How to make money on Vrbo

Vrbo is one of the largest vacation rental sites around, attracting 15.9 million worldwide visitors monthly.* However—since the platform is owned by the Expedia Group—the potential audience for bookings is even larger. Vrbo cross-posts some vacation home inventory on Expedia sister sites, like Expedia.com, Orbitz, and Travelocity. In total, homeowners who list on Vrbo have potential exposure to more than 750 million visits each month.

Needless to say, there’s money to be made on Vrbo—but you still have to stand out and be smart about driving bookings. We should know. We’ve helped tens of thousands of vacation home owners like you succeed on Vrbo (and many other vacation rental sites). Your earnings on Vrbo come down to this: a winning listing that’s built to boost bookings and garner consistently high reviews.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Invest in amenities guests want

The first component of a profitable vacation rental on Vrbo is knowing what travelers need and want while vacationing. First, cover their essentials. Shopping for these can be easy using a vacation rental inventory checklist. Then, consider investing in the most searched vacation rental amenities, like a hot tub (which can increase your revenue by 15–20%) and central A/C.

Vrbo markets heavily to parents planning family vacations. So, appeal to families with items like play pens, kid-friendly dinnerware and cutlery, and baby gates.

2. Only use professional photos

When capturing guests’ attention, looks do matter. In Vrbo search results, visitors see one main photo per vacation home (make sure this lead photo is attention grabbing), then can toggle through the rest of the images. From there, the formula is simple—the more people look at your listing, the more bookings you’ll get. Your photography needs to be compelling and showcase your vacation rental property in the best possible way. Here are some vacation rental photography tips:

• Take the time to stage your vacation rental and prep it for a photoshoot.
• Capture views and the room interiors in the same shot.
• Show your home’s layout.
• Turn off the flash. The light could otherwise flatten a photo.

If you work with Vacasa, we provide professional photography (and a 3D virtual tour) as part of our full-service vacation rental management. Our virtual tour alone can help set you apart. Travelers can filter their Vrbo searches to show vacation home listings with virtual tours, increasing Vacasa homeowners’ visibility.

3. Write a vacation rental headline and description that sells

While attractive photos can grab a traveler’s attention on Vrbo, it’s a compelling description that will hold it. The best vacation rental listing descriptions (included with Vacasa’s full-service vacation rental management) sell the positives of your home with full transparency—gaining trust, building excitement, and closing the deal.

It all starts with a compelling headline. Our Vacasa copywriters offer these tips:

• Make your headline count by including amenities that guests are searching for.
• Use up all the space allowed. Vrbo headlines have to be between 20 to 80 characters long.
• Treat them like an enticing summary. Vrbo uses your headline as the name of your property in the search results and at the top of your listing.

Some samples of Vrbo headlines, written by our Vacasa copywriting team:

2-Story Oceanfront End Condo w/Spacious Deck, Unobstructed Views & A/C

Dog-friendly recently remodeled riverfront home with firepit

Spectacular Luxury Home W/Private Pool with Slide/Hot Tub/Patio/Carriage House!

Then, consider these tips when writing your rental description:

• Vividly describe the guest experience
• Showcase your vacation home’s unique traits upfront
• Speak directly to what visitors to your destination want

4. Set competitive rates

Don’t be tempted to guesstimate your nightly rate based on what the short-term rental next door is charging. Here’s the secret to making the most money on Vrbo and Airbnb—tweak your rates daily according to demand. But don’t forget, demand is based on so much more than just your peak and non-peak seasons. Demand for your vacation rental can change with events, weather, travel trends, and holidays.

Don’t forget to take into account how much you’ll pay to Vrbo as well. They offer two payment models:

1. Pay-per-booking model that collects a commission starting at 8% per booking.

2. An annual subscription for $499, which covers all your Vrbo bookings and includes a 50-photo limit and interactive map with your listing.

At Vacasa, our dynamic pricing software (with oversight by our local market analysts) automatically adjusts your rates on Vrbo based on local market conditions—all in real time. Which means, you can potentially make top dollar per booking.

5. Encourage 5-star reviews

Vrbo guests rely on the reviews and experiences of other Vrbo users before booking. That’s why high guest satisfaction is crucial to your success on the platform (and overall). Plus, consistently great reviews pushes up your average review rating and can mean a higher ranking in Vrbo’s search results.

Some ways to get good reviews on Vrbo:

• Make sure your home is sparkling clean.
• Set accurate expectations with transparent and truthful listings.
• Check in with guests early on so you have time to remedy any issues. When you work with Vacasa, our local teams and central guest service staff are on-call 24/7 to take care of your guests and mitigate any issues immediately.
• Reply to reviews, especially if they are bad reviews (Vrbo makes it easy to do so). Vacasa will respond to reviews on your behalf as part of our full-service vacation rental management.

Ask past guests to leave a review if they haven’t already done so. Vrbo gives guests a full year to leave feedback. However, if you leave a review for the guest (Vrbo has a two-way review system which allows both hosts and guests to submit feedback), they have 14 days to leave a review in return.

6. Hire a vacation rental manager to maximize your Vrbo income

Managing your own vacation rental—not to mention making the most money possible—with Vrbo takes work. So much work that many vacation home owners often describe it as a full-time job. There are always guests to assist, repairs to handle, rooms to clean, reviews to respond to, marketing to to keep up with, rates to adjust, and so much more.

Full-service vacation rental property managers (like Vacasa) will handle it all—keeping your vacation rental running smoothly, caring for your guests and home, and making sure you’ll earn top dollar year after year.

Expedia-owned Vrbo offers vacation home owners a massive audience of travelers to advertise to. That number gets even bigger when Vrbo cross-posts its vacation homes on other Expedia sites. The opportunity to make money on Vrbo is there for the taking, but you still need to battle for bookings with the competition. These tips will help you stand out and boost your rental income potential.

*Source: Vrbo.com