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Vacation Rental Watchdog, 5009 Padre Boulevard Ste 1, South Padre Island, TX (2024)

06/17/2023

My inside sources tell me that this happened in a managed property in Bolivar.

Not sure who exactly is at fault here, but a life was lost and needs to go through all their units to make sure this doesn’t happen again! RIP little one 🙏🏼

A 2-year-old in Texas is dead after an arcade machine fell on top of him, authorities say.

03/28/2023

This is a time to worry if you are an employee or homeowner that currently signed up with or plan to terminate your agreement with them in the near future.

They are struggling financially (amongst other things) and are scrambling for ways to raise money.

Historically, they focused on increasing fees to guests and homeowners, unit-billed labor (maintenance, etc.), and termination fees/charges for homeowners that have had enough of their BS, and of course, the recent lay offs.

Their booking fee used to be at 9% and they slowly started increasing it as a way to increase their revenue. It is up to 15+% at the moment. They may look into raising it, so keep a lookout for that. You may think that this does not affect you because the guest pays for this. Wrong! The more fees a guest pays, the less your nightly rent may become to remain competetive in the market. Some of you may be nodding your heads because of past complaints you’ve had from the low nightly rent. Trust me, their “algorithms “ don’t work, and much less in the homeowners’ favor. Be on the lookout for emails regarding the management fees and possible increase of them. They may increase your management fee without your knowledge if they send you an email and you happen to miss it. This HAS happened in the past, so just be aware.

Homeowners, pay close attention to any unit-billed labor that may appear on your statements. A sneaky extra $100+ may be on there, and that can quickly add up when you consider the whole picture. Employees may be asked to generate a certain amount of unit-billed labor each and every month whether it is needed or not. They will be told to “find” things that need repair, etc. This HAS happened in the past, so just be aware.

Homeowners that wish to terminate may experience the biggest threat of all when Vacasa is struggling financially! It is very important that you go over your agreement and look for the section that pertains to terminations. This is where they can stick it to you real good in terms of trying to collect thousands of dollars for reservations that are still on the books. They can either let it go or send you a bill regardless if they did a horrible job at managing your home. They purposely make it very difficult to leave Vacasa and will kick you in the butt as hard as they can on your way out.

If you plan to terminate, block your whole calendar or just leave it open only 30 days at a time (rolling block) and start looking around for a good, local PMC. Don’t let them keep getting bookings, especially far out in the future. Their rental agreement will state that they can collect “damages” and not be specific about it. That means THEY can determine the dollar amount that thos damages can be. Believe me, if they are struggling, you can bet they will go for 100% of the rent per booking. This HAS happened in the past! To make matters worse, they will move that booking to another property managed by Vacasa and collect even more money per booking!!!!!

Layoffs are obviously their final resort and there is talk and preparation for another round in the very near future.

03/22/2023

This is what excessive spending combined with poor leadership/management looks like on a graph:

03/22/2023

The truth is finally starting to come out as it’s much more difficult to hide negative numbers once you go public:

Oppenheiner lowered its rating on Vacasa (NASDAQ:VCSA) to Perform from Outperform after the company turned in a bruising Q4 earnings report. The vacation rental management company reported an elevated level of churn that led to a big guidance cut.

01/25/2023

Yet, another round of layoffs happening at Vacasa today. As of this morning, 1,300 Vacasers were laid off due to the fact that the company has yet to figure how to turn a profit. Yes, after operating for 14 years, Vacasa is still not a profitable company due to excessive spending and bad upper management at corporate level. Just imagine that, a property management company that doesn’t even know how to manage their own budget, expenses, company.

The only way that Vacasa has managed to stay in business all these years, is by raising capital investment (over $500M USD) through several rounds of funding, and finally going public through an S**C. Their financial crises has finally been made public and the new and 3rd CEO, Rob Greyber, has a tough job ahead of him.

ADVICE: The Vacation Rental Watchdog has some good advice for Vacasa:

1. Stop trying to be a full service PMC and turn into a 3rd-Party Advertising Channel. i.e. Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, etc. You can save on a lot of overhead and finally be profitable. You have a catchy name, use it!

