Vacasa, TurnkeyVR or, Evolv Vacation Rentals?

[Dave Meyer]

I am closing on a property in Colorado mountain town in a few weeks. I plan to rent it full-time as a short term rental and am interviewing property management companies. Has anyone worked with Vacasa or TurnkeyVR? They're the big national brands, but I am also talking to a few local companies as well. Vacasa is the biggest PM in the country, and charges a whopping 35% which seems insane, but they claim to invest a lot of the money back into marketing, CPC ads, etc. I am skeptical of the value there. TurnkeyVR seems to offer similar services but for 18%, which is much more reasonable. Curious if anyone has had experience with these companies that they could share. thanks! 

[Paige Kelsey]

@Dave Meyer I have seven vacation rentals in the Springs and  was also quoted something like that at first.  I went with Evolve and to be honest they did a great job for a while that is. Soo good news bad news. Good news, they will list on Homeaway and Airbnb AND will pay the fee for listing on HA.VRBO which is like 500$. They will also have a professional photographer come out and do photos. I already had this done before but they did it again.  They charge 10% but then you will need a boots on the ground person in case... whatever happens happens right? So, not sure where you are but you know, toilets, guest can't access , restocking etc. They did a pretty great job of keeping me booked for the high season but could in no way hold the amount of bookings I was doing off season. Also, they do NOT read the reviews and you will not get alerted to them unless they are bad. An example is a 4 star review that had a line in it that said that they were concerned about the carpet tack strip coming up. It went unchecked and of course the next guest had kids who then got a scrape from the tack strip. The difference in the amount of bookings was  I was holding 20 days in the Fall and Winter- they did 8 maybe 10. My solution is, well, I took them all back and am now self managing from Vancouver, Washington. As long as you have a team and systems built, you are FINE!! It maybe takes me 15 minutes a day to managed them, The fact is that I know the area super well  and I think people really appreciate an owner manager sometimes. Also, just a side bar but I can just feel it coming now.... "I can't scale if I self manage." I hear you but..... it literally is 15 minutes and only because I have 7. Honestly for me it was a no brainer way to save ourselves 20-25k a year.