AirDNA Ranked Us #8 Out of Nearly a Million Hosts

AirDNA just published its 2026 ranking of the best Airbnb property managers in the country, and out of nearly a million U.S. hosts, only ten made the national list. HostWise landed at #8, with three more honors alongside it.

Why this is hard to pull off

Most property managers struggle to keep up their star rating as they grow. AirDNA's data shows it: the average single-listing host holds a 4.858 rating, but by the time a manager reaches 250 or more listings, that average has slipped to 4.654. Every step up in portfolio size tends to cost quality, on average, and most operators pay that cost in exchange for scale.

The filter behind the list shows the same reality in a different way. Of the roughly 960,000 host identities AirDNA tracked, 220,000 manage two or more listings and 7,168 manage twenty or more. Only 920 clear the 100-listing mark. Of those 920, just 18 hold a rating of 4.93 or better. Ten made the national top 10. Size gets you into the room. It's the rating that gets you onto the list, and it’s very hard to keep both at once. 

As AirDNA’s article points out, at the very top, competition is stiff. First place to tenth on the national list spans just 0.024 stars, meaning the difference between the best in the country and #10 comes down to how rarely anything goes wrong across thousands of stays, not how big the portfolio is. We are proud to be among the very best in the country. 

The geography behind the list is worth noticing too. The national top 10 isn't dominated by one trophy destination. It runs from beach houses on the Jersey Shore to ski homes in Park City to city portfolios in Nashville and Columbus. Great management turns out to be a local craft, practiced well or poorly in nearly every market in the country, and Pittsburgh has one of the best of it.

Our four honors

Top 10 in the U.S. Ranked #8 out of every professional property manager in the country, with a 4.939 guest rating across Airbnb and Vrbo. HostWise is the only Pittsburgh-based manager to make the national list, sitting alongside operators in Park City, the Coachella Valley, and the Jersey Shore.

#4 Cleanest in the U.S. A 4.954 cleanliness score, the biggest detail guests notice first. 

#2 Guest Loved. 89.1% of HostWise listings carry a Superhost or Guest Favorite badge, the second-highest share of any manager in the country. Among other operators managing 100 or more listings, that badge rate averages closer to 41%. That gap doesn't close by working a little harder. It closes by treating inspections, response times, and maintenance speed as the actual product, not overhead.

#1 in Pittsburgh. Top-ranked property manager in our home market, ahead of every other operator in the city.

None of that happens by accident. It's the result of the same team running the same standards on every stay, every time: the consistency guests feel but never see, until an independent third party puts a number on it.

Chad Wise, HostWise owner and co-founder, on the ranking:

"We started this company on the idea that short-term rentals are hospitality, not landlording. Seeing that show up in AirDNA's numbers, ranked above hundreds of managers with far more scale than us, means our team is holding the line as we grow, not just when it's easy. I'm honored, and I know exactly which cleaners, coordinators, and guest response teams made this happen. This is their ranking as much as it's ours."

What this means for you

If you're a guest deciding where to book your next Pittsburgh stay, this is the data behind Chore-Free Checkout® and the coffee bar you'll actually notice when you walk in. Consistency isn't an accident here. It's a measured result, verified by an independent source scoring every professional manager in the country on the same scale.

If you're an owner comparing property managers, ask any of them for their AirDNA rank. Most won't have one to give you, because most managers aren't in the data at all, let alone near the top of it. HostWise Stays is one of ten in the country that can answer that question with a number instead of a sales pitch.

Curious what your own property could earn under this kind of operation? Request a free property analysis and we'll walk you through what changes, and what doesn't, under hands-off management built to hold a rating like this at scale.