Disproportionate balance of share between AirBNB & VRBO?

[Jon Crosby]

I currently utilize Evolve for my marketing/booking/calendar/payment services for my VR in Lake Tahoe.  The issue with my property is that it lies on the very outskirts of 'South Lake Tahoe' (even though it's only 4 miles from the lake itself) and while it was booking amazing for me on VRBO/HomeAway I always had trouble getting a good balance of share with AirBNB.  What I figured out is that when somebody went to AirBNB and hit search for 'South Lake Tahoe', my property literally wouldn't show up unless you zoomed in on it and/or specifically put criteria that matched up to it.

I reached out to Evolve and they reached out to their partners at AirBNB who did a little voodoo on my property attributes and I now show up on page 2 of South Lake Tahoe search results!  

Perhaps this is common knowledge for all you AirBNB experts but, I was really happy that Evolve was able to use their partnership with AirBNB to quickly assess and fix my issue!  That being said, it's proof again that you MUST maintain your own due diligence regarding your listings, especially if you are using a 3rd party service.  Someday I hope that they will have automated reporting that just notifies them that a property is not getting a good balance of share and fix it proactively, but until then, keep your eyes on your listing at least monthly!

~Cheers!

[Avery Carl]

I get about 50/50 bookings from Homeaway/Airbnb...but I will mention (maybe you have better experiences) I have bought several properties from owners who have listed their properties with Evolve who have either lost money or broken even so decided to sell, that I have been able to cash flow upwards of 3% per month self managing for short term.  Also, that "voodoo" that Evolve did on your property...every time I give a call to either Airbnb or Vrbo and ask how I can improve my listing...it somehow magically moves up in the search page. That voodoo is available to all hosts, so keep an eye on what you could actually make monthly just by getting notifications on your phone!  I have never seen Evolve do anywhere near the numbers that an on top of it host can do on their own! Unless of course you have so many that it's impossible to keep up with without outsourcing.  That's a different story. Cheers!  Just don't want you to spend money where it's not warranted.