of them across the 2025-26 financial year, plus the month after it.
Each night’s revenue sits in the month that night was actually slept. Most published short-stay figures put a whole stay in the month it checked in, which turns one long booking into a spike that never happened. The curve below is the shape of demand, not the shape of check-ins.
The figures reconcile with our booking system’s own analytics to within a quarter of a percent.
Guest revenue, month by month
July 2025 to July 2026, with the number of properties on the book each month. The book nearly tripled over the series, so the tall months at the end are partly size, not season.
Night-attributed gross booking revenue. December 2025 and January 2026 land within half a percent of each other: Melbourne’s summer is a two-month plateau, not a one-month spike. July 2026 is the tallest month in the series, but by then the book had reached 83 properties.
Season, once you divide by the book
Summer runs at about twice winter
Divide each month by the number of properties on the book and December 2025 reads roughly $8,900 a property, April 2026 roughly $4,500. Properties picked up mid-month only contribute part of a month, so the true swing is a little under that.
One event week can carry a month
March 2026, Grand Prix month, read about 26% above February per property. The book barely grew that month, so that one is clean.
Plan for the winter, not the summer
A property that only works at summer rates does not work. Annual planning here has to survive months where revenue per property runs at about half the summer rate.
An average is not a benchmark
These are studios and four-bedrooms averaged together. No single property should be held to the blend.
The market read behind the pricing
Every listing on this book is priced each night by NightlyIQ, the software we built for ourselves. It benchmarks 215,544 properties across Australia, with a median of 349 comparable properties behind any one listing.
Across members’ properties connected to it, guest ratings average 4.86 over 2,961 reviews, read on 27 August 2026.
One pattern out of that benchmarking runs through the software and the course, and will get a report of its own: two listings in the same building routinely earn completely different amounts over the same nights. Market averages hide it. Listing-level data is where the money actually moves.
How NightlyIQ worksWhat this report does not claim
The next edition adds a same-store view, so growth and season separate properly, and Melbourne occupancy bands once we can collect or licence that data honestly.
One operator, one city. This is our Melbourne book, not a survey of the Melbourne market. Another operator’s suburbs, sizes and standards will read differently.
The book grew from 29 properties to 83 across the series, so raw monthly totals mix growth with season. Per-property averages only partly correct for that.
Every dollar figure is gross booking revenue. Costs, and therefore margins, are outside this report.
Figures were read on 27 August 2026. Refunds and alterations can move history slightly after the fact.
Quoting this report
Use it with attribution and a link. For the data behind a figure, or an interview, email press@bnbsuccess.com.au.
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