Vacasa Founder Brings Gig Economy Model to New Startup

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Vacasa founder Eric Breon, who gave up the CEO position in 2020, has a new property management startup that in some ways tries to fix the business model he helped build.

In a Skift interview, Breon said that Vacasa has layers of bureaucracy that create a “massive disconnect” between the property manager and the homeowner and guest.

His new venture is called Fairly and bills itself as “the future of vacation rental management.”

Fairly, which has 50 homes in beta, provides homeowners with all the back-end tech for a 20% per booking platform fee.

Fairly keeps 10%. The other 10% is split evenly between a caretaker and an advisor, who’s usually a real estate agent. (The caretaker, or housekeeper, also receives all of the cleaning fee.)

Fairly raised $10 million in funding over the summer, primarily from Breon himself.

Breon’s co-founders are Chief Technology Officer Jeff Flitton, and Chief Product Officer Subechya Person, both of whom held similar posts at Vacasa.

Vacasa, which declined to comment for this story other than to wish Breon and team “all the best,” has acknowledged in the past that its structure was top-heavy, and has been trying to empower local managers.

Breon, who is CEO of Fairly, left the Vacasa board in 2023. We spoke to him about Fairly. The interview has been edited.

What’s Wrong With the Business Model?

Breon: Professionally managed homes get lower review scores, which are highly correlated with occupancy. But despite their lower reviews, they outperform because they are really good at yield management and distribution, things like that.

I don’t think anybody’s delivering what’s needed. They generally drop the ball on the care side. I think the guest experiences are often pretty weak. The homeowner experiences are often pretty disconnected.

How Do You Match Hosts With Caretakers?

Breon: Somewhere between 50% to 80% of the homes are managed individually by individual hosts. They generally are not the ones doing the cleaning. They do some of the work and a person in the field does some of the work.

They generally have a great partnership with a housekeeper, a caretaker for the property. So what we’re doing is pairing those caretakers that already exist out there with a world-class tech platform.

How Is Fairly Different From Vacasa?

Breon: With a traditional manager like Vacasa, in many cases the you’ll have a GM or an owner relationship manager who will be the liaison with the owner. You’ll have a local operations manager. You’ll have a housekeeping manager. There’s just a massive disconnect between the people actually in the house, between guests and the people talking to the homeowner.

When I left Vacasa, we had a staff of 7,000. Six thousand of that was spread out across all the different markets. We had regional directors, senior directors, general managers, senior general managers. These field staff were all focused on managing people to do the job. So in contrast, Fairly is more of a gig economy model.

How Does the Gig Economy Model Work?

Breon: So we’re really decoupling the in-home care of the guest and the messaging with the guest from all the back office work, and then we’re partnering with those people, independent caretakers, to do that care delivery. So they get to set their own cleaning fee, and they also get 5% of the rents. And we make their life a lot simpler because we have the tools that automatically sends the payment to them.

We put real control in our caretakers’ hands: They have the freedom to choose their clients, set their own rates, and build lasting relationships with homeowners.

So as a homeowner, when you add a home, you’ll be able to see all the different caretakers in your market. We already have over 1,000 caretakers on the platform, and we’ve gotten really good at recruiting them.

We have teams of two, an advisor and a caretaker. The advisor helps someone get started with Fairly. In most cases that will be a real estate agent. They’re already helping somebody buy a home that they intend to rent out. They already know the permit process. They already know how to get great photographs of that house. They know what guests are looking for, so they’re already in that role.

They have that long Rolodex if you are looking to do renovations, or if you want to put in the pool, or if you need a new roof, they have the contacts. They’re not your 24/7 on call person, but they’re another set of eyes on the property.

How Does it Improve the Guest Experience?

Breon: I was looking at the past messages on one of my own properties, and the guest asked, ‘Hey, is there coffee in the house?’ And the caretaker immediately responded, ‘Yes, there’s a French press as well as ground coffee. But if you’re looking for something fancier, there’s the current cafe across the street with a full espresso bar. They open at eight.’

That’s a pretty good response. Using a large property management company through Airbnb, I inquired the same thing. I got back a message, ‘We take care to ensure that all of our amenities are correctly reflected in our listing.’