The 2017 Presidential Inauguration is still 100 days away, but Airbnb prices in the District are already surging.
In a search for available Airbnbs in D.C. from Thursday, Jan. 19 through Sunday, Jan. 22, the average price for an entire unit or home was $671 per night. That is more than three times the $210 per night price of an identical search with dates a week earlier. The 2017 Inauguration will occur on Friday, Jan. 20.
In 2013, approximately one million people attended the second inaugural of Barack Obama, a healthy number that still paled in comparison to the 1.8 million record turnout in 2009. The 2017 Inauguration will no doubt be historic, no matter the winner of this election, so residents looking to make a few lot of extra bucks by renting their place on Airbnb will have no shortage of demand.
This past summer, Airbnb reported a 4x spike in bookings in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention, and a 2.5x surge in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention. While Airbnb tells DC Inno they are still too far out to give specific predictions on the demand for the Inauguration, they wrote in the same report in July that they anticipate 4x as many guest arrivals in D.C. during that week as compared to the week before.
And Airbnb isn't the only one experiencing Inauguration-driven price inflation; the penthouse at the new Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Ave is going for five times the normal rate: a cool $100,000 per night.
