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!

[John Underwood]

Very much one-sided to Homeaway over Airbnb for my VR. I get 95% of bookings from Homeaway. You can search by lake on Airbnb like you can on homeaway, but I don't see many Airbnb listings for my area.

[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.

[Jon Crosby]

Thanks @Avery Carl!  I have been using Evolve for a few years now (inherited from the purchase) and cash flowing even or better so far.  That being said, I certainly would cash flow more if I self managed however for the returns I'm getting vs effort put into managing each week I like the balance right now.  For my next property however, I do plan to self promote/book because I want to be able to really see both sides of the fence. 

I had a feeling the voodoo might be too good to be true so I appreciate you sharing that info with me! I will keep an eye on it for the next few weeks and see if it slips. ;)

Cheers!

~Jon

[Avery Carl]

@Jon Crosby good to know!  Maybe it's just the part of the country I am in.

[Jeff Piscioniere]

I agree with @Avery Carl!  I own a cabin in Gatlinburg and self manage and I've had nothing but good experiences with the booking sites (Airbnb, VRBO, and TripAdvisor)  I also agree that maybe the part of the country makes a difference.  Airbnb kicks but for me!!!  I would caution @John Underwood of this regional difference also because I notice most of your comments are almost always negative towards Airbnb.

[Peter R.]

Far more VRBO for me than Airbnb but it's picking up a bit.  TripAdvisor wasn't much at all, turned it off after a few months, wasn't worth the calendar updates.  My booking.com experiment was beyond useless. Craigslist was also not for me, screening issues.