Anyone experienced with VACASA?
I’ve purchased three cabins-beachfront-great location cabins on 1/2 acre. I want to develop Condos or townhomes but meanwhile vacation rent them to help cover costs. I’m finding a lockdown style 32-35% property management rate by local managers and I’m not impressed by what I’m hearing on reviews. VACASA is new to this area and wants to manage the cabins but still want 32% not including extra fees for maintanance etc. The properties were very mismanaged so I can’t go on past rents. Area rents are great occupancy summer and dead in winter. I travel-work a lot and don’t really want to manage myself unless absolutely must. Does anyone have experience with VACASA or have suggestions. The local municipality requires a property manager for absentee owners and state of WA requires property managers to be licensed real estate agents. I’ve thought of a couple ways to work around all that but if VACASA is as good at marketing as they say I’d lean that way. Thanks.
Vacasa treats its employees like garbage. You literally work tons of hours,because they can not keep housekeepers and they are not paid enough! You also have deadlines to get the homes cleaned, your in trouble if you get overtime, and housekeeping more than likely knows more about your home than the GMs who are put to be in charge of them..so if your wanting things not stolen or broken, my advice don't have expensive things in your rentals..
As a homeowner, I can say from my experience, the housekeeping team is treated rather poorly. And yes, the above poster, Victoria, is correct, it's the housekeeping team that knows your property the best. Unfortunately, all that knowledge goes to waste because the housekeeping team is rushed through cleanings by management and paid very little (they just got another pay cut late 2022) which promotes constant turn over. Our local team (housekeeping & management) is very nice and everyone works extremely hard, unfortunately, upper management at the corporate level just does not understand local markets and since they are not the boots on the ground, they lack understanding of the time needed to properly provide the services they promise to deliver to homeowners. As owners that live in another state, we have to schedule at a minimum, quarterly trips to deep clean the property because housekeeping can't keep up. Guest experience is not a priority to them and communication with our guests have gotten so bad, that I will phone our property on the landline to check in with the guests and make sure they don't have any questions. This is not allowed by Vacasa, but after a handful of bad reviews, all centered around poor communication, I have taken on the guest experience on my own. Vacasa IS good at getting your property rented. We have had very few vacant nights in the year we have been with them and winter is typically difficult to book in our rural area. Unfortunately, those bookings come in at the sacrifice of a decent nightly rate. Our nightly rate during the winter months has been below $100. After Vacasa's fees, we were sometimes bringing in less than $60 a night for a 2 bedroom/2 bath that sleeps 6 people in a very desirable setting with 95% of reviews being 5 star. That doesn't even cover the cost of mortgage, property taxes & rental taxes, insurance, guest gift, fire wood, cable, internet, amenities, etc. However, the property is in use which limits the possibility of frozen pipes. Bottom line, Vacasa does deliver on bookings, however, on the guest experience, maintenance, and cleaning, be prepared to visit your property regularly (which you should do as a homeowner anyway) and WORK or have your own team that will subsidize Vacasa. Kind of makes their 25%+ not worth it when you have to spend more money on top of that to make up for their undelivered promises.
Quote from @Todd McLaughlin:
Quote from @Mary Beth Hebert:
Cathy: That is horrifying! I am about to visit my own condo for the first time since Vacasa took over management 3 months ago. It's been almost fully rented, though those bookings already existed when Vacasa took over, so no credit to them for that. I'll try to remember to report back when I get back.Mary I'd love to hear what you found when you visited your condo.
There have been a lot of unexpected expenses, but I can't blame Vacasa for those (they paid to replace the comforters--well, they've told me they will, I have not submitted the receipts yet). It's been a big learning curve for me since this is my first str property. In addition to having a really great local manager, one other thing could make some difference: I have a relatively high end, ocean front condo which is expensive to rent so I don't have to worry about having a bunch of college kids tearing the place up. Most of my bookings are a couple with or without a single child or two couples. I've no clue what these folks do to comforters, but since I allow dogs, I suspect that could be the answer.
