A Deep Dive Into Vacasa and the Future of Branded Short-Term Rentals
A Deep Dive Into Vacasa and the Future of Branded Short-Term Rentals
Skift Take
Report Overview
Short-term rentals (STRs) sit at an inflection point after several years of hypergrowth. This sector was the best performing during the pandemic, but is this pace of growth sustainable?
And what about the promise of professionalization? Property managers accumulated tens of thousands of homes across the U.S. in a race to build nation-wide STR brands. But after raising millions in venture capital, these companies saw their share prices hammered by public markets.
This report examines those questions at a high level and by taking a deep dive into Vacasa, the largest branded property manager in the U.S. As a publicly traded business that touches every part of the sector, Vacasa is an important bellwether for short-term rentals that can help answer the question of which path STRs will go down: a hard-landing or continued growth.
The key question is whether Vacasa has built a strong enough branded platform to tap into first-party growth while scaling back cash-intensive investments. But the pandemic-fueled era of short-term rental hypergrowth is fading. Competition from hotels is growing, and economic conditions are tightening.
It’s crunch time. Will Vacasa be able to execute or will the dream of a branded, supplier-driven short-term rental business remain elusive?
What You'll Learn From This Report
- The current state of the short-term rental market as we exit the pandemic
- The forces driving continued professionalization of short-term rentals
- A deep dive into Vacasa including an understanding of its inventory, growth prospects, costs, and distribution strategy