2. Franchise your brand to local PMCs, offering support, etc. i.e. Casago.

https://skift.com/2023/01/24/vacasa-slashes-17-percent-of-workforce-in-second-recent-round-of-layoffs/amp/

Vacation rental property manager Vacasa is eliminating 1,300 positions, which was 17 percent of its workforce, as the company determined it had to make

10/04/2022

Vacasa’s algorithms only benefit Vacasa….don’t forget that!

10/04/2022

Vacasa pays Popdust to advertise for them and just take a look at the response from homeowners and guests about the quality of Vacasa!

With the second round of latoffs taking place this week, Vacasa’s service will only get worse as time goes by. Homeowners and guests take warning and support local property management companies!

10/04/2022

Vacasa is not the company they claim to be! People from all over the US reach out to me with issues they are experiencing with Vacasa and seeking advice.

My best advice; run and don’t look back!

Here is a sample of an inquiry that came in over night:

08/16/2022

I constantly receive messages from guests and homeowners about issues they are experiencing with Vacasa.

With over 40,000 properties in their portfolio, it’s easy to understand how this happens and how they may not even care as long as their growth exceeds their churn in their revolving door of homeowners.

You and your property are just a number to them. Good service is hard to come by when you have the type of employee turnover that they have.

Do your due diligence before signing up with Vacasa, you’ll be glad you did!

08/02/2022

People constantly reach out to me and ask for advice on what to do about certain issues they are facing with Vacasa. My 4 years with the company allowed me to see firsthand how they do business and how they don’t care about their homeowners. Once I realized I couldn’t sell their services to friends and family, I knew I had to leave. It was so difficult selling it to anyone, honestly. It was not an easy choice leaving a job that paid well, but my conscience kept telling me I had to go. I prepared myself for the transition out as best I could, and once I felt I was in a position financially to leave, I did and never looked back!

I have since started a small project that focuses on assisting self-managers by co-hosting, etc. Although I have been busy this summer, I have been collecting data from Vacasa homeowners and guests across the country.

The problems with Vacasa aren’t necessarily locally on the ground level (although I will share some instances where that is the case), they really come from the corporate level. I will be adding more information on that in the coming weeks/months as we go into the “off-season” here and work slows down for me.

For now, I leave you with some recent homeowner experiences that should scare any homeowner away from this scam of a company.

07/09/2022

Want to terminate your agreement with Vacasa? Get ready to pay! This is an example of how Vacasa is allowed to bill homeowners more than they deserve. Can you catch the “gray area” that gives them the license to make up numbers?!

7. Existing Reservations.

a. Obligation to Honor Existing Reservations.

Owner acknowledges that guest satisfaction is a priority for Vacasa, and that the inability to honor reservations is a significant source of guest dissatisfaction, poor reviews, and demands for compensation. Accordingly, Owner agrees to honor all Existing Reservations with a checkout date prior to the Effective Termination Date. "Existing Reservations" are reservations for which Vacasa has received a monetary deposit.

b. Liability for Failure to Honor Existing Reservations.

If Owner fails or refuses to honor one or more Existing Reservations for any reason, Vacasa shall attempt to move the reservation to a comparable property. If Vacasa is able to move the reservation to a comparable property, then Owner agrees to be responsible for any actual costs incurred by Vacasa to move the guests (such as, by way of example only, higher rent that is not passed on to the guests). If Vacasa is not able to move the reservation to a comparable property, then Owner agrees to pay Vacasa (1) Vacasa's lost Management Fee on that reservation, plus (2) any actual costs incurred by Vacasa in connection with cancellation of the reservation.

c. Circumstances Outside Owner's Control.

Owner will not be responsible for payment of the damages prescribed in this section for failure to honor Existing Reservations where such failure is due to factors outside the Owner's reasonable control, such as flooding, fire, or the occurrence of a natural disaster or a mandatory evacuation order. If Owner makes an insurance or other third-party compensation claim that leads to recovery of lost rental income on displaced reservations, Owner shall notify Vacasa of such recovery in writing, and Owner will pay or cause to be paid to Vacasa an amount equal to the Management Fee that Vacasa would have received on the lost rental income payment.