Apologies for not reporting sooner. I've now been using Vacasa for 13 months and have visited my property 3x. There have definitely been issues with guests destroying some items (2 of 3 brand new comforters had to be replaced in the first month they were on the beds!). That said, I've been pretty happy with Vacasa. BUT I think it makes a huge difference who your local manager(s) is/are. My contact person has been really good. She's been responsive and a great communicator. I've had to replace an oven, which ended up requiring a lot of handyman work. I've replaced all the window treatments and a few other things and they've arranged the service people for all of that (at my expense, of course). But when a hurricane was heading toward the island, Vacasa proactively moved all my patio furniture inside.
The property has been very well rented this first year, so I'm inclined to stick with Vacasa in spite of the very high fees. If the service declines, I'll absolutely be jumping ship.
All I can say is from being a former employee, make sure you do the math for what you're receiving each month. When a guest cancels late enough to only receiving 50% of their money back, you're supposed to receive 50% of the rent and anything else you're entitled to except for example the booking fee, HOWEVER, we were taught to just put everything into the booking fee to save time from doing the math which I learned Vacasa only receives the booking fee meaning they will receive every dollar including everything that is belonged to the owner. The whole department was taught this. I went back to doing it the long way because it's messed up then I quit, especially since they were working me so hard into the ground while understaffed but then lied about the raise I was supposed to get a whole year ago. The fee thing should have turned automated by now, however, if you choose Vacasa make sure to do the math and make sure you aren't getting duped. Also with new ownership things are getting worse on the employee side, it's very unstable, so I wouldn't trust them with my rental, but they do manage your property 24/7, and if that is what you need I would just say do the math, take pictures and note of everything in your rental so that you have a backup in case they don't. The service you receive is based on the management team assigned to you. I've seen great responsive ones and even got a great experience as a guest in Lake Arrowhead, but I've also seen management teams go silent for days ignoring important tickets when a guest really needed help in the home, and I hated seeing that.
Given that the local municipality requires a property manager for absentee owners and the state of Washington requires a license for property managers, it's advisable to work with a reputable and licensed company like VACASA or any VC backed players Frontdesk, Soda Stays, Evolve.
DO NOT USE VACASA unless you want employees doing meth in your homes. I have evidence I've brought it to CEO attention and the HORRIBLE manager in the sky valley Washington locations... Sean Bilyeau. And not one thing has been done. I'd be furious if I knew they were allowing that to go on in the homes. Plus he allows the employees to have got tub parties on off nights wherever they want. Disgusting company
Vacasa is a dishonest company. They cheated me out of money and did not reply to multiple emails and texts. I have heardI would stay as far away from them as possible.
I've never used them for my own STR, however, as a consumer they are awful. Poor customer service, cheat customers out of money, and rarely account for their mistakes. If a home has Vacasa as a management company I now avoid booking with them.
In Bend, Oregon they have a flat management rate of 27%.
Quote from @Dan Walsh:
I've never used them for my own STR, however, as a consumer they are awful. Poor customer service, cheat customers out of money, and rarely account for their mistakes. If a home has Vacasa as a management company I now avoid booking with them.
In Bend, Oregon they have a flat management rate of 27%.
I manage in Bend and Central Oregon. I put out another thread on this because Vacasa pissed me off so much. But we have had clients move from Vacasa to us and Vacasa has canceled all there bookings but did not let the homeowner post their property on Airbnb or VRBO for 90-180 days. Seems hardball for Central Oregon.
@Debbie Bone I use Vacassa in New Orleans. I pay 20% and have been pretty happy with the service.
We bought a beach house on the Space Coast in 2017. We used Vacasa and were very happy with them for a while. Once they got bought out by a private equity firm things went south. Not an unusual occurrence. They sacked the experienced staff, changed the cleaning company and were focused solely on margins. We stayed away during the pandemic and were horrified at the state they left the house in - mold growing in the master bedroom suite, missing items and a dead lawn. The overworked property manager told us she had 40 open maintenance tickets and only 1 tech to address this.
Run for the hills!