The Lakes Region Has 3,300 Vacation Rental Listings.
Fast-forward to October 2026, and GuestFavorites counted 3,297 active Airbnb listings in its New Hampshire Lakes Region market. Back in May 2022, a snapshot cited by the Lakes Region Planning Commission counted 1,281 short-term rental units. The two sources count rentals differently, so I wouldn’t use those numbers to calculate an exact growth rate. But put yourself in the shoes of someone scrolling through listings for a weekend away. What would make them stop on yours?
GuestFavorites’ October 2026 market snapshot · Lakes Region Housing Needs Assessment
What happens to our island house in January?
When New Hampshire lawmakers held hearings on short-term rental bills in January 2026, I wrote in. I believe owners should have a say in how they use their properties. I also know families are having a hard time finding a place to live in the towns where they work. So when the argument came up that vacation rentals were taking homes away from local families, I thought about the properties that we own. I invested in each of them because it offered an experience people would travel for.
January 2026 short-term rental hearings
Take the boat-access cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee. In July, loading up the boat and heading out to the island is the start of the vacation. Now picture getting the kids to school on a Tuesday in January. Maybe the whole family loves snowmobiling. Great. What’s the plan in March?
Island house=Vacation rental, not long term rental.
Then there’s the off-grid cabin a mile down a Class VI road. We bought it because getting away from everything is exactly what makes it special. I can picture a couple booking it for a weekend in the woods. I have a harder time picturing a family snowshoeing a mile back from the nearest usable road with a week’s worth of groceries.
Off Grid Cabin= Vacation rental, not long term rental.
And the poolside condo? We bought it because a weekend by the pool is something people will book. It could also be a cute little place for a couple just starting out, except my condo association limits rentals to 14 days per renter. Take it off Airbnb and that couple is still looking for a lease.
Poolside Condo= Vacation rental, not long term rental.
Some short-term rentals absolutely could be (and should be) year-round homes. New Hampshire Housing’s 2023 study found a small statewide effect on rental vacancy and concluded that most properties listed on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo had already been seasonal homes or short-term rentals. Both findings matter when we talk about which homes could realistically go back into the long-term rental pool.
New Hampshire Housing’s short-term rental study
We own some perfectly boring houses, too
We also own a few run-of-the-mill single-family homes. No hot tub. No farm animals to meet. No boat needed. And guess what? Each one has a family living in it long-term, enjoying the house and the town and going about their everyday lives.
Would I move those homes to short-term rentals, throw them on every booking platform, and hope somebody gets excited to spend their one week of vacation in a three-bedroom house with zero fun amenities? Absolutely not. They’re good houses for everyday life, and that’s exactly how I rent them.
I hear versions of this from owners all the time. “I could get $2,500 a month with a long-term tenant, but I think I can make more on Airbnb.” Maybe. What would make someone book it on a rainy weekend in October? What are you willing to invest to give them a reason to choose it? And what will you actually keep after furnishing it, paying utilities, keeping up with maintenance, and carrying the empty nights?
If the house works well for year-round living and the plan is to put it online as-is and hope for vacation rates, I’d run the long-term numbers first. Offering a good home to a local family at a fair monthly rent can make good business sense, too.
So is your investment property a vacation or a home?
That’s the question I ask when I’m looking at purchasing a property or deciding whether to take on a new client to BLP. I can picture a vacation at a cabin in the woods, a cottage on an island, or a six-bedroom mansion on the water. Am I long-term renting that last one to a family? Maybe three families.
And a place doesn’t need to be a mansion. A little seasonal cottage with a great swimming dock or a screened porch where everyone can eat dinner can be exactly what someone wants. The point is to give people something they’ll look forward to and put in the work to make sure it’s there when they arrive. While on the other hand, realizing what your property is and offering it to a lovely family as their home.
With roughly 3,300 Airbnb listings in the Lakes Region alone, I’d ask the same question I asked when I started investing in 2020. What would someone look forward to doing here for three days? If I can picture a family happily living there for twelve months and I’m still struggling to picture the vacation, that tells me where to start.