Vacasa, TurnkeyVR or, Evolv Vacation Rentals?
Dave MeyerPro Member
Head of Real Estate Investing at BiggerPockets · Seattle, WA · Member since 2015 · 354 posts · 827 votesI am closing on a property in Colorado mountain town in a few weeks. I plan to rent it full-time as a short term rental and am interviewing property management companies. Has anyone worked with Vacasa or TurnkeyVR? They're the big national brands, but I am also talking to a few local companies as well. Vacasa is the biggest PM in the country, and charges a whopping 35% which seems insane, but they claim to invest a lot of the money back into marketing, CPC ads, etc. I am skeptical of the value there. TurnkeyVR seems to offer similar services but for 18%, which is much more reasonable. Curious if anyone has had experience with these companies that they could share. thanks!
@Dave Meyer I have seven vacation rentals in the Springs and was also quoted something like that at first. I went with Evolve and to be honest they did a great job for a while that is. Soo good news bad news. Good news, they will list on Homeaway and Airbnb AND will pay the fee for listing on HA.VRBO which is like 500$. They will also have a professional photographer come out and do photos. I already had this done before but they did it again. They charge 10% but then you will need a boots on the ground person in case... whatever happens happens right? So, not sure where you are but you know, toilets, guest can't access , restocking etc. They did a pretty great job of keeping me booked for the high season but could in no way hold the amount of bookings I was doing off season. Also, they do NOT read the reviews and you will not get alerted to them unless they are bad. An example is a 4 star review that had a line in it that said that they were concerned about the carpet tack strip coming up. It went unchecked and of course the next guest had kids who then got a scrape from the tack strip. The difference in the amount of bookings was I was holding 20 days in the Fall and Winter- they did 8 maybe 10. My solution is, well, I took them all back and am now self managing from Vancouver, Washington. As long as you have a team and systems built, you are FINE!! It maybe takes me 15 minutes a day to managed them, The fact is that I know the area super well and I think people really appreciate an owner manager sometimes. Also, just a side bar but I can just feel it coming now.... "I can't scale if I self manage." I hear you but..... it literally is 15 minutes and only because I have 7. Honestly for me it was a no brainer way to save ourselves 20-25k a year.
Does anyone have any experience with TurnkeyVR? I’m seeing a lot of answers for other companies, not the company asked in the question. While useful, is it just because no one has had experience with them? Or is the general consensus “they’re all close enough”?
Does anyone have any experience with TurnkeyVR? I’m seeing a lot of answers for other companies, not the company asked in the question. While useful, is it just because no one has had experience with them? Or is the general consensus “they’re all close enough”?
@Dave Meyer Vacasa is new in my area at Mammoth Mountain. 35% is really on the lower end here, at least as.far as large companies go. Most major companies in Mammoth charge 38-50%! (some as high as 60!)
As it was starting up I heard some horror stories but as theyve become more established, I've heard of less problems. Good luck finding the perfect property management, it will definitely make or break your vacation rental business!
Evolve or Turnkey gets my vote. As easy as it is to manage your own VR's remotely for 100%, I can't justify giving up 35% for a company to do the same thing. On the flip side, your time is valuable so if you really don't have the time to run the property yourself, 10-18% is a lot more justifiable.
Smokies or Hawaii sounds great until you see $400,000 properties you may be ae to afford and you are 800 miles away.
There is always a place near population centers that people go for the weekend... State/natl parks or forests, farmstays, mountains, great lakes, skiing, historic sites, the shore, etc. It may not be Yellowstone, but if it gets visitors in the 100,000s, it has promise. There are small towns that may have nice houses for under $150-200,000 in some of these.
$400k in the Smokies will get you a heckuva lot more than it will in Hawaii!
My first VR is in a small town by a national park (NOT the Smokies) and it does really well, but not a market I want more than one property in - it's pretty much saturated now, it's very seasonal, and finding good help in a town of <3000 is NOT EASY. I've considered selling the property just because that part is a PITA, but frankly I love it there too much.
