# Changelog of STR vs LTR Market Lens — Airbnb, Vrbo & Apartments.com (`sian.agency/str-investor-market-lens`) Actor

- **URL**: https://apify.com/sian.agency/str-investor-market-lens/changelog.md
- **Full Actor documentation**: https://apify.com/sian.agency/str-investor-market-lens.md

## Changelog

All notable changes to STR vs LTR Market Lens — Airbnb, Vrbo & Apartments.com will be documented in this file.

### \[2026-07-03]

#### 🔧 Improvements

- **Instant demo runs** — `location` now defaults to `Austin, TX` and `maxResultsPerChannel` to 10, so a run with no input (or the Store "Try for free" prefill) produces a working cross-channel comparison out of the box instead of failing with "location required".

### \[2026-05-21]

#### 🎉 STR vs LTR Market Lens — Launch!

- **Cross-Channel `marketComparisonRow` Headline** — Every row carries a normalized `monthly_equivalent_rate_usd` so Airbnb, Vrbo, and Apartments.com rates sit side-by-side in one dataset. The first cross-channel STR-vs-LTR comparison actor on the Apify Store.
- **Break-Even Occupancy Calculator** — Every STR row ships with a `break_even_occupancy_pct` — the minimum bookings needed to match the run's median LTR monthly rent. The single most useful number for an STR acquisition decision.
- **3-Platform Cross-Fusion in One Run** — Airbnb (STR), Vrbo (STR), and Apartments.com (LTR) merged into a single unified schema and dataset. No more juggling three actors and three CSVs.
- **`cross_listing_candidates[]` Detection** — Identifies likely cross-listed properties via 50 m coordinate proximity + bedroom + property-type match. Solves the "same property on Airbnb and Vrbo" question without needing a street-address join.
- **Live STR Calendar Enrichment** — Optional toggle pulls forward-12-month availability from Airbnb and Vrbo per listing, replacing the static occupancy baseline with real bookings data. Premium-event billing.
- **Shareable HTML Market Report** — Self-contained `report.html` with channel medians, break-even distribution, and cross-listing hit counts — auto-saved to the key-value store, ready to share with co-investors.
- **3 Search Modes** — Location string (`Miami, FL`), coordinates + radius (km), or US ZIP code. Pick whichever matches your sourcing workflow.
- **Six-Event Pay-Per-Use Pricing** — Charged only for rows received. Headline event fires only when 2+ channels return data — single-channel runs pay commodity rates only.

#### 💎 User Benefits

- **STR vs LTR acquisition decisions in one run** — Stop juggling Airbnb, Vrbo, and Apartments.com scrapers. One input, three channels, one normalized rate column.
- **Underwrite properties before you buy** — Get the break-even occupancy of every STR candidate against the local LTR baseline.
- **Mashvisor / AirDNA alternative at pay-per-use prices** — $0.012 per comparison row vs $35/month subscriptions. Cheaper for casual investors, broader than Mashvisor (we ship Vrbo, they don't).
- **Warehouse-ready output** — Standard JSON-line dataset pipes straight into Snowflake, BigQuery, or Postgres for portfolio modelling.
- **Free tier for market sizing** — 25 rows per channel for free. Enough to scope any US market end-to-end before committing budget.

#### 🎯 Use Cases

- **Real-estate investors** running acquisition due diligence on a target property — pulling Airbnb / Vrbo / LTR rates around the unit and deciding the optimal channel before purchase
- **STR operators** evaluating market-entry feasibility across 5 candidate cities — sorting by the widest STR-over-LTR monthly delta
- **Property managers** running mixed STR/LTR portfolios — flagging units that are mis-channelled and re-platforming them
- **REIT and PE acquisition analysts** automating investor reports — piping the `marketComparisonRow` straight into Snowflake / BigQuery
- **Independent landlords** benchmarking lease prices against neighbourhood STR + LTR market rates
- **Compliance officers and HOAs** investigating unpermitted short-term rentals via `cross_listing_candidates[]`