We scraped every Airbnb in Alexandria, Virginia overnight on May 4, 2026. 419 listings. Only 48 pass the 75/55 test. The two largest portfolio operators in the city run 54 listings between them. Two of those 54 pass.
The verdict, up top
Moderate. Of 419 listings scraped on May 4, 48 pass 75/55, and 9% land in the Top Performer tiers once review velocity is folded in. That clears the bar for a Moderate signal, but the winning path is narrow. The market score AirDNA shows (75 out of 100, graded "Good") still diverges from what the actual calendars say by enough that we want to flag it before you put down a deposit.
AirDNA grades Alexandria 75 out of 100. The forward calendars say 88.5% of listings can’t fill half their nights.
Why Alexandria isn't the DC workaround it looks like
Alexandria is a 15-minute Metro ride from downtown DC, sits next to DCA, and has the Old Town historic district stuffed with shops and waterfront bars. On paper the demand mix writes itself: government travelers, leisure tourists from the DC trip, weekend visitors who want to dodge DC's STR rules. Investor groups have been pitching it as the workaround for exactly that reason.
The city passed Ordinance 5575 in March 2025 and made it effective September 1, 2025. It's a per-property permit regime with abutting-neighbor notice, parking minimums of 0.75 spaces per bedroom outside the enhanced transit area, maximum occupancy capped at 10 people for 5+ bedroom homes, and three-strikes-you're-out enforcement on same-section violations within any permit year. Owner-occupancy isn't required, but operators of unoccupied rentals carry extra documentation and the same per-property compliance cost regardless of portfolio size.
AirDNA scores Alexandria's regulation at 65 out of 100, more inconvenience than threat. The ordinance creates supply pressure that compounds against operators trying to run multiple units in the city.
What the calendars actually show
Where every Alexandria listing sits on the 75/55 grid
Each dot is one of 419 listings. Only the 11.5% in the top-right quadrant pass both thresholds, that's 48 listings. 62.2% sit in the bottom-left quadrant, failing both.
The tier distribution backs that up:
| Tier | Listings | % of market |
|---|---|---|
| EXCEPTIONAL | 1 | 0.2% |
| PERFORMER | 1 | 0.2% |
| POTENTIAL | 37 | 8.8% |
| WATCH | 29 | 6.9% |
| AVOID | 348 | 83.1% |
| UNRELIABLE | 3 | 0.7% |
Two listings out of 419 hit the top two tiers. The Exceptional listing is a 3-BR Old Town townhouse run by a host named Jackie (153 total reviews, $371 ADR, 26 of next 30 nights booked). The Performer is a 3-BR by Tony, half a block from King Street Metro ($488 ADR, 24 of 30 booked). That's the entire top of the Alexandria market.
Median booked nights for the next 30 days: 14. That's 47% forward-window occupancy. The 30-to-60 day window drops to 27%. The 60-to-90 window drops again to 17%. Forward demand thins fast as the booking window extends.
The next layer of 37 Potential-tier listings tells a consistent story: most are 2-BR or 3-BR, walking distance to Metro, owned by hosts running 1 to 3 properties. The same property profile keeps repeating.
What AirDNA shows vs. what we scraped
AirDNA's Alexandria overview reports 1,638 active listings, 59% occupancy, $231.80 ADR, $129.70 RevPAR, and a 75/100 market score graded "Good." STRecon's scrape of 419 listings (the smaller number reflects strict city-limits filtering and active-listings-only) shows median 30-day forward occupancy of 47%. That's a 12 percentage-point gap between AirDNA's stated occupancy and the actual calendar booked rate on every active listing right now.
AirDNA's "Rental Demand: 82" rating implies strong booking activity. STRecon shows that 88.5% of Alexandria listings can't fill half their nights in the next 30 days. The two views don't reconcile. AirDNA's models look at last-12-month averages, smooth across high and low seasons, and project forward from history. STRecon reads the actual blocked-and-booked-night signal in front of every active listing right now.
If you underwrote an Alexandria purchase on AirDNA's 75 score and 59% occupancy assumption, the model and the calendars disagree by enough to wipe out your year-one cash flow.
Seasonality
June peaks at 2.20×, October revives, with softer peaks than coastal markets
Monthly revenue index, normalized to January = 1.00. June peaks at 2.20×the winter low; October revives to 1.97× for federal-fiscal-year travel. Both peaks are flatter than coastal markets, reflecting Alexandria's steady year-round DC-commuter demand base.