06/24/2022

Attention Vacasa Homeowners:

Giving Vacasa full reign over your property means you’re allowing them to pretty much do whatever they want, and if you don’t catch it, they will continue to do whatever is in THEIR best interest, NOT yours!

Let’s talk about compensating guests for a less than favorable stay - Vacasa vs. Self Manager.

Vacasa: The guest complains about the check-in process. Lockbox doesn’t open, no key in lock box, elock has a dead set of batteries, etc. Calls Guest Services (which has moved overseas now) and spends 20-30 minutes on the phone (if they’re lucky). It’s hot outside and they just drove 13 hours. Vacasa finally manages to send someone over to solve the issue. This could have been prevented. The guest is already agitated and any additional issue would just add to it.

The guests now find that the kitchen isn’t as clean as they promised it would be. They claim to sanitize, not true. Guests are upset because Vacasa had over promised and under delivered.

The guests are now finding some dirty pots/pans…to be continued…

06/19/2022

Some interesting posts about the service (or lack thereof) Vacasa gives homeowners. As someone that used to work there for 4 years, I can honestly say they are the worst way to go when it comes to property management. I’ve said before, and I‘ll say it again, smoke & mirrors!

06/18/2022

This is clearly an ad attempting to promote Vacasa. Unfortunately, the real homeowner reviews in the comments don’t match up to the ad…try better Vacasa!

Travel is on the rise, and so is the demand for vacation homes. But what does that mean for vacation rental property owners? Hundreds of new vacation rentals are hitting sites like Airbnb and Vrbo every day, making the competition fiercer than ever. Without a powerful online presence, the right ...

02/18/2022

Digital sample work generated for Stay A While With Us Vacation Rentals with properties in:

Destin, Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, Bradenton/Sarasota Florida, SPI and Broken Bow OK.

While the majority of bookings take place on the major 3rd-Party Channels (i.e. Airbnb) many people are finding it better and cheaper to book directly with the homeowner or local company for a better experience and avoiding booking fees that can go 12% or higher.

You can have guests book on Airbnb then directly book them as returning customers on future reservations. This also saves the vacation homeowners $$$!

It’s a win-win for everyone!

Call 956-455-3628 for more info.

08/15/2021

Vacasa will rent your property at low rates just to get a booking. This means you have to rent more nights per year just to make what you would with a local company that has an established clientele and can rent at higher nightly rates.

Vacasa not only collects the 35% management fee, but they also collect a 12% booking fee, late check-out fee, and pet fee (if applicable). None of which is given to the homeowner.

Vacasa has an extremely high overhead and is not a sustainable model. They have not been profitable for the past 6+ years and still recorded a $92 million dollar loss for 2020. They are operating on a bubble that is created with outside investment capital and will nickel and dime the homeowners just to try to make a profit.

Who loses? The homeowners!

08/15/2021

07/30/2021

I seriously thought that they would have finally figured out how to be profitable. They have been around since 2009 and have been floating on capital investment money since 2016. 5 years still wasn’t enough to figure out how to be profitable?! They have created their own bubble with all that money and now want to pass the buck on to the public to repay that debt.

My guess is the stock is going to lose value real quick shortly after they go public.

Invest with caution!

07/29/2021

One of the most essential things to provide for your vacation rental property and guests is a safe and secure space. It will allow you and your guests peace of mind to relax and make memories. It can also help you keep track of any over-occupancy issues, pets in non-pet friendly units, crime, etc.

Having a second set of "eyes" on your property via surveillance devices can help fill that need. This allows you to protect your property and guests while you're minutes or miles away.

There are several security measures you can take to protect your vacation rental.

Video Doorbells & Cameras
Security Systems
Smart Lighting
Noise Detectors

I recently installed the SimpliSafe security system with doorbell video cameras in my home and office. It is very easy to do and highly recommended!

https://simplisafe.com/

SimpliSafe Official Site: get the wireless home security system that lets you take control of your safety - in your home, apartment, or business

07/24/2021

Homeowners: Before signing a rental agreement with a property management company, inquire if the company owns or is sub-leasing any vacation rentals. If so, there is high probability that:

1. These properties with have better advertising/promotion online over yours.

2. These properties may be rented at an extremely low rate just to get a booking. This, will either sway a potential renter to that property and/or bring your nightly rent down to compete.

