+$325 ADR lift on a 4BR San Diego beach-leisure rental.

The premium-rate story

Federico Zimerman has discussed this exact pattern in podcast interviews: a portfolio property running 40% occupancy at 3x the revenue of comparable listings. That is the math of “premium pricing for the right guests rather than racing to fill every night.”

This 4-bedroom San Diego rental is that pattern, in numbers: the property is pacing at 29.4% on-the-books occupancy for summer, modest by absolute standards, and at $1,143 ADR with revenue +98.6% ahead of STLY. The competing playbook would have been to drop the rate, fill the calendar, and report higher occupancy with lower per-night yield. RevFactor went the other way.

The result is the largest ADR climb in the summer 2026 set: $717 final 2025 to $818 STLY to $1,143 OTB, a +$325 jump (+39.7%) in a single year.

Why this is hard

San Diego is a high-quality, design-forward STR market. The temptation for owners is two-fold: chase volume because there is enough demand to support it, or chase rate because the leisure premium is real. The wrong move is to do both casually. RevFactor’s playbook commits to one, and the calendar follows.

The clearest signal that this is rate-led, not occupancy-led, is August’s 2.15x Market Penetration Index. When market occupancy collapses to 12% in late summer (as it does in San Diego’s softer back end), this property is still pulling 25.8%, twice the market’s share. That is a property that does not follow the market down.

What changed

The visible pattern in the calendar, without disclosing owner-specific configuration:

1. Rate moved up first; occupancy followed. STLY ADR was $818; OTB ADR is $1,143. That is a deliberate floor-raising decision made before occupancy was visible. The property’s gradual occupancy lift (20.7% STLY to 29.4% OTB) confirms the rate held.
2. Length-of-stay tuning. July ADR sits at $1,407, well above the 3-month average. That is the signal of LOS-discounted bookings clustering in the highest-demand month, where the discount feels like a deal but the per-night math is a win.
3. Channel and minimum-stay positioning. A 12% market occupancy in August would suggest the comp set is over-restricting on minimums. A 2.15x MPI suggests this listing is not.

Comp window detail

Window	OTB Rev	STLY Rev	$ Lift	OTB Occ	OTB ADR	MPI
June 2026	$9,140	$3,139	+$6,001	30.0%	$1,016	0.95x
July 2026	$14,066	$5,846	+$8,220	32.3%	$1,407	1.18x
August 2026	$7,653	$6,552	+$1,101	25.8%	$957	2.15x
Summer total	$30,859	$15,537	+$15,322	29.4%	$1,143	1.24x

By the numbers

Measure	This property	Comparison
Booked revenue, Jun to Aug 2026	$30,859	$15,537 same time last year
Booked lift	+98.6%	+$15,322
Last year’s final	$35,118	booked is −12.1% against it
Occupancy	29.4%	20.7% same time last year; market 23.7%
ADR	$1,143	$818 same time last year; $717 final 2025
MPI	1.24x	at or above 1 the property paces or leads its market

Source: the pacing report behind this page, May 2026 data pull; booked pacing, not earned revenue. Pending Gaston: refreshed results for this study were requested and have not been delivered, so every figure stays at that pull.

What changed on this calendar, and why did it work?

The lever here is rate first, occupancy second. ADR went from $717 to $818 to $1,143, the largest climb in the set, and occupancy rose with it from 20.7% to 29.4% instead of falling. A floor was raised before the occupancy showed, and the calendar confirmed it.

The second lever is length of stay. July ADR of $1,407 suggests discounted longer bookings clustering in the highest-demand month, where the discount reads as a deal to the guest but the per-night math still wins. The third is minimum stays in the soft month. When August market occupancy falls to 12%, this listing is still at 25.8%, a 2.15x MPI, which points to fewer restrictions than its comp set.

The choice is premium pricing for the right guests rather than filling every night. The +$15,322 lift is booked pacing, not earned revenue.

How is the summer’s booked revenue split by month?

July carries the most weight. Of the $30,859 on the books, June holds $9,140 (29.6%), July $14,066 (45.6%) and August $7,653 (24.8%). The lift is more lopsided. July adds $8,220 over last year, 53.6% of the $15,322 total, and June adds $6,001 (39.2%). August adds only $1,101 (7.2%), because last August already held $6,552.

That is why the 2.15x August index needs context. The index says the listing out-held a 12% market in the softest month, but the dollar gain there is small. The revenue gain came from June and July, where rate did the work and the index sat at 0.95x and 1.18x.

What does the rate and occupancy path show?

Rate rose in two steps. ADR went from $717 to $818, a 14.1% step, then from $818 to $1,143, a 39.7% step. Occupancy on the books is 29.4%, which is 8.7 points above the 20.7% at the same time last year and 5.7 points above the 23.7% market figure. Occupancy rose while rate rose, which is the check on whether the higher floor held.

The gap to last year’s final is the number still open. Booked revenue of $30,859 sits $4,259 under the final $35,118, a 12.1% shortfall. All of this is booked pacing from the May 2026 pull, not earned revenue.

Is 29% summer occupancy a sign the property is underpriced?

No. Occupancy at 29.4% is the number a rate-led calendar should show in a coastal leisure market running 23.7% for the summer. What matters is that both levers moved the same way: ADR rose from $818 to $1,143, a +39.7% lift, and occupancy rose from 20.7% to 29.4% at the same time. A listing that cut rate to fill nights would show the opposite pattern, more nights sold at a lower nightly number and less revenue behind them.

The absolute occupancy looks low because San Diego’s summer demand is not spread evenly. Bookings cluster into the peak weeks, and the market clears 23.7% across the whole season. Against that, this listing holds a 1.24x MPI, so it takes more than its fair share of the nights that are actually sellable. Rate held and occupancy rose at once, which is why revenue per available night improved on both levers rather than one.

Why does August reach a 2.15x MPI when the market empties?

August is the month the market gives up. Market occupancy falls to 12% in the softer back end, and this calendar still books 25.8% at $957 ADR. It is not a rate month the way July is, when ADR reached $1,407. It is a minimum-stay and length-of-stay month: a listing that keeps fewer restrictions can sell the three and four night gaps the comp set filters out, and those bookings land at full rate because there is little else left on the calendar.

The eight-study picture puts the result in context. This property is the fourth largest of the seven in the benchmarks table at $30,859, with +$15,322 booked and the largest ADR climb in the set. The published studies pace a median +147.8% ahead, and the seven-property subset totals $233,861 against $94,280. Portfolio-wide, 322 listings in 32 states and 114 markets run +24% RevPAR against their comp sets on a 24-month rolling average, as the 2026 STR revenue benchmarks record.

What it costs

RevFactor manages this property at a flat $350 per month, plus a one-time $150 onboarding fee. The +$15,322 in on-the-books summer lift covers the onboarding fee and about 43 months (three and a half years) of management fees, at pacing.

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A note on these numbers

OTB = on-the-books revenue committed as of the May 2026 data pull. STLY = same-time-last-year. LY = final 2025 revenue for the June to August window. These are booked pacing figures, not earned revenue, and this page will be updated to earned results once the summer closes. Past performance is not indicative of future results.