When schoolteacher Marisa DeVito was asked to be the maid of honor in her best friend’s wedding, she knew she had an important job to do: Plan an unforgettable bachelorette party.

Getting a group of seven women together wouldn’t be easy — three were living in Des Moines, Iowa; another three in Omaha, Nebraska; and one in Fargo, North Dakota. A destination celebration seemed like the natural solution, so the bride settled on Scottsdale, Arizona. After some deliberation about where to stay (“Do we want to stay in a hotel? A house?” Devito asked herself, ultimately concluding, “A house is just easier for five days.”), she found the perfect place. An Airbnb with a heated pool, flashy floaties, backyard mini-golf, nine beds, and a range of photogenic backdrops would be their crash pad.

“I could picture myself decorating it the way I would want for my best friend,” DeVito says of her choice in home rental, which she decked out with bridal-themed balloons. She says she could clearly envision the group having a good time there.

The home where DeVito and the bridal party spent their trip in March is one part of a growing number of “bachelorette houses,” which cater to groups of mostly women celebrating bachelorette parties. These homes are jam-packed with amenities and accessories tailored to partying with feminine flair; there are often Instagrammable mural walls and neon signs, yard games, floral wallpaper, pink accents, and buckets of extra bachelorette decorations and accessories.

Bachelorette rentals range from around $400 to $1,000 per night, depending on the time of year. Although the majority of bachelorette houses are concentrated in popular party locations such as Nashville and Scottsdale, it may only be a matter of time before they pop up in a city near you.

The “Femme House” in Nashville is almost always fully booked. Created and managed by Airbnb host Vanessa Aguirre, the rental flaunts boho-chic touches and a soft pink color palette, while a room filled with bunk beds ensures each guest has a bed of their own. There’s a Femme House sister property in Scottsdale, too, complete with a wall of mirrors and bar stools that serve as a group makeup station.

Aguirre was inspired to create the Femme Houses after deciding to enter the short-term rental game in 2020. She zeroed in on Nashville as a place to invest in, as it was a quick flight from Chicago. “Then I’m thinking, OK, what am I going to do to stand out from the thousands of Airbnbs that are already there?” she says.

Nashville has a longstanding reputation as a city where bridesmaids let loose, so targeting them as a group seemed like a perfect fit. And a perfect fit it was — Aguirre says she netted a 43 percent jump in profits from her first year hosting to her second year. More recently, her Scottsdale location saw occupancy increase from 40 percent to 70 percent in 2023.

Renovating a property to feel flirty and feminine was a fun new challenge for Lyle. “My husband thought I was so crazy when I told him we were doing a flower wall,” she says.

Unlike Aguirre, Lyle started her mini bachelorette house empire in Scottsdale first in 2020, then expanded to Nashville. Owning multiple “bach houses” is a far cry from how Lyle thought things would go. “We didn’t have very high expectations [in the beginning],” she says. “We were hoping, you know, that we could book a couple of weekends per month. We didn’t think we would have the occupancy rate that we do have.” Carving out a bachelorette niche has proved to be a booming business.

Pinpointing a Rental Market Niche

Almost half of all bridesmaids are willing to spend $1,000 or more on a bachelorette party, according to wedding site The Knot. (That’s independent from any costs related to the wedding day itself.) Many women attend several of these parties in their lifetimes, only adding to a bridesmaid’s spending power.

 

Airbnb hosts like Aguirre and Lyle recognize that. Providing a clear market need for these parties combines two industries — the short-term rental market and the ever-booming wedding industry — for the perfect storm of profits.

 

Weddings expert Anja Winikka explains bachelorette party trends have shifted over the past 10 to 20 years. Previously, the expectation was a night out on the town. These days, taking a group trip is practically expected.

“You would have thought of a destination bachelorette party as being a bit extra a decade or so ago,” she says. “Today it’s become the complete norm.”

 

Part of the reason for that, she explains, is young people moving away from their hometowns in larger numbers. One person’s friends end up scattering to different parts of the country, so meeting in a central location makes more sense.

Winikka explains modern weddings have become hyper-personalized, rejecting anything that feels cookie-cutter. Each part of the celebration strives to feel personal to the couple, so in turn, bachelorette parties are also becoming extraordinarily custom. Booking a house that checks all the boxes for planning a personalized party is a no-brainer. “It’s really attractive and makes a ton of sense, given the mission in mind,” Winikka says.

For hosts, filling this market demand pays off. “Serving a niche — and serving it really well — is a great thing to do, especially when you know your target guests really well and can meet their needs. That’s always been a successful strategy for hosts,” explains Alexa Nota, cofounder and COO of Rent Responsibly, an organization for short-term rental owners.

 

It’s also an attractive opportunity for real estate investors who feel the short-term rental market is saturated with options. Still, Nota has a few recommendations for prospective hosts looking to dream up a bachelorette house of their own, as “party houses” can get a bad rap in their communities.

“For a host who wants to provide a really great guest experience and make sure that experience doesn’t affect their community, I’d recommend having a noise monitoring system of some kind,” she says. These systems alert the host if the noise gets above a certain decibel level. When that happens, they can ask their guests to quiet down, as guests don’t often know when they’re being all that loud. Nota also suggests putting a no-glitter rule in place to make cleanup easier, and to provide reusable props and decor to be more sustainable.

 

Credit: Isabela Humphrey

 

The Proliferation of Bachelorette Houses

Social media-friendly moments in existing bachelorette houses serve as built-in marketing tools to help them catch on. Airbnb host Lexy Burke launched what she calls “Nashville’s Original Bachelorette House,” in 2019. But it wasn’t until 2020 that she saw a flurry of bookings, after one of her videos went viral on TikTok. “It’s been life-changing for us,” Burke says.

A few more viral videos and photos could inspire an Airbnb host in a city that lacks bachelorette party house options. The Pink Getaway at the Palm Baum has been drawing renters to Palm Springs, while the Pink House opened in Austin in March 2022.

“If my experience in the weddings industry has anything to do with it, I would say it probably has a good 10-year run ahead of it,” Winikkia says of the trend. “It’s going to make its way across the country. Right now it’s just in little hotspots, but I’m going to guess you’ll find bachelorette party rentals in most major cities over the next five to 10 years.”

According to the hundreds of bridesmaids who’ve stayed in these sparkly pink pads, they’re quite the hit.

“The bathroom is FULL of stuff if you forget anything. Literally, she thought of EVERYTHING!” writes a recent reviewer of Burke’s rental. “This was hands-down the best Airbnb experience I’ve had and I’ve stayed in a lot of different states. I literally can’t say enough about this place and host.”

The vibes, it seems, are spot-on.

“I HIGHLY recommend staying at Femme House, or as I like to call it, pink wonderland!” writes a Scottsdale reviewer. “It really gave us those girly, beachy vibes we longed for in mid-January lol you won’t regret staying here!”

 

Credit: Scottsdale Bride Tribe