Either way, the chances of you not reaching your full gross rental potential is greater if the company has a vested interest in booking a particular property over yours.

Something to keep in mind!

07/18/2021

Attention Homeowners:

Make sure you read the rental agreement about Covid sanitation. Chances are, very few of these protocols are being followed and cause issues/negative reviews down the line.

Ask your local operations team questions and get it in writing; what exactly is being done for YOUR guests.

The last thing you want is to set your guests up for disappointment when they discover their rental is NOT sanitary.

07/15/2021

Vacation Home Owners: Have you experienced any major damages in your vacation rental without any proper explanation and/or repair from your management company? Was a deposit collected and/or guest required to pay a damage waiver? How did the property management company respond to this? Did they miss it and you finally caught it when staying in your vacation home? Was this ever reported to you to begin with? This list of damage scenarios can go on and on.

Renting your property out commercially exposes it to damages caused by guests either by accident or negligence. As a vacation home owner, you have to accept the fact that this can and will happen, eventually. What matters at this point, is how damages are managed by your property management company.

It is very possible for damages to be covered up in a manner that not even the housekeeping would catch in the time it takes to clean the home. It is also possible that the housekeeping simply missed it, and it's a back-to-back booking. It's possible that the housekeeping reported it to management and nothing was done in a timely manner or at all. There are many more scenarios where damages could be overlooked, ignored, reported, caught by the home owner, etc.

It is very important to know how exactly guest-related damages are dealt with, who is financially responsible for it, how those funds are collected, and how soon will it take for the damages to be repaired. Make sure you get this in writing! Don't sign any agreement that isn't protecting YOU. Getting push back from the salesperson/manager? Shop around and find a company that is OK with protecting your assets/best interests and have it in writing. How else would you have peace-of-mind?

If you pay extra for an insurance policy (Assurant), make sure your damages are dealt with in the fastest manner possible. After all, you are paying extra for this coverage.

If the management company collects a damage waiver, find out how it works, exactly. Some companies will only pay damages out of the damage waiver ONLY if the guest reports the damages. Local operations can find ways to bypass this, so make sure you are treated fairly.

Regardless of how the property management company deals with damages, it is important that you know EXACTLY how it is handled and how YOUR best interests are being looked out for.

07/05/2021

Are you a homeowner that is currently using a big-box property management company and a victim of extremely low nightly rates? Ever wonder why this happens? Here are the questions you should be asking your Property Management Company:

1. What other fees are the guests paying when booking your vacation home?

- Be on the look out for additional pet fees, damage waiver fees, early check-in or late check-out fees, and finally, booking fees. Find out exactly how much each fee is and ask if you, the homeowner, receives any proceeds from any additional fees paid by the guest. The more fees a guest pays on top of the advertised nightly rate, the less money in your pocket at the end of the month. Some booking fees can be as high as 12% of the total nightly rent.

2. How is the Average Nightly Rate calculated? Who is in charge of setting the rates?

- If the answer is the famous "algorithm", then ask how often is someone reviewing it to ensure it is working properly. How much input does the local operation have to help ensure you are maximizing your revenue.

I have seen time and time again, how these algorithms fail the homeowner because the rates analysts live 1,500 miles away and have no idea about local events that can help generate more revenue. Companies that claim to have the best algorithms that generate the most revenue, are most-likely lying. Every market is unique and you simply can't take the blanket approach that works for every homeowner.

Bottom Line: The more additional fees a guest has to pay to book your place, the less money you'll receive at the end of the month. There are plenty of competitors out there with comparable units in size and location such as yours. Shop around and see what those are booking for.

Big box companies maximize their profits by exploiting your properties at extremely low nightly rates. They prefer to make $1.00 vs. $0.00. Most homeowners I've spoken to, prefer to receive the maximum nightly rate or not rent at all.

Stick with smaller operations that have a good reputation for taking care of your property. Everyone has access to Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, etc. Don't be fooled by these large companies that claim to make you the most money!