My other three investments are all in the Smokies where occupancy is both high and consistent, and the infrastructure is far more supportive of VRs. I don't worry about those properties, whether I'm 200 or 2000 miles away.
There's certainly plenty of excellent pockets throughout the country where you can have a viable STR - but the logistics are a lot easier in the "sure thing" markets, IMO.
Almost bought a house on the parkway, Sevierville.. To live in. Then my job ended and moved to PA...
Great thread and some excellent advise! My 2% - I hired #Vacasa to manage my 3/2 condo in PCB because our friend was the GM. I'd never even heard of them, but with a new baby at the time I didn't want to self manage. I learned a lot from them because I was so new to VR & investing and was so impressed with the online marketing & systems I went to work for them.
I signed 80 homes for Vacasa's rental program in the next year - easiest job I ever had. HOWEVER, there were major red flags all along the way - they have the potential to be an amazing company yet after allowing rampant nepotism among owners & managers in conflicting job roles, the co-founder leaving the company abruptly in 2018, and selling programs they can't back up, they are experiencing MASSIVE employee & customer attrition. Now their latest idea is to back up and sell real estate trying to compete with zillow-like platforms. They are basically throwing spaghetti on the ceiling to see what sticks - only their hands are so sticky with so many hands in the pot, the entire ceiling is crashing down. You can only buy business for so long before the cash runs out. As they gear up for an IPO launch, this would be the WORST investment you could make. Real estate is local and so is vacation rental management. It's all contingent on the communication and abilities of THE person(s) responsible for YOUR investment.
Wyndham is #1 (ResortQuest - rumored for sale). Vacasa, Turnkey & iTrip are all of about equal size, only Vacasa & Turnkey operate like big companies while iTrip is a franchise model. IMHO the franchise model works better because it keeps everything local while still providing the needed online marketing in today's SEO race. Evolve is not a true PM company - they are an online advertising company that subcontracts the day to day maintenance & cleaning to others in market. I agree with earlier comments that the online advertising is the easiest part of the equation. The biggest struggle of managing a STR is the day to day operations because you turn often and have needy guests anxious to give feedback on a less than perfect stay.
Now that I am a realtor & business owner with investors asking advice on who to use, the ONE company I will never refer to is Vacasa. Their customers are STILL calling me because they can't get in their own unit, statements are incorrect, they are being charged insane amounts for lightbulbs (energy upgrade) that were not replaced and were told were included in their commission rates, fee structure changes to guests (in Vacasa's favor of course), squatters in units because they refuse to use door locks that provide adequate security measures, missing couches (because said door locks aren't changed even when they loose 15+ people in 6 months out of one office), broken furniture unreported, under sell the market to keep calendars booked, and on and on. Not to mention they have very bad security issues with their IT systems and never paid me for the last 11 homes I signed for them.
If you can't self manage (which everyone thinks is easy - but it's a LOT of work so depends on your available time to devote to answering basic questions over and over, calling 3 cleaners to replace the one that called out for the 5th time in season, calling an A/C company because your guest turned the thermostat down to 65 in 100 degree weather, etc.) then either go with iTrip if they have a strong franchise in your market or a mid-size local company with a good reputation. I would also strongly advise do not use a start up PM company who has only been around for a minute. There have been people go to jail right here in PCB for embezzling money this way! Local realtors, other owners nearby, and your local Chamber of Commerce are excellent sources for referrals to the best PM companies in market.
@Crystal Ball VERY good info. Although I will say self management IS easy. I self manage 5 of them with a day job, 8 LTRs that I also self manage, and a family. That being said the money in my market is big enough that a couple of messages per day don’t bother me. I wouldn’t do it for a couple hundred a month.
When I get the AC problem I open my Honeywell app and fix it. I don’t call my HVAC guy unless the unit is actually broken.
My cleaners never miss a day of work and if they do go on vacation they notify me of the back up before they go.
If I get the same question more than twice I make sure to tweet my check in info to answer this question and I never get it again.
Find a better cleaner, get a WiFi thermostat and change your check in instructions and you’ll fix your only problems in an hours time.
