If you’re looking to make a real estate investment in a rental property, one of the first things you’ll need to find is good online tools for you to use. In this blog, I want to do an Airdna review, as it is a popular platform that many investors use, and compare it with Mashvisor to see which platform is more worthy of its price.
So, in this Airdna review I will talk about your general need as a real estate investor and the use you want to get from the platform, what can you do and what can’t you do with Airdna, and how Airdna compares with Mashvisor in terms of the tools that both platforms offer.
What Do You Need?
First and foremost, if you’re looking for an online platform to help you on your real estate investing journey, it’s important to know exactly what you’re looking to get from the tools you’re paying for.
There are a number of online tools that most real estate investors use or may want to use – from platforms that help them find investment properties for sale, to platforms that analyze the market to tell you which areas are worth investing in, to calculators that allow you to run the math and see how your investment fares on the long-term.
So, since I’m doing an Airdna review, let’s talk about Airdna – what it is exactly, and what can you do with it?
What is Airdna?
Airdna is a short-term rental analytics platform that can be used to analyze and compares Airbnb and VRBO rentals to help investors make informed decisions.
Airdna gets its data mostly from Airbnb’s website which Airbnb makes public. Additionally, a small amount of the Airdna data comes from vacation rental business owners.
In terms of capabilities, Airdna is focused on the analytics aspect of short-term rentals, and it can help investors analyze specific properties that they’re interested in and to compare them with a small number of other properties that are similar.
One very big downside, however, is that Airdna updates their rental database on a monthly basis. This makes it very unreliable for active investors who want to be able to analyze and make their decisions on the spot, and don’t want to have to wait until the beginning of each month to see up-to-date and accurate data.
This also means that Airdna’s usage peaks at the start of each month, but declines drastically over the remainder of the month because the data becomes more and more outdated.
So, if you’re asking yourself “how accurate is Airdna?”, the answer depends on the time of the month!
Other than the analytics side, Airdna is lacking many tools that are a necessity for most real estate investors, such as a mortgage calculator or long-term rentals, and other types of investment properties.
Read: Long-Term Rentals vs. Short-Term Rentals for Beginner Real Estate Investors
How Much Does Airdna Cost?
Airdna is notorious for having what many may perceive as the worst pricing model for an online platform of this type.
The main tool that most Airdna users subscribe to is the Market Minder service, which allows investors to use an interactive map to browse Airbnb listings in their area.
However, what Airdna did is that they tied their subscription fee with the size of the market that you want to search through.
This means two things:
- You’ll have to pay more if the market you’re interested in is large
- You’ll have to pay extra for each additional market that you want to search through
This means that unless you’re absolutely certain about the market that you want to invest in, Airdna’s cost can be too steep if you want to search several markets and optimize your search to find the perfect short-term rental to invest in.
Recently, Airdna has increased their pricing, and they now have 3 tiers of subscription that range from $19 to $99 monthly.
Can You Use Airdna to Find Properties for Sale?
If you’re a real estate investor looking to find an investment property for sale to generate a passive income and help you grow financially, then you will definitely need more than just a tool to analyze each property.
Every real estate investment starts with one step: searching for an investment property for sale.
So, when doing an Airdna review, I have to talk about searching for properties using Airdna.
To put it short – Airdna doesn’t provide the tools required to search for short-term rental properties for sale.
Instead, what the tool does is that you enter the address of a property that you’re interested in, and the tool will give you investment insights about that property.
While this is useful for analyzing specific short-term rentals that you’re aware of, as a beginner investor you will need access to more data about each market and get familiarized with the available inventory and the different price ranges that exist within that market.
Unfortunately, Airdna doesn’t really offer much use in that regard!
Mashvisor vs Airdna
Airdna, as an online platform, is effective at what it does. And smart investors know how to navigate around the tool’s shortcomings and cover the gaps by using other tools to make the most out of Airdna.
However, since this Airdna review is aimed towards beginner investors in particular, it’s important to talk about better alternatives that can offer the same uses as Airdna, but that also provide much more in terms of utility, flexibility, amount of data, and additional uses in general.
Of course, I’m talking about Mashvisor!
Don’t Know What Mashvisor Is?
Mashvisor is a real estate investment platform that was designed to help real estate investors of all levels to make more educated and calculated decisions to eventually succeed in their real estate investments.
The platform offers a wide selection of tools that cover all the needs of a beginner real estate investor, from the steps of searching for a proper market and property, to the steps of analyzing the market and comparing properties, all the way to the final steps of hiring an agent and closing the deal.