07/02/2021

Imagine being a homeowner that had the management fee increased without your knowledge because you just so happened to miss the email letting you know. Emails can be easily overlooked, and besides, who reads ever single email in their inbox, anyway? No signature and no authorization by you, yet your management fee increases by 20% and you discover this months later when filing your taxes.

I get it, every homeowner is responsible for their finances. However, releasing your keys to a management company is giving them 100% of your trust, and that trust needs to be valued and appreciated by the management company. It is now their responsibility to look out for YOUR best interests.

Now imagine if the reason they gave you for the increase was due to your vacation home underperforming in revenue and the increase was set in place to make your vacation home worth managing.

Now imagine if you left your previous PMC because this new company promised you the moon and the stars and that they would make you more money, “guaranteed “. How angry would you be at this point?

Now let’s keep imagining that you had 20 bookings set in place over the course of the next 12 months; before the email was sent out about the increase; and you actually read the email and decided at that point the increase was too much and you requested to terminate your agreement. They accept your termination and bill you the FULL rent, yes, you read that correctly, THE. FULL. RENT. of your existing reservations. Mind you, 25% is the management fee, yet they are billing you 100% of the rent for 20 bookings. If you’re lucky, they might shave off a few grand. How angry would you be at this point?!

Now let’s take it one more step forward for now and let’s imagine that of those 20 bookings, 8 were complete canellations and 12 were moved to another property within the company’s portfolio. You’re still on the hook for the full rent for those 20 reservations and they are still collecting another 25% management fee on the 12 that were moved. Basically, the company collected 125% rent off one reservation.

To make matters worse, the agreement never specified a percentage or dollar amount for the penalty of not honoring existing reservations. Someone just magically came up with a number back in the corporate office.

How angry would you be at this point?!

Is this ethical and/or even legal?!

This is why I can’t emphasize enough the importance of reviewing the rental agreement thoroughly and pay very close attention to how existing reservations are handled at time of termination.

07/01/2021

Every minute a guest/pet spends in your vacation home carries liability of damages or accidents.

If your management company doesn’t compensate you for early check-ins/late check-outs and pet fees, you’re basically getting screwed.

Don’t be fooled by the reason of giving the guest a better experience will lead to a better review, which leads to more money, blah, blah, blah…

Get paid! It’s YOUR home, YOUR investment! YOU deserve to be compensated for this. Start asking questions and start shopping around!

07/01/2021

If you’re not happy with your current management fee, talk to your company and negotiate. There are other options available!

07/01/2021

Keep tabs on property management companies that use YOUR property to make massive profits while you can barely pay your bills.

I was the General Manager of Operations for Company “V”, one of the largest property management companies on South Padre Island, Texas.

I was offered the GM position in 2017. I thought about it for a month and decided to take it. Although I was compensated very well and treated very well as an employee (no complaints there), I knew I had to part ways roughly 2 years into my 4 years spent with the company. Why did it take me so long to depart? I have a family to support and I had put my personal business aside to focus all my time and effort into my new role as GM. It took me 2 years to get back into working my business (while working as GM) and building it up to the point where I could finally transition out. Luckily, all is well and enough time has passed to where I could start talking about issues that homeowners deserve to know.

I was shocked at how some of the homeowners were treated - to the point where I could no longer associate my name with this company. Increases in management fees without authorization, charging homeowners thousands of dollars to terminate when they didn’t agree with the management fee increase, charging pet fees, early check-in/late check-out fees without paying the homeowner a single dime, lying to homeowners to try to justify those fees, the list goes on.

It became clear how easy it is to nickel and dime homeowners as a property management company. It’s rather disturbing and I feel a need to let as many homeowners know about some of the deceptive practices in this industry.

Ask questions, post experiences, tell everyone what your current management fee is. You’ll be shocked to learn that there are many people paying much less than you who are with the same company.

It’s time to be informed!

07/01/2021

If you’re a vacation home owner that accepts pets because you were told it would increase your gross revenue, would you be upset if you learned that you never received any proceeds from those pet fees? How would you feel if your management company charged your guest a pet fee of $1,500.00 for a long term reservation and you still received $0?

What about early check-in/late check-out fees? Do you see any of those proceeds appear on your monthly statement?

Time to start asking questions!