The landscape for short-term rentals in Buncombe County has changed drastically since before Hurricane Helene.
For years, Asheville and Buncombe County’s market for short-term rentals — such as those found on websites like Airbnb and VRBO — was booming. Things were going so well that some local residents began to worry about the impact on the city’s affordable housing supply.
In 2018, Asheville enacted tight restrictions in response to those concerns. Last year, Buncombe County formed a committee to examine the issue. Some municipalities in the region began taking similar moves.
This prompted many STR owners in Buncombe County to mobilize against the potential regulations.
Then, Hurricane Helene happened.
Matt Allen with the Land of the Sky Association of Realtors is one of many local advocates opposing stricter rules for short-term rentals. He said the focus for planning boards suddenly changed after the storm.
“No news is good news, right?” Allen said during a meeting of the North Carolina Short-Term Rental Alliance last week. “So, as far as I can tell — and I’m knocking on wood — Weaverville has sort of paused their discussions on possible short-term rental regulations. … Sort of a similar story with Buncombe County.”
Allen is one of 11 community members who were selected to join Buncombe County’s Ad Hoc Short-Term Rental Committee last year. He said last week the committee’s staff recently told him things are on hold indefinitely.
“I totally want to believe that they are going to put that on the backburner and focus on more pressing, important issues at the county level in the aftermath of Helene,” Allen said.
A Buncombe County spokesperson confirmed that the committee is no longer meeting.
“The Planning Board will be working on the Swannanoa Small Area Plan, and other text amendments that support long term recovery and economic development including ways to reduce housing barriers and changing the way we review projects,” Kassi Day, the county’s communications and public engagement manager, said in an email to BPR Monday.
So, short-term rental owners have gotten a reprieve from new regulations.
But the bad news? The market has changed drastically since Helene.
Dodie Stephens is Vice President of Marketing for the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority. In a presentation at last week’s Short-Term Rental Alliance meeting, she said short-term rental demand in March was down 28% year-over-year. That’s a stark difference compared with the coronavirus pandemic, when vacation rentals led the area hospitality industry’s economic recovery.
Stephens said according to public opinion surveys, many people outside the region don’t realize that Asheville and Buncombe County are welcoming visitors again.
“That is work to be done,” she said. “And that clearly dictates our strategy around communications and why we are leaning into being very clear that the Asheville area and Buncombe County is open and ready, in everything that we do.”
While the short-term rental market has been hard hit, the latest data shows hotel demand in March was about even with last year.
A big reason for the difference: Hotels have been boosted by recovery crews and stays by displaced residents in FEMA’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance program.
Daniel Leifeld, Director of Business Development for the short-term rental analytics firm Key Data, said that the sharp downturn in Asheville comes as the national STR market as a whole is “stagnant.”
Leifeld said that all is not lost for the summer 2025 season, however. He pointed to data showing that the average booking window across Asheville is 59 days.
“The reason I tell you that is because there’s still time,” Leifeld said during his presentation to the Short-Term Rental Alliance. “July is about 60 days away, a little over 60 days away. There’s still time to bring people back to the market. … I don’t think you’re going to get back to where you were, at this point. But there’s still time to make an impact.”