The flatness matters for underwriting. A coastal market with a 4x summer peak can carry a slow winter. Alexandria's curve only stretches from 0.82x (February) to 2.20x (June). That gives you less seasonal upside to balance the bottom-tier base rate.
Pattern #1. The Metro 1-mile rule
Pass rate halves the moment a listing is more than a mile from a Metro station
Within a mile of any of the six Alexandria Metro stations, listings pass at roughly 16%. Past a mile, pass rate drops to 5.6% and 7.0%. 73% of qualifying listings sit within a mile of Metro; 49% of failing ones do.
Within a mile of any Metro stop (King Street, Braddock Road, Eisenhower Avenue, Potomac Yard, Van Dorn, Huntington), listings pass at roughly 16%. Past a mile, the pass rate cuts in half and stays there.
This is the sharpest single-variable cutoff in the dataset. The Metro walkability test does more work than ADR, bedroom count, or which side of King Street the listing sits. 73% of qualifying listings are within a mile of Metro. 49% of failing ones are.
The ordinance reinforces this geometry: parking requirement drops from 0.75 spaces per bedroom to 0.25 inside the enhanced transit area. A 3-bedroom listing more than a mile from Metro needs 2.25 dedicated parking spaces. In Alexandria's older blocks, that's a regulatory squeeze on top of weaker booking demand.
Pattern #2. 3 bedrooms is the sweet spot. 5+ bedrooms is a cliff.
3BR peaks at 15.1%. 5+BR collapses to 2.6% despite $850 median ADR.
39 Alexandria listings are 5 or more bedrooms with a median ADR of $850. One passes 75/55. The ordinance caps any 5+ BR rental at 10 occupants, removing the bedroom-count revenue lever at exactly the point investors get ambitious.
39 Alexandria listings are 5 or more bedrooms. Median ADR: $850 per night. Range: up to $1,943. They pass 75/55 at 2.6%. One out of 39.
The big-house bet in Alexandria fails. Buyers converting a 5+ BR rowhome and pricing it at $800+ a night are pricing themselves out of every traveler segment that's actually booking. Family vacations to Alexandria want 3 bedrooms. Corporate stays want 1 or 2. The "group of 12 friends visiting the Pentagon" demand to support the upper end doesn't exist at scale.
The ordinance shuts the door from the other side: maximum occupancy for any 5+ BR Alexandria short-term rental is capped at 10 people, regardless of bedroom count. The math of "buy bigger, charge more, fit more groups" stops working at exactly the bedroom count where investor pitches get ambitious.
3 BR is where demand and supply meet. 4 BR works if you don't price greedily. 2 BR is acceptable. Anything else is structural.
39 Alexandria listings have 5+ bedrooms and a median ADR of $850. One of them passes 75/55.
Pattern #3. The Old Town saturation paradox
The 0.5 to 2 mile ring around Old Town outperforms the core 3:1
Inside a quarter-mile of King Street the pass rate falls to 6.5% (saturation). The 1.0 to 2.0 mile ring peaks at 23.7%. Past two miles it falls to 8.0% as Metro proximity drops off. The buy box is a donut around Old Town, not the core.
The most expensive zip code in Alexandria (the few blocks around King Street between the Potomac and Washington Street) has the worst pass rate. 31 listings stuffed into a quarter-mile radius, 2 of them book at 75/55 levels.
The sweet spot is the 0.5 to 2.0 mile ring: Del Ray, Rosemont, southern Old Town, Potomac Yard fringe, the eastern stretch of Eisenhower Valley. Walkable to King Street and Metro, away from the dozen restaurants every other Old Town STR is selling.
Past 2 miles, you lose Metro proximity and the pass rate falls to 8%. Alexandria's winning zone is the ring between half a mile and two miles from Old Town King Street.
Pattern #4. Solo professionals beat scaled brands
Solo and small operators pass at twice the rate of 10+ portfolio operators
Pass rate by host portfolio size. Sofia & Daniel (38 listings, 5.3% pass) and Uche (16 listings, 0.0% pass) hold 13% of Alexandria's active Airbnb supply and book two of fifty-four. The dashed reference lines mark the 1 to 3 listing median (~14%) and the 10+ listing median (~7%).
Solo and small-portfolio operators pass at roughly twice the rate of operators running 10+ listings. The bigger the portfolio, the worse the calendar performance.
The two largest operators in Alexandria are the clearest example. Sofia & Daniel run 38 listings, 2 pass 75/55 (5%). Uche runs 16 listings, 0 pass (0%). Together they hold 54 listings (13% of the city's active Airbnb supply) and book two of them well.
