VRBO collect taxes? Is it worth listing?

[Karina Busch]

I have done well with Airbnb but thought I'd put my new STR on VRBO also since some of you seem to get a lot of bookings there. Do they not collect and remit taxes? It's asking me how taxes are collected and what the rate is. I have no idea. It's already proving to be a much more cumbersome process than Airbnb. Is this worth the headache?

[Travis Timmons]

VRBO does collect and remit taxes on our behalf, but they recently asked for us to submit the tax rate. I'm not sure why that would be, but I noticed that too. 

I think that VRBO's tech is really clunky, the guest profile skews older and more high maintenance (they just ask more really basic questions - i.e. how does the TV work? Smart lock isn't working? Ask for directions to places, etc...stuff that is pretty intuitive).

VRBO also takes 8% of the booking revenue. We've landed on pricing our VRBO rates about 10-15% higher than airbnb. We still get about 40% of our bookings from VRBO...it's a worthwhile hassle as I see it. 

Every market is different, though...there are some markets that are VRBO dominated and you have to be on there.