Short-Term Rental and Vacation Rental News

House parties and out-of-control guests are the scourge of Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms. The industry has to fix this — fast.

When guests stay in short-term rentals, they shouldn't have to worry that hosts might be sharing their intimate photos and personal information on Facebook, whether it be in nominally private groups or not. Airbnb, Vrbo, Facebook, and others need to be more vigilant so that their hosts aren't violating privacy policies on their platforms or elsewhere.

Oyo's multi-brand strategy speaks to its ambition to expand out of the budget category it started in. For now most of these brands are concentrated in India, which serves as a test market for Oyo. It will be interesting to watch how these regional offerings fare and evolve to fit into foreign markets.

As more companies enter the luxury vacation rental business, the need to serve up a unique selling proposition becomes increasingly vital. But it's also key to stay true to that original mission point, even as a company grows.

The deal gives a nice return to private equity firm Livingbridge, which bought Sykes in 2015 for about $75 million. What makes Sykes Cottages stand out is that it has fully built almost all of its technology on its own and has almost 80 percent direct bookings. New majority stakeholder Vitruvian is now placing a bet on short-term rentals.

Short-term rental companies can't believe their luck. Private equity and venture capital continue to pour into their sector despite a hot market. Vacasa has remained an investor darling, in part, because it has branched into opening real estate brokerages to help boost the supply of units.

Altido, a short-term property management group based in Europe, plans to grow through bite-size mergers in 2020. Its new CEO seems right in saying that the dynamics driving the company's strategy speak to larger dynamics in the sector.

Short-term rental tech vendors are increasingly forced to pick a side: Focus on professional property managers or focus on the long tail of independent hosts. There's business in both, but understanding customer needs is paramount.

In online travel, everything is tactical and not necessarily permanent. But for now, at least, those coveted Airbnb listings are appearing in Google's vacation rental pages in some European cities. This could have big implications for both companies if those listings remain.

Nowhere is the need for a more tech-driven, business-oriented model for setting rates more clear than with short-term rental property management companies. Several startups aim to supercharge rate-setting with data-powered insights. But there's probably too many of these young companies for them to all survive long-term.