Some Bay Area residents looking to make a quick buck are offering to rent their homes at super-sized prices to the 1 million visitors expected for Super Bowl 50 festivities.
By some estimates, vacation rentals will jump 150 percent during the week of the Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara.
There's a luxury 8,500-square-foot home in San Jose, listed for $10,000 a night. A 400-square-foot cottage in the same city is going for $3,900 for the three-night weekend. A four-bedroom apartment near San Francisco's "Super Bowl City" is listed at $1,495 a night, with a minimum six night stay.
Joe Viramontez just put his 3-bedroom San Jose home on Craigslist and Airbnb for $3,000 a night. He says he's already heard from potential renters.
"When you're in the area of where the Super Bowl is gonna be, you start to hear that talk and you start to think about it," Viramontez said.
According to search engine tripping.com, vacation rentals will jump 150 percent during the week of the Super Bowl.
And let's not forget a cozy treehouse for two in a 150-year-old oak tree a half hour drive from downtown San Francisco. You can call out for pizza and never mind that the bathroom is down the tree. Best of all, it's just $495 a night.
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Whether customers will pay such prices is uncertain, even in an area where hotel rooms are limited for the week-long extravaganza. Of an estimated 50,000 hotel rooms in the nine-county Bay Area, the NFL has booked nearly half for players and their families, officials and employees, according to the local bowl organizing committee.
That means regular out-of-towners are on the hook to book a place for pre-game festivities in San Francisco and the game Feb. 7 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, about 40 miles to the south, when the Denver Broncos square off against the Carolina Panthers.
In response, the number of listings on traditional home-sharing sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway has soared. According to Airbnb, demand is about three times greater than for last year's Super Bowl in Arizona, with homes closer to the stadium listed at higher prices than units in notoriously apartment-squeezed San Francisco.
"There is definitely demand and it's definitely a great way to generate extra income, but you can't go overboard. You can't gouge, because there's such an increase in supply," said David Ordal, chief executive officer of Everbooked, a company that provides pricing and market analytics for Airbnb.
For example, he said that Santa Clara has 86 percent more listings for the bowl weekend than for other weekends in February. Prices are up 19 percent. San Francisco has 14 percent more listings, with prices up 25 percent.
"Unless you're extremely close to the stadium, you shouldn't shoot for the moon — you might walk away without a booking," Ordal said.
It's not just housing that's extra hot; people are selling rides around town, too.
"I just posted recently, 'if you want a ride to the best brunch place, let me know,'" Santa Clara resident Marika Krause said.
Some are thinking of it as Silicon Valley's latest Gold Rush.
"I have a wedding to pay for!" Krause said.
The people offering the treehouse, which has been booked for the day before the game, declined to be interviewed. A man offering the cottage in San Jose also declined to talk to the Associated Press. The person offering the $10,000 a night luxury home with eight beds and eight parking spots did not respond to a message requesting an interview.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
"Cozy" Burlingame treehouse going for $495/night during #SuperBowl50 week (For real). https://t.co/HUg8GBaJar pic.twitter.com/hKe9L34fEr — NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) January 26, 2016
