Snow-dusted Pikes Peak rising above the Colorado Springs Front Range at first light

Glossary

The short-term rental terms every Colorado owner should know.

Written by the operators who run these rentals in Colorado Springs, so every definition matches how the business actually works.

The owner's dictionary

Plain-English definitions of the short-term rental terms owners run into most: the pricing metrics, the platform jargon, the operational shorthand, and the Colorado rules that decide what you can run and what you owe. No hype, no invented numbers. Where a figure depends on your address or the current code, we point you to the official source instead of quoting a number that goes stale.

A

ADR (Average Daily Rate): The average nightly rate you actually earned across the nights that were booked, before fees and taxes. It answers a narrow question, how much a booked night is worth, and says nothing about how many nights sold, so it is only half the revenue picture.
ADU (Accessory Dwelling Unit): A secondary living unit on a single-family lot, such as a basement apartment, garage conversion, or backyard casita. Whether an ADU can be used as a short-term rental depends entirely on local zoning and permit rules.

B

Booking pace: How quickly future nights are filling compared with the same point last year or last cycle. Pace is an early-warning signal: it tells you to adjust price now, while there is still time to sell the nights.
Booking window (lead time): How far in advance guests reserve. Short windows mean most bookings land close to the stay date, which rewards flexible last-minute pricing; long windows let you hold firmer rates further out.

C

Channel manager: Software that syncs one calendar, rates, and content across every OTA at once, so a booking on one channel instantly blocks the dates everywhere else. It is what prevents the same night being sold twice, a double booking.
Cleaning fee: A per-stay charge that covers the cost of the turnover. Because it is fixed per booking rather than per night, it weighs heavily on short stays, which is one reason minimum-night rules and cleaning fees are set together.
Comp set (comparable set): The handful of nearby listings most like yours in size, quality, and guest type, used as the benchmark for pricing and performance. A good comp set is honest about your real competition rather than the nicest homes in the zip code.
Consumables (restocking): The supplies each stay uses up, such as toiletries, paper goods, coffee, and cleaning products. Tracking and restocking them reliably is small, repetitive work that guests notice immediately when it slips.

D

Damage waiver: A modest per-stay fee that covers accidental damage up to a set limit, offered as an alternative to holding a large refundable deposit. It lowers friction at booking while still protecting the owner against ordinary mishaps.
Direct booking: A reservation made through your own website or by contacting you directly, with no OTA commission in the middle. It keeps more of the rate and the guest relationship, but you take on the marketing, payment handling, and trust-building the platforms otherwise provide.
Dynamic pricing: Adjusting nightly rates continuously in response to demand: day of week, season, local events, how far out the booking is, and how full comparable listings are. Done well it lifts revenue over a flat rate; the work is in the rules and data behind it, not the tool.

E

El Paso County STR rules: The requirements that apply outside the incorporated cities, in unincorporated El Paso County. They differ from the City of Colorado Springs rules, so the first question is always which jurisdiction your parcel actually falls under. Verify current terms with the county and city directly.

G

Gap night: A single empty night stranded between two bookings, too short for most guests to want. Minimum-stay rules and gap-filling logic exist to reduce these, since orphaned nights rarely sell at full rate.
Gross vs. net revenue: Gross is the total collected before costs; net is what remains after platform commissions, cleaning, management fees, supplies, and taxes. Owners are paid out of net, so a headline gross number means little until the costs are named.
Guest screening: Verifying who is booking and setting expectations before arrival: identity checks, house rules, occupancy limits, and sometimes a screening service. Good screening prevents most problems rather than reacting to them.

I

iCal sync: A lightweight calendar feed that shares booked dates between platforms so they stay blocked in sync. It is simpler than a full channel manager but updates on a delay, which leaves a small double-booking risk on high-demand dates.
Instant Book: A setting that lets guests reserve without waiting for host approval. It tends to improve search ranking and capture more bookings, and is paired with screening rules and house standards to manage the trade-off in control.

L

Listing: A single property's page on a platform: its photos, title, description, amenities, rules, and rates. The listing is the storefront, and small differences in photos and copy move bookings more than most owners expect.
Lodging tax (lodgers tax): A tax on short stays that hosts collect from guests and remit to the taxing authority, sometimes layered across state, county, and city. Rates and rules change, so confirm the current combined rate with the Colorado Department of Revenue and the local jurisdiction rather than assuming a figure.

