Hot take: Personal booking websites for your STR are overrated

[James Carlson]

Headline says it: The recent emphasis on creating direct-booking sites for your STRs and MTRs is overrated. Prove me wrong.

Work/money not offset by savings
The amount of work -- and money -- to build a site and do proper SEO to get noticed is not offset by the small amount of savings from not paying booking fees on sites like Airbnb and Furnished Finder.

It's not how humans search
Direct booking sites ignore how people search for short-term rentals or medium-term rentals. I want a vacation rental for my family? I go to VRBO or Airbnb. Who else but Boomers are slow-typing into Google "V-a-c-a-t-i-o-n R-e-n-t-a-l T-a-h-o-e"? That ain't the future, folks.

Corollary to MTR-insurance relationship
This reminds me of @Erin Spradlin's take on the current emphasis in medium-term rental world on creating relationships with an insurance company. Can it be done? Sure. But why? You've got platforms like Airbnb, Zillow, Furnished Finder that reach millions. Why tether your success to one tenant stream?

Most cynical take
Another Erin take here: The over-complication of real estate only serves vendors who want to insert themselves between you and the STR money. You lose thousands of dollars to Airbnb fees without a direct booking site? Pay me thousands of dollars and I'll set up your website to fix that. 

Similar feelings here about the expensive courses and conferences targeted to first-time investors. Give me $5,000 to teach you how to buy a home and rent it out. That's $5,000 that could have gone toward a downpayment on the first investment, which is where you'll learn the most anyway.