A city-centre 2-bed with a 98/100 submarket score. Here's what switching could actually mean.
A plain, honest look at what this property could earn as a professionally managed short-term rental — set against your current long-term rental income, with the new national short-term letting rules factored in from the start.
Sos Stays — an Irish short-term rental management company
Sos Stays — sós is the Irish word for a break — manages short-term rentals for owners who'd rather keep the income than run the admin. We work with property owners across Ireland, handling everything from listings and pricing to guest communication and cleaning coordination, end to end.
This brief is prepared and presented by Keena Duffy, who would be your direct point of contact throughout — from the first conversation through onboarding and every month after.
We manage a small, closely-run portfolio rather than a sprawling one, and we're onboarding a limited number of new properties this year — every property we take on gets real, individual attention, not a queue ticket.
A 98/100 submarket score — Grafton Street / St Stephen's Green is a top-tier short-let location
AirDNA scores this exact Dublin 2 submarket exceptionally highly across every driver that matters — demand, growth, and how the market's been trending over the past year.
Score
| Comparable Listing | Beds | Occupancy | ADR | Annual Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stylish city centre 2 bed, seconds from Grafton St | 2 | 83.6% | €376.1 | €111,000 |
| Stunning spacious apt beside St. Stephen's Green | 2 | 81.6% | €370.4 | €108,500 |
| House in the heart of Dublin | 2 | 53.9% | €630.0 | €86,900 |
| City Centre 2 bed Cottage — free parking | 2 | 84.3% | €326.2 | €86,100 |
| [CiTy CeNtEr] 2 Beds Apt Very Well Located | 2 | 83.1% | €246.3 | €71,400 |
| Modern City Centre Apartment, off Camden St | 2 | 72.2% | €229.9 | €55,600 |
AirDNA rates this projection "Medium confidence." The comp set is real, local, and directly comparable in bedroom count — but no model replaces a live booking calendar. Treat the figure as a working estimate, not a guarantee, and note the wide spread in the comp table above: this is a market where presentation and management quality genuinely move the outcome.
City-centre demand dips in winter, then climbs hard into summer
Average listing revenue for this submarket, month by month. Self-managed hosts tend to price flat through this swing — professional management prices with the season, not against it.
Average listing revenue, by month
Submarket average revenue (€), Grafton Street / St Stephen's Green, trailing 12 months
One honest projection, built directly from the AirDNA model
Rather than stacking scenarios, here's the single, direct projection for this property — AirDNA's own modelled figure, with Sos Stays' 20% commission applied on top.
This is AirDNA's own single-point projection at 66.8% occupancy — a Medium-confidence market model, not a guarantee. It clears the current rental income comfortably, but excludes consumables, STL registration fees, smart lock and insurance costs, and other running costs — all covered honestly below, and we'll walk through the complete picture properly on the call.
Ireland's new Short-Term Letting Register
New national rules apply to hosts in Ireland from 31 December 2026, under the Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill and the EU Short Term Rental Regulation. We won't pretend to have every detail nailed down this far out — but here's our honest read, and how we'd approach it together.
Our honest approach: we'll play this by ear. The register only opens in December 2026 and the fine detail — fees, exact planning documentation, how enforcement actually works in practice — isn't fully settled yet. Rather than promise Marie an outcome today, our plan is to pursue planning permission and Fáilte Ireland registration for this property properly when the window opens, and assess as we go.
If planning or registration doesn't come through
If short-term letting doesn't get planning clearance for this property, we wouldn't just hand it back as a standard long-term let. We'd look at a business guest accommodation / corporate relocation model instead — housing relocating professionals and corporate guests on a licensee basis rather than a standard Part 4 tenancy.
The appeal of this route: it typically earns a meaningfully higher yield than a standard long-term letting, while avoiding the rolling tenancy protections that build up under current Residential Tenancies Act rules once a standard letting runs past a qualifying period — sometimes referred to as the "6-year lock." This is a genuine fallback worth having in the back pocket, not a guaranteed workaround, and we'd want a solicitor's eyes on the specific structure before relying on it.
The honest summary: Plan A is STR, done properly and registered. Plan B, if needed, still beats going back to a standard long-term tenancy.
The right amenities are already the market norm here
Amenity presence across the comparable listings in this submarket — the features driving bookings in this exact market.
Two things worth budgeting for upfront
Switching to STR isn't purely upside with zero cost — being straight about this now avoids surprises later. Two items should be treated as prerequisites, not afterthoughts.
Smart lock installation
Self check-in is standard for city-centre STR guests, and a smart lock is the safest and most practical way to manage it without a physical key exchange. This is a one-off hardware and installation cost, and one of the first things we'd budget for before the first booking goes live.
Short-term letting insurance
A standard landlord or long-term letting policy typically doesn't cover short-term guest turnover. Proper STL-specific cover needs to be in place before the first guest checks in — we'd help source quotes, but this is Marie's policy to hold, not ours.
Neither of these is included in the net income projection above — they're a modest one-off and ongoing cost respectively, and we'll put real numbers against both once we've done a proper site visit and got insurance quotes in hand.
The case for switching isn't only about what it earns
The projection above already shows STR clearing the current rental income comfortably. But the fuller case rests on three things together — income, flexibility, and effort.
A meaningfully higher income ceiling
A fixed tenancy pays the same every month, in season and out. In this submarket, STR income has real headroom above the current rental — the projection above clears it by a wide margin, and pricing can flex with genuine city-centre demand rather than staying flat all year.
The property stays yours to use
A long-term tenancy hands over full use of the property for the length of the lease. With an STR, Marie can block off dates for personal use, family visits, or accessing the property to sell — a tenant can't be asked to leave on short notice.
Zero day-to-day effort
Sos Stays handles listings, pricing, guest messages, and cleaning coordination end to end. There's no tenant management, no chasing rent, no cleaning rota to run — Marie's involvement is a monthly statement, not a second job.
The nine things Sos Stays handles, day one onward
This is the same operating model we run for every managed property — nothing untested, nothing theoretical.
Dynamic pricing
Nightly rates adjusted continuously to demand, season, and events across the city — not a flat rate set once and left.
Multi-platform listing
Live across Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, and direct — one calendar, synced everywhere, registration number displayed correctly once required.
Professional photography
Listing photography built around the property's real character — not generic stock-style shots.
Guest communication
Every enquiry, booking message, and in-stay question handled directly — owners are never the point of contact.
Cleaning & turnover coordination
Cleaning scheduled around every checkout, at cost, with a set turnaround standard — no owner involvement.
Local & tourism promotion
Outreach to build organic visibility — for a Dublin 2 property, this means positioning around the city's own visitor demand.
Review & reputation management
Post-stay follow-up and review management to build the trust signals that drive future bookings.
Maintenance coordination
Day-to-day upkeep handled directly, with a clear spending threshold before anything needs owner sign-off.
Monthly owner statements
A clear monthly statement and payout — full visibility without needing to manage any of it directly.
Sos Stays works with property owners across Ireland
Dublin city centre is a different market to a rural guest house, and it's managed differently — but it's the same team, the same standards, and the same commission-only model wherever the property sits.
Every property, properly managed
We take on properties across Ireland — city and county — and give each one the same close attention, whether it's a Dublin 2 apartment or a rural guest house.
Keena, start to finish
No call centre, no rotating account managers — Marie's point of contact is Keena, from the first conversation through every monthly statement after.
Built for the new national rules
The short-term letting register applies the same way nationwide — we're set up to handle the compliance side of that properly, wherever the property is.