Are Vacation Rentals Dead?

I hear this question a lot, and I think it is due to the new laws that are being passed almost daily in different counties, cities, states, and even on a federal level trying to limit or ban short term vacation rentals from certain areas.

While there are some people who oppose the expansion of vacation rentals for various personal reasons, ( I’ve heard everything from “my rental rates will increase” to “I don’t want someone running a business out of a home next to mine” — shocking, I know) there is no rational reason to oppose short term vacation rentals, and there’s no end in sight. This industry is BOOMING and will only continue to grow further as more and more people list their homes on OTA websites like Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, etc. while they travel.

Gone are the days of time shares, with limited dates and high rates, we have moved into the 21st century. Since a majority of short term vacation rental travelers are millennials or young families, their travel habits have changed dramatically from supporting old business models like time shares and hotels, and have moved into a more communal and shared way of traveling through short term vacation rentals, which you can also see this trend with industries like Taxis, Uber, Lyft and other ride share options.

Popular sites like Airbnb are paving new ways to travel, and large hotel corporations are being threatened. Instead of supporting the few, popularity has shifted to supporting the many by putting small amounts of cash into homeowners pockets rather than large hotel corporations. This industry has grown so much that Airbnb has completed an acquisition of HotelTonight!

Here are some interesting global stats for you from around the World:

Vacasa, a vacation rental firm, has opened a real estate brokerage in Oregon. Vacasa Real Estate will help buyers and sellers of vacation rental properties find homes along the Oregon coast and other popular vacation rental markets throughout the state.

VRBO has announced a partnership with US mortgage lending firm Quicken Loans to allow confirmed revenue earned through the platform to qualify for mortgage refinancing through reviewing the property owner’s income. Property categories eligible for the scheme include both primary residences and vacation properties.

Now, as bigger companies begin to move into the short term vacation rental arena, they will not slow down now. This may have once been a hobby, or after thought of turning part (or your entire) home into a “temporary hotel” where guests paid you much smaller fees than the large hotels in your area to simply sleep for a night, has turned into an entire business model for some people. Many people who started as vacation rental owners have now moved into managing other vacation rentals. Not only creating a new job for themselves, but also helping spur on the economy by bringing in new tourists daily to support the city they are in.

As history has already shown here, short term vacation rentals are here to stay, and this industry is only going to grow larger.