What exactly is Vrbo?
Vrbo (Vacation Rentals by Owner) is an online vacation rental marketplace in the United States. Vrbo has strengthened its attempts to become a global player in recent years, thus it is worthwhile for hosts to promote there.
Vrbo is an online booking network that connects vacation rental owners and short-term hosts with potential guests. It has been one of the most major vacation rental booking platforms for over 25 years.
One of the first vacation rental booking portals
Vrbo began as a vacation rental listing website in 1995, making it one of the world’s oldest vacation rental booking platforms. VRBO was renamed Vrbo in 2019, with a new capitalization and pronunciation (“ver-boh”). The websites of HomeAway and Vrbo amalgamated in 2020 to become a unified Vrbo website.
Vrbo has grown into a global vacation rental business, with over 2 million vacation properties in 190 countries. This is how Vrbo continues to thrive in the face of increasing competition from Airbnb and Booking.com.
A Channel Manager can help you manage Vrbo
Vrbo does not currently have an official interface for syncing the rates and availability of your vacation property. If you offer your property on other booking sites such as Airbnb or Booking.com, however, you must keep your booking calendars on all of them up to date. Here’s where you may learn more about the advantages of vacation rental channel managers.
This saves you time and prevents double bookings and cancellations. Find out how to link Vrbo and Smoobu in this article.
What does it cost to be a host on Vrbo?
On Vrbo, you can select between two payment schemes as a host, landlord, or owner.
Payment on an annual basis
You will pay a fixed fee of $499 if you pick annual payments. This subscription model is particularly beneficial for hosts who have a high volume of bookings.
Advertising on a commission basis
You will be charged a 5% commission per booking if you choose this option. Vacation Rentals by Owner, or VRBO, is a website that connects consumers looking for vacation rentals with persons who have vacation properties to rent. VRBO is used by both individual homeowners and management organizations to find short-term tenants.
When you offer a home on VRBO, you have complete control over the rates. You can charge a nightly or weekly rate, depending on what you think is best for the home you’re attempting to rent. In addition, when you offer your home on VRBO, it will appear on all of the company’s connected websites, increasing your exposure. Expedia and its distribution brands (Travelocity, CheapTickets, and Orbitz), as well as Trivago, KAYAK, CanadaStays, and TravelMob, are among these sites.
What is the rental booking process like?
Prospective tenants will be able to search for your home on VRBO by location or zip code once you’ve listed it. VRBO makes renting a home simple: tenants simply enter their details, pay a deposit, and they’re done. Renters can also send property owners emails with inquiries about the residences they’re interested in.
When renting through VRBO, renters also have certain benefits, such as fraud protection, which ensures that their deposits end up in the correct hands. In exchange, clients must pay a service fee that varies depending on the cost of the reservation.
If you’re a renter, you might be thinking whether VRBO is the best place to book a holiday rental or if you should go with Airbnb. Both demand a service fee when you book, but VRBO has the disadvantage (or advantage, depending on what you’re looking for) of only listing complete properties. You won’t be able to find a single room in someone’s home on VRBO. However, if you’re planning a family vacation or want a private area for yourself, VRBO can accommodate you.
Additionally, VRBO does an excellent job of describing how your fees are broken down. It states clearly what your nightly rental charge is, what your security deposit is, and what your cleaning fee is.
What is the cost of a VRBO listing?
VRBO offers a variety of price options. You’ll be charged $499 for an annual subscription. This offers you access to a variety of useful features, such as VRBO’s reservation manager and calendar, which help you keep track of who is staying at your home and when.
If you don’t plan to rent your home very often (say, since the season that makes it appealing is limited, as in the case of a beach house), you can instead use VRBO’s pay-per-booking model, which charges you a 5% fee on your booking amount. The yearly plan makes more sense if you intend to earn more than $10,000 in rental income from your VRBO listing on an annual basis.
