How to make money on a vacation rental property

We’ve hosted 30 million+ guests and manage approximately 40,000 vacation homes. We know firsthand the kind of income you can earn when your second home is truly working for you.

We’re sharing insights from our revenue and analytics team designed to help maximize your rental income, whether you’ve already been renting out your luxury cabin for decades or looking to invest in your first vacation home.

Getting started

1. Buy the right vacation home

If you haven’t purchased your home yet, review our resources on buying a vacation home. We’ve seen new vacation rental homeowners succeed most when they consider:

• Location. Homes with immediate access to a nearby attraction (the ski slopes, the beach, the water, the theme park, the city center) are the most obvious choice for an investment property.
• Seasonal appeal. You’ll see better financial results if you choose a location that is accessible and desirable year-round. This could be because of weather (like Hawaii or the Gulf Coast) or because of seasonal activities (for example, Lake Tahoe or Telluride, both excellent markets for winter and summer vacations).
• Size. The more bedrooms and bathrooms, the more you can typically charge per night.
• Amenities. Guests are willing to spend more for vacation rentals with hot tubs, pools, fireplaces or firepits, and other desirable amenities.
• Regulations. Check on local city, county, and HOA (homeowner association) ordinances about vacation rentals, or ask your local Vacasa representative for insight. Some regulations can make it more difficult to rent your second home short-term by limiting the number of guests, imposing strict parking restrictions, or simply outlawing rental activity altogether. (We believe in being good neighbors and citizens, so you’ll only find Vacasa homes where it’s legal for us to operate.)

2. Decorate and furnish

Creating a beautiful space for guests is one of the easiest ways to make money on your vacation rental. Not only does this make for a better guest experience, but it’s also key for good marketing—if your guests are sharing photos of your vacation home on social media, then you’re doing it right.

There are a few simple ways to upgrade your home’s appeal and drive more bookings:

• Evoke the local charm and culture through your decor choices.
• Achieve a visually appealing and cohesive look throughout your vacation rental by sticking to a beautiful color palette and design theme throughout.
• Avoid cheap furniture. Your guests know when something is cheap or not. Plus, inexpensive furniture will have to be replaced every few months or after one season. Invest in hardy pieces that can withstand the natural wear and tear of a vacation rental.
• Use crisp, white bedding as a foundation and layer in pops of color or patterns through accent pillows and throws.
• Invest in high-touch items that guests will interact with the most, such as coffee tables and sleeper sofas. Then, spend less on items like a TV stand, which guests won’t touch often.

3. Optimize your listing

Draw potential guests to your vacation home with the help of your home’s online profile.

• Invest in professional photography. Your vacation home photos will make or break your home’s listing. We take professional HDR photographs for every home, complete with careful staging: open the curtains, tuck away the cords and clutter, hide the trash cans, and fluff the pillows.
• Give your guest a tour. Virtual walkthroughs of a home can help a guest visualize their vacation, encouraging them to book. Every Vacasa home receives a virtual 3D tour for their profile, at no extra cost.
• Write a short, accurate description. A well-written listing description helps round out a guest’s expectations and can help highlight attributes that are hard to capture in a photograph. Keep the description short and sweet—scannable descriptions that supplement the photographs are more appealing than long-winded sagas.

See what goes into the perfect vacation rental listing >

4. Update your vacation home amenities

Guests search for a few specific amenities more than any other. Here are two ways to boost your income:

• Welcome dogs. Our data shows that guests who search for pet-friendly homes on Vacasa.ca are about 14% more likely to book a stay.
• Add a hot tub. This is especially true for homes with incredible views or in colder climates. Our data shows that adding a hot tub can add lead to a 15–20% increase in revenue—and we make it easy with our hot tub maintenance and management.

5. Determine your rates

You simply can’t rely on the old model of “set it and forget it”—with fixed nightly rates for weeknights or weekends, in high season or low season. As technology becomes more sophisticated, rates have become more dynamic and are now one of the most challenging parts of vacation rental management. In the current landscape, it pays to have a team behind you.

