Already the largest vacation rental management company in the United States, Vacasa is looking to substantially grow its supply by getting involved in the buying and selling of vacation properties.
To that end, the Portland-based company has launched Vacasa Real Estate, a network connecting vacation home buyers and sellers with qualified real estate agents in local markets across the country.
According to Vacasa co-founder and CEO Eric Breon, the idea of developing a real estate network stemmed from customer inquiries about where to buy or sell a vacation home, as well as the best process to do so - concerns Vacasa felt uniquely positioned to address.
“For us, it’s a strategic priority to start becoming a part of that [buying and selling] conversation,” Breon says. “As we continue growing our supply, we add to that the whole excitement of people who are just [starting] buying.”
Building a network
Founded in 2009, Vacasa currently manages more than 9,000 homes, and more than one million guests stay in its rentals annually.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
It’s a captive audience of referrals for real estate agents: The company says nearly 5% of Vacasa homeowners sell their vacation rentals every year, and those one million guests are seen as “the next buyers of vacation homes,” says Vacasa senior director of real estate Shaun Greer. “We have just great potential to make introductions to the realtors we partner with.”
Vacasa’s realtor partners, known as Vacasa Expert Agents, are a qualified group of 250 agents located in 120 markets. To qualify and receive access to Vacasa’s exclusive network, Greer says the agents must have expertise in vacation rentals, as well as meet certain requirements such as having sold three vacation rentals in the past 12 months.
“We’re really looking for experts within these certain markets,” says Greer, who is also a licensed agent. “Part of the opportunity for them is we’re going to send them buyers that are qualified - looking to purchase in the next 90 to 180 days.
“Some of those are investors, but we’re also marketing to our guests within those markets.”
Tech tools
Another benefit for both agents and buyers is Vacasa’s technology, namely its rental estimator. According to the company, it’s a first-of-its-kind tool in the market that gives an accurate estimate of the income a rental will generate.
We’re not looking to monetize this; we’re looking to develop partnerships that are going to grow our supply base.
Eric Breon - Vacasa
“We have great data as to how much homes will rent. The core of our yield management technology gives us a very accurate estimate as to what a given home will rent for,” Breon says.
Greer adds: “You can go to Zillow and get estimates of your property value, but there’s not a widely used tool right now where you can type in an address and see where the income projection is as a short-term rental.”
Additional Vacasa Real Estate resources include local consultations with agents and their clients - covering everything from regulations to interior design - as well as 3-D home tours and HDR photography to market rentals.
Its website will also serve as a hub for real estate-related content, such as an upcoming report on the top 25 markets to invest in, as well as other information to help agents and owners self-guide.
The money question
Currently, Greer says Vacasa Real Estate isn’t receiving a cut from any sale. “We’re sending all of these clients to our agent networks and not making any transactions off of it,” he says.
But according to Breon, that’s part of the plan: to generate supply, not directly profit.
“We’re not looking to monetize this; we’re looking to develop partnerships that are going to grow our supply base,” he says.
“We’re more focused on building partnerships with those agents, becoming part of the communities, helping them really piece together the best option for someone looking to buy or sell a vacation home.”
In addition to agent referral resources on its website, Vacasa is also communicating with local staff in all its markets to get more agents signed up for the program.
And because Vacasa is partnering with different agents across multiple brokerages (current partners include Berkshire Hathaway, Century21 and Coldwell Banker), Greer believes the agent network could scale quickly.
“We have the tools and support to help them with their transactions,” he says. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t have 50 agents in each market.”
In The Big Chair - Eric Breon