I’m currently writing a book on self managing short term rentals because my phone never stops ringing with people wanting me to teach them.
You heard it here first folks! Don’t use Vacasa.
This was typed on an iPhone.
I would never use evolve, vacasa or any other.
I would never manage remotely or use a property manager until I run out of low-cost properties in my reasonably tourist area. My gross exceeds the hot u.s. markets with my strategy.
I have no interest in Arbitrage or co-hosting. My Arbitrage is to buy the property and do short term instead of long term rental using the bank's money.
I do all of the automation and clever process that is reasonably possible. Especially the PMS software.
Is anyone here really good at managing their own STRs & looking to expand & manage other people’s properties remotely?
Looking for someone who can manage everything: pricing, SEO, tweaking the listing, managing cleaners, managing handymen & repairmen, customer service & communications, guest experience, etc, etc
@Dave Meyer I'm not going to bash any of these large companies you mentioned because that would be unprofessional, lol. I own and manage in Florida, so I feel I can share my opinion without it sounding like a sales pitch because you are in a different market. SO... I'm a fan of SMALL and LOCAL. Yes, a large national company may have some fancy advertising and huge fees, but... I charge between 15% and 20% of gross income. Most smaller STR managers sit in that range as well. I inspect the units personally, the guests call me with questions, I pick up the phone at any time, my name is all over the reviews they leaves, etc.... So if an owner has an issue (water heater breaks, etc) they know who they are dealing with, I know local contractors, etc and no one ever gets put on hold to listen to elevator music or asked to press 30 automated phone selections to get to a live person. In the end the return and the occupancy rates are what you care about. I would suggest you (without telling you to discard larger companies) to look into some hands-on smaller management options that are LOCAL.
@Dave Meyer i used vacasa for a few months and they were terrible. Zero communication by the local rep. Had to call corp to get the $ i was owed. It may just be a local issue but wow were they bad. Good luck!
I've been around vacation rentals a long time, and as far back as I can remember, full service vacation rental companies would charge 30%-35% of gross rents plus maintenance, upkeep, etc.
Depending on the quality of the company, as I'm sure each one has +/-, but what you pay for is the peace of mind and avoiding the hassle of ownership responsibilities.
If you're an avid DIYer and don't mind investing a few hours a month into accounting, scheduling, etc., paying 20%+ or more probably isn't your cup of tea.
If you want peace of mind and about as close to passive RE income as you can get, the 20% is likely worth it to you. Most people who give 500k+ for a beach house aren't willing to unclog a toilet at midnight, or even call a plumber to go do it for them.
Real estate is like most other things in life: it's all about how much of your time are you willing to trade for the $$.
"what you pay for is the peace of mind and avoiding the hassle of ownership responsibilities."
I couldn't disagree more. I consider 20 to 50% property managers as leeches. Evolve and similar are snake oil. Is hard enough to outperform with all the issues gathering around short-term rentals. Paying someone 20% or more you might as well be a landlord.
I personally disagree with the remote model. There are plenty of places near the most people they don't need a property manager. There are a lot of good threads about automating and finding a good cleaner and handyman who can take care of a lot of these things for you. I think people should be within shouting distance of their properties.
@Dave Meyer I would recommend a local property manager. I worked for MyVR (a property management software for PMs) and a lot of our PMs had clients that used larger companies and had issues because of their lack of personal touch, unfamiliar with the location or property, and the expense! Local PMs are great for communication (with guests and owners), knowledge of the area, and able to troubleshoot much faster.
@Dave Meyer - I manage 25 furnished homes in the SF Bay Area. I self-manage all of them because I am cheap! The big "time suck" is setting up new properties, not managing them. Even a slow-*** perfectionist (like me) can do the management in about an hour a week per property. I agree that a good, well-paid cleaner with a few solid contacts--handyman, plumber, electrician--can handle all of your re-stocking and "boots on the ground" maintenance and other urgent guest issues. Self-management is also a great way to learn the business so you can delegate it later and effectively manage your manager. Great thread and great input from @Jon Crosby, @Paige Kelsey, @Gary Ennis