For example, Vacasa homeowners benefit from:

• Data-based pricing. Our proprietary algorithm delivers optimized pricing based on over a billion data points.
• Dynamic updates. Prices can adjust multiple times per day based on activity in the market, so our homes book for the best nightly rate—neither overpriced during peak booking windows nor underpriced too early.
• Local expertise. We supplement our technology with regional revenue experts who know your market and monitor performance. They work closely with our local property managers to watch for unexpected fluctuations in demand—like rescheduled events or weather conditions—and adjust the pricing accordingly in real time.

If you want to optimize your rates on your own, you’ll need to invest a lot of time in monitoring and updating your pricing.

6. Manage your calendar

Your calendar can have a huge impact on your home’s profitability. Our revenue team recommends these tips for managing your calendar:

• Avoid long minimum stays. Applying aggressive minimum stay requirements may seem like a path to a premium booking, but it likely causes potential guests to skip your home in favor of something easier. Plus, if you set your minimum stay higher than what guests are searching for, it can cause your home to be excluded from the search results.
  
  For example, forcing a guest to book a five- or seven-night stay during the Fourth of July (when the demand for the holiday is only three nights) could cause guests to turn away from your property or not see it in their search at all. What could have been three nights of revenue is now worth zero.
  
  
• Avoid high minimum nightly rates. Similarly, minimum nightly rates can create an illusion of more revenue but can lead to fewer bookings as the seasonality changes. A $400 minimum rate may satisfy the demand during peak season but is likely too high to generate bookings in the off-season when demand is much lower. Pricing your vacation home correctly during shoulder seasons is one of the quickest paths to higher overall performance.

7. Market your vacation home

If you’re marketing your vacation home on your own, choosing the right listing site (or sites) for your property is key. Every Vacasa home is listed on multiple channels, depending on its location and appeal.

As with rates, working with the pros can increase your revenue stream by getting your home in front of as many potential guests as possible. Our digital marketing team accomplishes this through:

• SEO (search engine optimization). Using the right keywords and the right signals to ensure your home is well represented on search engines.
• PPC (pay-per-click) ads. These sponsored ads appear at the top of search results, targeted to appear when your guests search for precise keywords.
• Display ads. You know those banner ads that follow you around the internet? We do those, too.
• Facebook ads. When we know a guest is looking for homes in your area, we put a beautiful picture of your property right in their newsfeed.
• Organic social. Market your vacation rental on social media. Our most stunning or unique homes are featured on our own social media profiles, reaching hundreds of thousands of interested travelers.

Discover more on marketing >

Keep guests happy

8. Aim for good reviews

Guests trust other guests. That’s why earning good reviews (and reminding guests to leave reviews in the first place) is critical to your success. Here’s ways to help prompt 5-star reviews from every guest.

• Be transparent. Describe your vacation rental truthfully and accurately.
• Clean thoroughly and consistently. Make sure your home is pristine before every stay.
• Go above and beyond. Provide extra amenities to elevate their experience and comfort.

9. Learn from bad reviews

Negative reviews can often be a blessing in disguise. Negative reviews are an opportunity to:

• Make improvements. Take feedback to heart and make small improvements regularly, especially when something is mentioned often in bad reviews.
• Build trust. If you take the time to correct the issue, you demonstrate care and consideration for your guests and their experience. You may even win them back.

Learn more about responding to a bad review >

10. Hire a vacation rental management company

Making money on your vacation rental property is so much easier when you have a full-service management company by your side. A good manager will take care of all the details so you can spend more time enjoying the extra income you make.

That’s where Vacasa comes in. We’re the one-stop shop for vacation rentals, bringing you all the tools you need to maximize your vacation rental’s income potential.

Our end-to-end vacation rental management services include:

• Dedicated local property managers, housekeepers, and maintenance techs caring for your home
• 24/7 guest support
• Precision pricing platform
• Professional marketing
• 3D virtual walkthrough tour and professional photography
• Listing on top booking sites including Vrbo, Airbnb, Booking.com and more
• Filing lodging taxes and assisting with permitting and licensing.
• Help prep your home and support you and your guests for a natural disaster.
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Earning more money on your vacation rental property doesn’t have to be a second job. In fact, with the right tools and the right management company, it can be quite rewarding.