All Forum Posts by: Monika Haebich

Just saw the (pretty harsh) results from a survey about the new VRBO service fee, and I was curious to see what you all thought of this.

Has the new fee been affecting your vacation rental bookings? Are any of you planning on switching to Airbnb or another listing site? 

Have to agree with Jeremy! Hawaii is such a hot spot for vacation rentals, and year-round demand keeps prices high. 

The traditional vacation rental areas are always great (PCB, Destin, etc.), but they also may be starting to get saturated. HomeAway reported that the top U.S. markets in terms of demand per listing were Chicago, NYC, Boston, Miami, and Atlanta, so you also might do well in an urban market. 

Hi Chip, yes it is! :) Thanks for posting it, Aaron! 

Parakeet, CodeBox, Kabra Oracode, Kwikset, & PointCentral are also all good options!

Hi Pat,

My company has a free vacation rental grader that you can use to see how much rental income you can expect to make. I'll inbox it to you (sorry, not allowed to post it in here). 

Hi Megan,

I'm happy to set up a time to speak live if you'd like. With VRBO, it will depend on your market and your price point (as Eric said). VRBO now sorts listings first based on your membership level, so the more you pay, the higher up in results your home will appear. For this reason (among others), it looks like a lot of homeowners are opting to work with property managers (who are generally given priority over homeowners by the big listing sites).

If you have any questions, or want more tips, please let me know! Another option would be to work with a channel manager that would market your property for you on multiple listing sites. If you want any recommendations for those, I'd be happy to talk! 

Wow, @Garry C., it seems like you're really efficient with self-managing - especially with HomeAway reporting that vacation rental owners spend an average of nine hours per week marketing and managing their vacation rental properties.

Any tips on how to do it?

Welcome, Brian! If you ever have any questions about vacation rentals, please feel free to reach out. :) 

Hi Jeff,

I'd look into fixed rent vacation rental contracts; they may be another good option for your vacation rental if there are any professional managers in your area willing to make a competitive enough offer. Steve Bjerklie from the VRMA (Vacation Rental Managers Association) actually recently wrote the VRMA cover article on the topic, and they are a good way of generating guaranteed income and passing off the short-term risk to a manager.

Best of luck! :) 

VRBO is another great one if it's a vacation rental!