The future of vacation rental management
Hello again.
In the 11 years I led Vacasa, we grew to be the largest vacation rental management company in the US, managing 25,000 homes with a team of 7,000 employees. There were two keys to Vacasa’s success: we delivered unbeatable revenue for homeowners, and our local teams provided impeccable care for the homes and guests. The skill, dedication, and care of our local teams combined with our technology provided unbeatable results.
A decade later, as a guest and homeowner, my experience with property managers has been quite different. Individualized care has been replaced with layers of management and nearly all managers now rely on low-bid contractors for housekeeping. The homes I’ve rented have generally felt uncared for. And the standard, it seems, is now to route guest communications to low-cost labor that lacks any knowledge of the home. My experience here isn’t unique: guests ratings on Airbnb for properties managed by third parties average only 4.62, versus around 4.8 for individually managed properties.
But managing properties individually is a lot of work. And despite better reviews, individually managed properties rent for less as it’s hard to compete with the yield management, channel distribution, and other advantages of large companies. And individual owners generally lack connections to the local communities of housekeepers and other professionals, especially if they’re not local.
Fairly was born from a simple goal: empowering individualized care with an industry-leading platform.
At Fairly, we’ve combined the best of individualized management with a tech platform that allows individuals to out-compete large managers. But the real magic isn’t the technology - it’s the people we empower. It’s the advisors who help potential owners find the perfect home, and the caretakers who ensure the homes and guests are cared for.
As a homeowner, you can choose the caretaker you work with, and you can easily switch if they’re not meeting your needs. Thousands of exceptional caretakers have already joined our platform, and we're always adding more. With Fairly, caretakers set the cleaning fee they're willing to clean for, and they also share in the success of the property, receiving 25% of Fairly's fee. As caretakers earn far more with Fairly and as they're generally only working with a few homes, they have the capacity to be the primary point of contact for guest questions. And who better to answer those questions than the person who's in the home between every stay?
Like caretakers, advisors are also key partners of Fairly. A great real estate agent is the perfect advisor to help navigate the process of renting a home as a vacation rental. They're familiar with local regulations and can help with the permit process. They are experts in marketing properties, and they know how to set up a home for success. They generally have a long rolodex of service providers like roofers, plumbers, electricians, and contractors. Like caretakers, our advisors share in the ongoing success of the property, also receiving 25% of Fairly's fee. And we’re partnering with real estate agents to better assist buyers, as our leads and data combined with their expert local knowledge provide an unbeatable combination for anyone looking to buy a vacation rental.
To support our homeowners, caretakers, and advisors, we've built the Fairly platform around the core principles of simplicity and control. Our system streamlines the process of listing properties on popular booking sites like Airbnb and VRBO, synchronizing calendars, rates, and communications. We’re automating time-consuming administrative tasks like accounting, lodging tax collection and remittance, and utility bill management, making tax-time easy. Fairly also embeds industry-leading yield management while empowering homeowners to set the strategy they prefer. Is your home purely an investment, from which you want to extract the maximum potential revenue? We make that easy. Is your home a treasured family sanctuary, for which you’d prefer to maintain higher prices to minimize wear & tear while maintaining availability for your personal use? We make that easy, too, and the choice is yours.
Fairly is 100% employee-owned, with an incredible team of industry veterans. We're working with exceptional housekeepers and real estate agents in markets throughout the country. We're delivering homeowners exceptional revenue AND individualized care, and we're making vacation rentals simple while also empowering homeowners with control.
Are you a potential homeowner, caretaker, advisor, or employee? We’d love for you to join us on this journey.
Eric Breon
Founder & CEO, Fairly
eric.breon@fairly.com