By the Unity Stays directors, Marcus Chong & Gadir Al-Khatib · Last updated 12 August 2026
In short: Across five managed properties in 2026 — 23 completed property-months and 414 let nights — monthly host payouts ranged from £288 to £5,828, occupancy from 25% to 73%, and per-let-night rates from £96 to £143. These figures are before the management fee, cleaning, utilities and other running costs, and a five-property sample is a sanity check, not a forecast.
Why we are publishing this
Every management company in this category will show you an income projection. Almost none will show you what their own properties earned, and none of them will show you the bad months.
The reason is obvious. A projection can assume 75% occupancy every month of the year. A real calendar has a March at 32%.
So here is the measured data, pulled from our booking system for every completed month of 2026. It includes the property that has performed poorly, because leaving that out would make the rest of it meaningless.
The measured range
Five managed properties. 23 completed property-months. 414 let nights. No modelling, no smoothing, no adjustment.
- Occupancy: 25% to 73%, measured per property across all its completed months
- Per let night: £96 to £143
- Monthly payout: £288 at worst, £5,828 at best
- Average stay: 2.9 to 4.9 nights, which is what decides how many changeovers a month costs
The spread is the point
A factor of twenty between the worst month and the best. Both real, both ours, both within the same seven-month window.
One property ran at 25% occupancy across four months, with a worst month of £288. We are publishing that because a portfolio where every property performs is a portfolio that has been filtered before publication — and you should assume any such table has been.
Within a single property the swing is nearly as wide. One of ours went 68% occupancy in January, 32% in March, 87% in June — same property, same management, same year. Anyone quoting you an annual average is averaging exactly that away.
That is why we model the weakest month rather than the average, and why we will tell an owner when a property does not work. The underperforming one is not a secret we are being brave about; it is a weaker market with shorter stays and a lower nightly rate, and it is the reason we now research mid-week demand before taking a property on.
What the figures are, precisely
Being exact about this matters more than the numbers, because most published income figures are vague about what they include.
- What it is: host payout — what the booking platform actually paid out for stays in that month
- Platform commission: Airbnb's host fee is already deducted. Booking.com invoices separately, so on those bookings it is not. The basis is mixed, and we would rather say so than present a tidy-looking average
- What it is BEFORE: the management fee, cleaning, laundry, linen, utilities, council tax or business rates, broadband and software. It is not net to the owner
- Occupancy: nights let divided by nights in the calendar month
- Period: completed months in 2026 only. Properties joined at different times, so some contribute seven months and some three
What this does and does not tell you
It does tell you the real spread between a strong month and a weak one, that occupancy in the 60–75% range is achievable on well-placed properties, and that per-night payouts in the £120–£145 range are realistic for our stock.
It does not tell you what your property will earn. Five properties is a small sample. They are our properties, in our locations, at our standard, and yours is none of those things.
The period is also weighted towards spring and summer. A full year including a genuine November and February would widen the range, not narrow it.
Use it as a sanity check on anyone's projection, including ours. If a company shows you a projection with no month below 60% occupancy, ask why their own properties are not like that.
Getting a figure for your property
Send us the address. We will look at the comparable properties actually around it, prepare a projection that includes the quiet months, and tell you if the honest answer is that a standard tenancy suits it better.
You can also run your own numbers through the income calculator, which computes only from what you enter and models the deductions rather than leaving them out — cleaning per changeover, platform commission, linen and the rest.
And if you want to understand where projections go wrong before reading anyone's, the income guide sets out the two assumptions that cause most of the error.
These are measured figures from a small portfolio of five properties over part of one year. They are not a market average and not a projection for your property. Yours will differ.