The NFL Draft is reshaping Pittsburgh’s short-term rental market, and the April event could lead either to a temporary increase in the availability of rooms or a durable change in the city’s hospitality landscape.
Bram Gallagher, who studies the world of Airbnbs, VRBOs and Booking.com offerings for a living, said the data he’s seeing out of Pittsburgh in advance of the April 23-25 draft shows a “pretty profound” shift. Gallagher is the director of economics at AirDNA, a short-term rental data analytics provider.
Already, more than two months before the draft, he’s seeing booking levels quadruple those seen for comparable dates a year ago, and he’s predicting that 90% of Pittsburgh’s roughly 3,500 short-term rental properties will be occupied in late April.
“Wow, something is definitely going on,” he said, looking at data reflecting bookings already made in late January. “The market is already half full,” while short-term rental users typically only book four to six weeks in advance. This time last year, around 12% of the city’s units were booked for late April, versus 50% now. That could easily reach 90% by the first draft day, he said.
In early 2024, the city had around 3,100 available short-term rental properties — and probably double that number of actual units, since the typical property includes two or more units and even more beds. By the end of last year, the supply was up by 15%, and there’s nothing — barring regulation — to prevent more property owners from dipping into the market. If rates rise well beyond the $200-per-night range, Gallagher said, people could conclude: “I could take a vacation in Maui for the same price somebody is willing to pay to stay in my house in Pittsburgh.”
The growth of short-term rentals has raised neighborhood hackles and spurred a push for regulation.
“The problem with Airbnbs is not your average person renting the space above their garage or an extra room in their house,” said Ellen Dibiase, president of the Friendship Community Group. Neighbors get frustrated, though, when things go awry at a nearby property and there’s seemingly no remedy.
“When these things happen, a lot of times it’s an out-of-state manager, and so we don’t know who to contact, or who to make aware that an incident has even occurred on the property.”
A Jan. 1 shooting outside of an Airbnb energized Pittsburgh City Council efforts to regulate the market, but it’s unlikely the registration-and-inspection bills could pass before the draft arrives.
A quick hit or a new normal?
Short-term rental markets almost never book solid. The only exceptions Gallagher has ever seen were relatively small towns and cities lucky enough to be in the path of the 2024 solar eclipse.
He said this weekend’s Super Bowl is on track to push the Bay Area market toward 90%. Regulations in San Francisco have kept the number of short-term rentals there from rising, forcing some of the big game bookings across the bay into Oakland.
Sometimes an event brings a quick injection of short-term rental activity, but little long-term change. Gallagher pointed to the Paris Olympics in 2024 as an example, noting it’s also seen with Taylor Swift concerts, which bring surges in bookings that don’t reverberate long term. At other times and places — including when Phoenix hosted the Super Bowl in 2023 — the event-driven increase contributes to an enduring boost in short-term rental activity. Gallagher speculated that Super Bowl visitors liked Phoenix and decided to return.
The 2024 draft was held in Detroit, which had a reported total attendance of 775,000 across three days. The city saw some increase in short-term rental listings, but not much long-term effect on the rates owners could charge, Gallagher said.
For last year’s draft, in much-smaller Green Bay, Wisconsin (population 106,000), some 200,000 people attended the first night, with similar numbers for each of the two days that followed. The city saw a steady increase in properties becoming available as rentals in the years leading up to the draft, an April 2025 spike, and a return to the pre-draft baseline and slow growth afterward, according to AirDNA data.
Similarly, the draft “may help Pittsburgh because we’re seeing some similar dynamism as well in terms of listings and rates,” Gallagher said. “On the other hand, it looks like it was headed in that direction already.”
Rentals, raccoons and no one to call
Short-term rental growth has created opportunity for property owners, but mixed feelings in residential neighborhoods.
Richard Swartz, executive director of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, said residents of his neighborhood have issues when they can’t contact the owners of properties used as short-term rentals.
“This is not a phenomenon that has overrun the neighborhood by any stretch, but still, it is raising questions about the licensing of these facilities, and how we hold owners accountable for whatever occurs on the premises,” he said.
The issue could be something as simple as trash being put out on the wrong day, which can draw raccoons, or as big as a block party, said Dibiase, of Friendship. Ordinarily, residents are able to speak with each other to resolve issues without involving the police, but that isn’t possible with many short-term rentals. She said the primary goal of the proposed legislation is ensuring that there is someone long-term residents can contact if the community has issues.
Swartz agrees. “That dialogue can’t happen unless people know who it is that owns the property and is managing the short-term rental,” he said, “and how do we get ahold of that person so we can have that conversation before something happens that could be tragic.”
Neighbors often find themselves jumping through hoops to report a short-term rental property. Jacky Kaiser, president of the South Side Community Council, recalls a house party at which “the majority of the attendees were under 18.”
“I found the house, then reported it to Airbnb on the app, then waited three hours on the phone to talk to a call center to report it,” she said.
In response to questions from Public Source, Airbnb wrote last month that “fewer than 0.06% of reservations nationwide result[ed] in a party allegation in 2024.”
Kaiser said that estimate seems low. “And I can see why, because reporting it on their platform is so hard.”
Regulation’s effects unclear
Legislation before Pittsburgh City Council and the City Planning Commission would require that short-term rental owners or operators:
- Get licenses and disclose the number of bedrooms and maximum occupancy for each unit
- Stay current on property taxes
- Pledge not to rent to anyone younger than 18 except if accompanied by a parent or guardian
- Provide the name, address and phone number of a person responsible for the property’s operations, who must be located with 25 miles of the property
- Limit stays to 28 consecutive days
- Maintain a daily registry of guests.
It would also allow the city to inspect short-term rentals and suspend or revoke licenses for violations of operating standards or permit requirements, and for disruptive activities. Violations could bring fines of as much as $500 per unit per month.
Gallagher called the short-term rental market “a really exciting space” that “remains largely a mom-and-pop market.” People are making a living on Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com, he said.
AirDNA has no hard data on the effect of regulation in other markets, but Gallagher noted that strict rules in New York City have pushed lots of rental activity — and related spending — into nearby New Jersey.
New York’s approach aside, registration, licensing and inspections “makes a lot of sense,” Gallagher said. A modest fee and a little paperwork “probably doesn’t have a really big impact at all.”
Katherine Weaver is an editorial intern at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at Katherine@publicsource.org.
Rich Lord is the managing editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.
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