What a two-bed flat in Cardiff city centre really earns on short lets (three years of numbers)
Every month someone in Cardiff asks us the same thing: what would my flat actually make? The calculators online give a number nobody believes. So here is a real one, over three full years, with nothing rounded up.
We managed a two-bedroom apartment in a modern block in the city centre, just off St Mary Street and a few minutes on foot from Cardiff Central station and the Principality Stadium. We ran it from autumn 2022 to early 2026. Across the three full calendar years in between, it took £139,178 in bookings.
Where the money came from
Year by year, this is what guests paid:
2023: £51,443 from 279 nights sold, an average of £184 a night.
2024: £40,658 from 225 nights, an average of £181 a night.
2025: £47,077 from 243 nights, an average of £194 a night.
The best month came to £8,217, in July of the third year. Seven others cleared £5,000, among them £5,206, £5,203, £5,180 and £5,164.
Two things stand out. The nightly rate did not fall. It sat between £181 and £194 across all three years, through a squeeze on household budgets and a lot of new supply in the city. What moved was the number of nights sold. 2024 was the softer year. 2025 recovered most of the gap, at the highest rate of the three years.
The rate held because we priced against Cardiff's calendar rather than against the flat next door. Six Nations weekends, autumn internationals, stadium concerts, graduation weeks and the conference season each got their own rates, set weeks ahead and held rather than cut at the last minute. Quiet weeks were priced to sell, not left empty in the hope of a full-price booking.
The flat was listed on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and Expedia, and on our own site for direct bookings. We opened orphan nights, the single gaps between bookings, so a Tuesday between two weekend stays still earned something. Guest messages ran through our guest platform, with check-in details sent automatically and a person behind them when a person was needed.
What the owner saw
The owner lives overseas and did not visit the flat while we managed it. What they saw was a statement on the 8th of each month: nights sold, what each channel brought in, cleaning, any maintenance, our fee, and the amount paid to them. One page. Nothing to chase.
That is the point of this for an investor abroad. The flat worked for them without them having to work for it.
Compared with a long let
Agents currently list similar two-beds in Cardiff city centre (CF10) at £1,200 to £1,700 a month (Zoopla and PrimeLocation, 11 November 2026). Call it £14,400 to £20,400 a year, before voids, agent fees and wear.
The short-let figures above are gross. Cleaning, channel commission and our management fee all come out of them, and on a short let the utilities and council tax sit with the owner, where on a long let they usually sit with the tenant. So the gap is smaller than £47,000 against £17,000 makes it look. It is still a gap, and the owner kept the use of their own flat whenever they wanted it, with no tenancy to bring to an end.
We publish gross figures because they are the ones we can show without argument. The net figure depends on the flat, the mortgage and how the owner wants it run, and we work that out for each owner individually.
Why we no longer manage it
Our management ended in early 2026, by agreement with the owner, after a little over three years. We parted on good terms, with three years of clean numbers behind us. The owner, the building and the address stay private.
If you own a flat in Cardiff
Cardiff is a calendar city. The stadium, the universities and the conference trade fill the centre on dates you can see a year ahead, and a two-bed within walking distance of the station is the kind of flat that calendar pays for. The difference between a flat that earns £139,000 over three years and one that earns far less is rarely the flat. It is the pricing, the channels and the attention it gets every week.
Send us the address and we'll come back with real comparables and an honest range, not a calculator.
Figures are gross booking revenue across all channels, cleaning fees included, before channel commission and management fees, for a single two-bedroom apartment managed by Guesture from autumn 2022 to early 2026. Owner details withheld at their request.
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