Breaking Down the Best Vacation Rental Sites for Owners
Vacation Rental Sites 101
Wading through the array and variety of listing sites available is one challenge facing short-term rental owners. Maximizing your distribution is the best way to ensure you get as many eyes as possible on your listing, but it can be time consuming and difficult to post your listing on such a wide variety of sites. That’s why it’s better to focus on listing your rental on a few of the top sites–these are the ones that will get you the traffic you need to build your revenue and reputation in the short-term rental business.
Thankfully, we’ve figured out a few tips and tricks to help you decide which of these sites is right for your vacation rental. Today, we’ll take a look at the top short-term rental sites that LocalVR recommends to help you get started.
Top Short Term Rental Sites
#1: AirBNB
Without a doubt, AirBnB is king in the short-term rental market. With millions of listings in just about every country in the world, there’s no bigger player on the field than AirBnB. If you’re only posting on a handful of sites, ensure that AirBnB is the first one on your list.
This site offers a few benefits to hosts on top of their domination of the short-term rental world, including a $1 million insurance policy and damage protection, no fees to create listings, and a varying commission fee of 3-16%.
#2: Vrbo
Vrbo, formerly known as VRBO (Vacation Rentals by Owners), rebranded in 2019, but this vacation rental site has been around since the very beginning. Started in 1995 by a Breckenridge condo owner looking to let out his rental for short-term stays, Vrbo was one of the first vacation rental sites to pop up back in the early days of the Internet.
On this site, owners can only list private residences or properties–there is no home-sharing on Vrbo. The commission structure is a bit more flexible than most, as owners can decide to either pay a yearly $500 subscription fee or pay a commission fee of 5% plus credit card fees on each booking, not including guest service fees. Since its rebrand, Vrbo has leaned into its family-friendly reputation, and this site attracts lots of families and those oriented towards destinations in the United States.
#3: Expedia
Expedia has long been known as the place to book not only travel accommodations, but also to book other travel necessities like car rentals and airline tickets, and short-term rentals are no exception.
The site offers a few features to short-term rental owners, including fee-free listings and the opportunity to be seen by a wider audience, since people tend to plan their entire vacations out on Expedia rather than only their booking accommodations.
Although their commissions can be a bit steep, ranging from 10-30% depending upon your contract, it’s worth it to have your listing on one of the top travel sites in the world.
#4: Booking.com
Booking.com, in a similar vein to Expedia, was once just a hotel booking site, but in recent years, they have expanded their offerings to include short-term rentals. And although Booking.com may not be the biggest player in the United States, it’s one of the top travel accommodation sites in Europe, making it an important place to list your short-term rental if you’re hoping to pull in customers from overseas.
There are no fees to list on Booking.com and they do offer a novel payment system, where owners can choose how they want to be paid. Commission fees will typically be around 15% for this site.
#5: TripAdvisor
Since its start in the year 2000, TripAdvisor has been known for both travel accommodations and as a well-known review site. This makes it easy for guests to book not only their stay, but also check out reviews of things to do in the area they’re staying in, such as eating out at a local restaurant or taking a trip to a nearby museum. TripAdvisor also owns a few other popular accommodation sites, like FlipKey and HolidayLettings, and all of these sites share their inventory and listing information, so guests can search them all through the TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals website, getting even more eyes on your short-term rental listing.
TripAdvisor boasts free listings for owners, with a low 3% commission fee per booking, making it one of the lowest-cost short-term rental listing sites out there. Guest fees can vary between 8-16% and the platform also offers a Payment Protection Guarantee to guests.
When In Doubt, List It Out
There are a few major players in the vacation rental game, and these are some of the top sites that guests will use to find your rental. Although listing on as many sites as possible is the best way to widen the reach of your short-term rental, it can be a time-consuming task to wade through all of the available options out there yourself.
When you decide to go with a property management company like LocalVR, however, you can just sit back and watch your listings go up for you, without having to deal with any of the hassle of photography and listing descriptions on your own. After a property is onboarded with us, our team of marketing and distribution experts takes the reins and ensures that your listing is perfectly tailored to your ideal guests. For more information about LocalVR’s property management services, check out our Program page.