M

Maintenance reserve: Money set aside from revenue for the repairs and replacements a rental inevitably needs. Budgeting for it up front keeps a good month from being erased by a surprise, and keeps the property from slowly degrading.
Management fee: What a full-service manager charges to run the property, typically a percentage of revenue so the manager earns more only when you do. The fee is judged against what it replaces: your time, and the revenue a professional operation adds versus self-managing.
Minimum night stay: The fewest nights a guest must book. Higher minimums cut turnover cost and screen for longer, lower-touch stays; lower minimums capture more demand but raise cleaning frequency and wear.
MTR (Mid-Term Rental): A furnished rental for stays of roughly 30 nights or more, aimed at traveling professionals, relocations, and military assignments. Longer stays mean lower turnover and steadier occupancy, and often sit outside short-term lodging tax and permitting.

N

NOI (Net Operating Income): Revenue minus operating expenses, before mortgage and income taxes. It is the cleanest measure of how the rental itself performs as a business, independent of how the property is financed.
Noise monitoring: A privacy-safe sensor that measures decibel levels, never audio, and alerts the operator when a threshold is crossed. It is a common tool for enforcing quiet hours and party bans without cameras inside the home.

O

Occupancy rate: The share of available nights that were booked over a period. A high rate can signal underpricing just as a low rate can signal overpricing, so it is read alongside ADR, never on its own.
OTA (Online Travel Agency): A booking marketplace such as Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com that lists your property to its audience and takes a cut of each reservation. OTAs bring reach and trust you would struggle to build alone, at the cost of a commission and the platform owning the guest relationship.
Owner-occupied vs. non-owner-occupied: Whether the owner lives at the property as their primary residence. Many jurisdictions, Colorado Springs included, treat the two differently for permitting and where short-term rentals are allowed, so this status often decides eligibility before anything else.

P

Payout: The money a platform sends after a guest's stay, net of its service fees and any taxes it collects on your behalf. Payout timing and what is netted out vary by platform, which is why it rarely equals the nightly rate times nights.
PMS (Property Management System): The operational hub that holds reservations, guest messaging, calendars, and often payments and pricing integrations in one place. It is the back office behind a well-run listing, distinct from the OTA storefront guests see.

R

RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Rental): ADR multiplied by occupancy: the revenue a listing earns per available night, whether or not it sold. Because it blends price and how full you are, RevPAR is the single most honest one-number comparison between two properties or two months.

S

Sales tax: A separate tax that may also apply to short-term lodging on top of any lodging tax, with state and local portions. Some platforms collect and remit portions automatically and some do not, so confirm what you are responsible for with the Department of Revenue.
Search ranking: Where your listing appears in a platform's results for a given search. It is driven by responsiveness, reviews, pricing, calendar availability, and conversion, and it compounds: better ranking brings more bookings, which further improves ranking.
Seasonality: The predictable rise and fall of demand across the year for a given market. Colorado Springs swings with summer travel and the Front Range calendar, though steady military and relocation demand softens the off-season floor here more than in a pure vacation market.
Security deposit: A refundable hold against damage beyond normal wear. Platforms increasingly favor damage waivers or authorization holds over cash deposits; either way, Colorado law governs how deposits are handled and returned.
Smart lock (keyless entry): An electronic lock that issues a unique code per stay, removing key handoffs and letting codes expire at checkout. It enables self check-in and tightens security, since no physical key is left in circulation.
STR (Short-Term Rental): A furnished home rented to guests for short stays, typically under 30 nights, marketed through platforms or directly. The under-30-night line matters because it is where many local rules and lodging taxes attach.
STR permit (license): The local registration a jurisdiction requires before you can legally operate a short-term rental. It usually carries an annual fee, safety and zoning conditions, and renewal. Requirements vary by city and county, so confirm current terms with the governing jurisdiction before listing.

T

Turnover (turn): Everything between one guest checking out and the next checking in: cleaning, laundry, restocking, inspection, and reset. The turn is where quality is won or lost, and a same-day turn compresses all of it into a few hours.

Z

Zoning: The land-use classification that governs what a property may be used for. Zoning, more than anything else, determines whether a short-term rental is permitted at a given address and under what conditions.

#

30-day exemption: The common rule that stays at or beyond a set length, often 30 consecutive nights, fall outside short-term lodging tax and some permit requirements. The exact threshold is set by the jurisdiction, so verify it before relying on it.

Sun Mountain Stays

A term you would rather just talk through?

Jake manages short-term rentals in Colorado Springs. Book a free walkthrough for straight answers about pricing, permits, and what full-service management actually involves for your property.

Book a free walkthrough