The amenity profile gives away the mechanism. Failing listings index high on smart locks (35.7% vs. 14.6% for top performers), "cleaning available during stay" (14.9% vs. 0%), ethernet connections, noise decibel monitors, and paid parking off-premises. That's the checklist of a standardized property-management stack.
Qualifying listings index high on drip coffee makers, BBQ utensils, outdoor dining tables, ceiling fans, room-darkening shades, and simple keypads. Those are what a host stocks one property at a time, picking each amenity because she'd use it herself.
The Alexandria listings that book belong to professionals operating one to three properties as their actual job. The listings that don't are run by operators chasing supply at scale, and the per-property permit regime makes scale even more expensive.
Alexandria's two largest portfolio operators run 54 listings between them. Two pass 75/55. That's 3.7%.
Who should still operate in Alexandria
Alexandria's buy box is narrow but real.
The Alexandria listing that works is a 3-bedroom townhouse-style property in the Del Ray / southern Old Town / Rosemont band, within a mile of a Metro stop, priced in the $350 to $500 ADR range, operated by an owner or small operator who sets it up themselves and runs it as a side business. Outdoor space matters more than pet policy. Keypad over smart lock. The host should plan to clear Alexandria's permit, post the Good Neighbor Guide, and stay below the three-strike enforcement floor.
That's a real property profile. About 14% of solo-operator listings in the city already match it. If you can buy into that profile at a price the forward calendars support (45 to 55% occupancy at $400 ADR, not AirDNA's 59% at $232), Alexandria is a defensible second-home or single-listing play.
Alexandria doesn't reward scale. The permit-per-property model, parking requirements, occupancy caps, and saturation in the obvious zones (King Street core, 5+BR big houses, large portfolios) all push the math against running this market as a portfolio.
- Buy in the 0.5 to 2.0 mile ring around King Street, within a mile of a Metro stop (King Street, Braddock Road, Eisenhower, Potomac Yard).
- Aim for $350 to $500 ADR. Underwrite to 45 to 55% occupancy, not AirDNA’s 59%.
- Stock it yourself: outdoor space, BBQ utensils, drip coffee maker, room-darkening shades, simple keypad. Skip the PM stack.
- Clear the per-property permit and post the Good Neighbor Guide. Stay below the three-strike enforcement floor.
- The 5+ BR pass rate is 2.6%. One out of 39 listings books at 75/55 levels.
- Ordinance 5575 caps any 5+ BR rental at 10 occupants regardless of bedroom count. The group-of-12 demand has nowhere to land.
- Median ADR for the cohort is $850. The market is pricing itself out of every traveler segment that actually books.
- Skip. The data is unambiguous.
- Pass rate at 10+ listings is 7.2%, roughly half the solo-operator rate.
- The per-property permit regime makes scale expensive. Three-strikes-you’re-out applies per portfolio.
- Sofia & Daniel (38 listings, 2 pass) and Uche (16 listings, 0 pass) are the precedent. Don’t expect to do better.
- Skip Alexandria for portfolio plays. Look at less-regulated markets where scale still works.
What to do next
If you were planning to buy a 5+ BR Alexandria property to run at $700 to $900 a night: don't. The data is unambiguous.
If you were planning to acquire 5+ Alexandria units through a PM brand: don't. The pass rate at scale is 7%.
If you're a solo operator looking for one or two well-located 3-bedroom Alexandria townhomes within a mile of Metro, in the 0.5 to 2.0 mile ring around Old Town, that you'll set up and host yourself: Alexandria is a Moderate market with a narrow winning path. Watch the permit revocation rules, expect 45 to 55% occupancy at a ~$400 ADR, and run the numbers against that, not AirDNA's projections.
Run the Alexandria, VA market overview for the live map, the named top performers, and the latest 75/55 numbers before you commit.
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Methodology note: Analysis based on 419 active Airbnb listings in the Alexandria, VA city-limit boundary, scraped May 4, 2026 (report e7fba479-55ca-4b0d-a438-771b3c522136). 75/55 quadrant counts: 48 pass both (11.5%), 27 pass 75 only, 83 pass 55 only, 260 fail both (62.2%), 1 with incomplete calendar data. Amenity-differential comparison cohorts: top group = passes_75_55 true (n=48), bottom group = passes_75_55 false (n=370). Regulation context sourced from Alexandria Ordinance 5575. AirDNA comparisons sourced from airdna.co/vacation-rental-data/app/us/virginia/alexandria/overview. Seasonality data sourced from data.rabbu.com (Alexandria City County, normalized to January = 1.00). Full Alexandria market report: /market/alexandria-va.