Mashvisor VS Airdna Data
When it comes to the quality and quantity of data, Mashvisor has a clear advantage.
This is because – in addition to getting data from Airbnb directly – Mashvisor gets most of its data from the MLS.
This means that when using Mashvisor you will be gaining access to data that has the MLS quality standards: up to date at all times, accuracy of data, and historic records.
Additionally, Mashvisor’s database gets updated much more frequently, and it includes data not only for short-term rentals, but for traditional long-term rentals as well.
Finally, Mashvisor’s data also includes off-market properties, foreclosed properties, and properties listed for-sale-by-owner.
This gives the user more comprehensive market data and allows them to see how the market is performing as a whole instead of only for short-term rentals.
Mashvisor VS Airdna Finding Properties for Sale
Not only does Mashvisor provide a larger and more diverse set of data, but you will also be able to search for properties based on several criteria to find the perfect property for sale in the market.
Whereas with Airdna you’re only able to search for properties whose address you already have, Mashvisor’s search engine allows you to search for properties across the entire market based on the following:
- Location (State, City, Neighborhood levels)
- Property type (single-family, multifamily, condo, apartment…etc.)
- Price range
- Preferred financing method (cash or mortgage)
- Minimum number of bedrooms
- Minimum number of bathrooms
- Airbnb rental income
- Airbnb cash on cash return
- Airbnb cap rate
This will show you properties on the map that are available for purchase based on the criteria you set using the available filters.
Of course, you will also be able to see each property’s analytics (projected cap rate, cash on cash return, occupancy rate, price, rental income…etc.), as well as each neighborhood or city’s medians.
If that’s not enough, you can also use Mashvisor’s Property Finder tool to find properties for sale based on your criteria (price, type, number of rooms) across the entire country, or in specific states or cities.
This will show you a list of all properties that match the criteria, and they will be sorted based on their projected return on investment.
Mashvisor VS Airdna Rental Property Analytics
Since Airdna is a tool that mostly focuses on short-term rental analytics, its analysis prowess is not to be underestimated when it comes to those types of properties.
This is the part of this Airdna review that has the most pros, as the data analysis that the tool provides is sufficient to help short-term rental investors make smart decisions.
The downside, of course, is the inconsistency of the data based on the time of the month, as well as the difficulty of finding properties for sale that you want to analyze.
And while rental property analytics is where Airdna and Mashvisor have the most in common, it is also where Mashvisor has the biggest advantages over Airdna.
To put it simply, both Airdna and Mashvisor provide similar levels of depth when it comes to property analytics. However, Mashvisor’s analytics are not limited to short-term rentals, and that makes a massive difference.
Since Mashvisor’s data includes both short-term and long-term rentals, it means that by using Mashvisor you will be able to not only see how each property is projected to perform using each rental strategy, but you will also be able to compare both strategies to decide on the one that suits you best.
Mashvisor VS Airdna Property Calculator
Similarly, both platforms offer a property calculator that allows you to run the math on the startup-costs and recurring expenses, as well as the property’s rental income, to see what the projected returns are for each property.
However, one tool that Mashvisor has and Airdna don’t is a mortgage calculator.
A mortgage calculator is very important when analyzing rental properties because the mortgage payments will probably be your biggest recurring expense, and therefore the biggest factor affecting your rate of return.
Mashvisor’s mortgage calculator allows you to choose from the different types of mortgages, the duration of the mortgage, and its size.
This also allows Mashvisor to utilize the CoC (Cash on Cash Return) for each property in addition to the cap rate, giving investors more flexibility and additional insights.
Read: Real Estate Investing 101 – Cash on Cash Return
Final Thoughts – Airdna Review: Is It Worth the Money?
The short answer is – it depends on your needs.
Airdna offers a limited amount of data for free. However, the pricing model that increases if you want to expand your search can be a huge drawback of Airdna’s paid subscriptions that give you access to the tools you need.
This means that beginner investors will have to pay a steep price if they’re unsure about the market that they want to invest in. And every time they decide to look for a new market, it will cost them a considerable amount.
Mashvisor, on the other hand, offers more diverse plans depending on the use that you want to get from it.
As a beginner investor, it is significantly more affordable to use Mashvisor for searching and analyzing properties nationwide. And the more advanced plans offer additional perks that are for the more advanced and lucrative investors.
Overall, whether you’re a beginner investor or a life-long short-term investor, Mashvisor is much more worth the money considering what it offers in return than Airdna.
So, what are you waiting for? Start out your 7-day free trial with Mashvisor now.
