In today’s post by Johan Hanekom we assess what AirBnB owners could do to boost the rent they can charge. We have presented extensive analysis of the Cape Town AirBnB market in earlier posts, showing that Cape Town’s median Airbnb rental price is very competitive compared to cities in other countries and that the Southern Suburbs and Camp’s Bay have the most expensive AirBnBs. To control for the influence of where a property is located on the rental that is charged, we estimate a different machine learning for each ward in Cape Town and group amenities into groups to identify the features that most significantly impact rentals charged. The biggest impact comes from a property having a pool, BBQ area, patio/balcony and backyard (grouped under ‘Building’). Interestingly, availability of internet is ranked low, suggesting that it has become a required amenity, as opposed to a premium one.
