Why Airbnb Wants Vacasa to Succeed
Despite fees, good property managers eliminate the hassle of owning an investment property. In this clip from "Ask Us Anything" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on March 23, Motley Fool contributors Matt Frankel and Jon Quast discuss the complementary relationship between Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) and Vacasa (NASDAQ: VCSA) and explain the value each company offers real estate investors.
Matt Frankel: Vacasa is a full-service property management company. Airbnb is a booking platform. Vacasa is a full-service vacation rental manager. If you list a property on Airbnb, you're going to have to not only determine what your cleaning fee is, you're going to have to coordinate cleanings. You're going to have to communicate with your guests, handle complaints, handle questions, things like that. Being an Airbnb property owner is a job. It is a job. Companies like Vacasa charge a much higher percentage. As you mentioned, Airbnb's take rate was about 3%. The typical vacation rental property manager charges 30% to 40% of the rent, but they do everything. They coordinate cleanings, they make sure there are plenty of towels and cups and glasses and all this other stuff that the Airbnb host would have to do. They make it not a job. My vacation rentals are professionally managed and my only interaction with my property manager is that I get a check once a month. I don't have any interaction with my tenants. I'm sure there are good and bad ones. I've dealt with bad tenants in long-term rentals. I have no desire to do that on a frequent basis in vacation rentals. I had one steal my lamp the other week and my property manager totally dealt with it. That's what Vacasa does. Vacasa is not a competitor to Airbnb. This is a very important point. Vacasa just went public, by the way, VCSA. They're the No. 1 active property manager for vacation rentals. They have about 3,500 vacation homes, which is about a 1% market share. Very fragmented industry. It's just a really interesting business because you know what Vacasa's No. 1 source of bookings is? Airbnb. No. 2 is Vrbo. [Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE)] So they are not competitors. Airbnb wants platforms like Vacasa to succeed because one, that's 35,000 listings on its platform from one customer. They want these big property managers to succeed. Vacasa is more than willing to give up 3% in order to get 30% to 40% of rent in order to list on Airbnb. It's a nice relationship they have. It's not necessarily a competition thing. Hopefully, that helped a little bit.
Source Fool.com
