With one week before a thousands of people descend on Pittsburgh for the 2026 NFL Draft, some who hoped to cash in by listing rental properties may be disappointed.
While most city hotels were fully booked more than a month ago — with a handful of rooms expected to fetch around $2,000 a night — rental listings have remained widely available, a trend that persisted as of Thursday.
In early March, Chad Wise, founder of the vacation rental agency HostWise Stays, said fewer than 10% of the company’s available properties had been booked at that point. HostWise Stays is a property management company that utilizes Airbnb as its primary booking platform, as described on its website. Wise said he believed most people traveling for the draft were not typical football fans, but corporate sponsors, athletes and celebrities who opted to book hotel room blocks instead of renting houses.
A week out from the draft, HostWise Stays still had more than 60 properties listed on its website as available for rent April 23-25.
Wise did not return multiple phone calls and messages requesting comment on Thursday.
However, an Airbnb spokesman said the number of searches on the Airbnb website for properties in the Pittsburgh area during the NFL Draft were comparable to searches during other large-scale events, such as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in 2023.
Airbnb officials declined to provide data on the number of rental properties listed and booked as well as figures on the number of website searches for properties over the draft.
A similar phenomenon took place in Green Bay last year when the Wisconsin city hosted the NFL Draft, said Kyle Cousineau, a real estate appraiser in Green Bay.
The Green Bay Packers’ stadium, Lambeau Field, is surrounded by residential homes which many people in the area buy and decorate in Packers colors and memorabilia to list as “game day rentals,” Cousineau said.
So when the draft came to Green Bay last year, Cousineau said people were expecting to make $10,000 or more a night through the rental properties.
Cousineau said this idea turned out to be a misconception.
“Everyone kind of had dollar signs in their eyes,” he said.
Cousineau said many rental property owners overestimated expectations of the draft clientele. He said people expected celebrities and millionaires to fly into the city for the draft, as they do for other high-end football events like the Super Bowl. Instead, the draft’s crowds were primarily made up of families who live close enough to drive in for the day.
Cousineau said many of the families were scared off by high-priced Airbnbs and decided it was less expensive to take a day trip.
In early March, rental properties listed on HostWise Stays ranged from $120 to $7,000 a night. By Thursday, the highest rental price had dropped to $1,915 a night.
As of Thursday, nearly 70% of available Airbnb listings in the city of Pittsburgh were priced under $500 a night over the draft, April 22-25. Of group travel listings, which provide two or more beds, 60% were priced under $500 a night, said Airbnb officials.