In some holiday towns, a quarter or more of homes are whole-home Airbnbs
We counted active Airbnb listings in every suburb Inside Airbnb covers. Whole homes listed on Airbnb equal about 23% of the homes in Byron Bay and 21% in Noosa Heads, and more in smaller coastal towns. In the capitals the listings cluster in city centres and beach suburbs; Melbourne's CBD has the most, with 3,056.
Inside Airbnb publishes snapshots of every Airbnb listing in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tasmania, Western Australia and six regional areas of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. We counted the active listings in each suburb, those reviewed at least once in the past 12 months, and compared the whole homes among them with the number of homes in the suburb at the 2021 Census.
Across 5,276 suburbs there were 73,953 active listings in June 2026, and 86% of them were whole homes rather than rooms.
The towns where Airbnb is a large share of homes
Among suburbs with at least 20 whole homes listed, these had the most relative to their size:
| Suburb | Whole homes on Airbnb | Share of homes |
|---|---|---|
| Prevelly, WA | 43 | 32.1% |
| Port Campbell, VIC | 91 | 31.9% |
| Gnarabup, WA | 91 | 30.8% |
| Wye River, VIC | 68 | 28.9% |
| Blueys Beach, NSW | 64 | 25.6% |
| Byron Bay, NSW | 792 | 23.5% |
| Coles Bay, TAS | 134 | 22.6% |
| Crescent Head, NSW | 161 | 21.6% |
| Yallingup, WA | 193 | 21.6% |
| Noosa Heads, QLD | 670 | 21.0% |
Barangaroo, in Sydney's CBD, reached 29.0%, but it has added apartment towers since the 2021 count of homes, so it is left out.
Prevelly, Gnarabup and Yallingup are around Margaret River; Port Campbell and Wye River are on the Great Ocean Road. Byron Bay and Noosa Heads have by far the most whole homes listed: 792 and 670.
The highest of all was Derby, in north-east Tasmania, where 74 whole homes on Airbnb equal 65% of the homes counted in 2021. Derby is a small mountain-biking town, and the share is measured against the 2021 count, so any homes built since make it read high.
Only 24 suburbs had a share of 20% or more, and 93 had 10% or more. In most covered suburbs, Airbnb whole homes were under 1% of homes.
In the capitals
| City | Active listings | Most listings |
|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 18,317 | Melbourne CBD 3,056, Southbank 1,174, Docklands 650 |
| Sydney | 14,653 | Manly 523, Sydney CBD 515, Bondi Beach 500 |
| Perth | 5,362 | Scarborough 336, Perth 295, Fremantle 286 |
| Brisbane | 5,024 | Brisbane City 798, South Brisbane 475, Fortitude Valley 406 |
| Hobart | 1,756 | Sandy Bay 224, Hobart 213, Battery Point 127 |
In the capitals the counts are large but the shares are small, because the suburbs are dense. Melbourne's CBD has 3,056 active listings, about 7% of its homes; Bondi Beach's 464 whole homes are about 7.5%. The highest shares are in city centres (Hobart 15%, Brisbane City 10%) and, around Melbourne, in the Mornington Peninsula's beach towns, which sit inside the city's urban area: Sorrento and Blairgowrie are both about 9%.
Rooms, not homes
In a few suburbs, most active listings are rooms in someone's home rather than whole homes. Among suburbs with at least 20 active listings, that was the case in Auburn and Berala in Sydney's west and in Hoppers Crossing and Glenroy in Melbourne.
How we counted
- Listings are from Inside Airbnb's June 2026 snapshots (CC BY 4.0), which cover Airbnb only, not Stayz or other platforms, and only the areas listed above: Adelaide, Canberra, Darwin and the Gold Coast are not included.
- A listing is active if it had at least one review in the past 12 months. Inside Airbnb places each listing within about 150 m of its real location, so a listing near a suburb boundary can fall on either side.
- The share compares whole homes listed with private dwellings at the 2021 Census, and is shown only for suburbs with at least 100 dwellings. Suburbs that have grown since 2021 read high.
- We publish counts per suburb only, never individual listings.
Every suburb page in a covered area now shows its Airbnb count.