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You are here: Home / Blog / The Top Three Short Term Housing Websites

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The Top Three Short Term Housing Websites

Are you a vacation rental owner looking to find tenants and reduce your vacancy? Are you tired of paying fees for to list your property online?

Here’s a short list of sites that we think offer a great value for property owners and travelers alike.

Table of Contents

  • ShortTermHousing.com
  • HomeAway/VRBO
  • Airbnb
  • Related posts:

ShortTermHousing.com

Short Term Housing is a free place to list and rent your next vacation home, B&B or short term rental. It’s free! Yes let me repeat that, it is completely free. To break it down here’s a few highlights of ShortTermHousing.com:

Property Manager Fee: $0
Guest Fee: $0

Communication: Phone and email allowed
Listings: Provide personal email, phone and website
Example: $0 per year regardless of rental rates

Visit ShortTermHousing.com

HomeAway/VRBO

HomeAway/VRBO is an online vacation rental marketplace. HomeAway connects homeowners and property managers who advertise their properties available for rent with travelers who choose these alternative accommodations as opposed to hotels. VRBO/HomeAway puts guests in contact with owners or property managers. However, the transaction is not facilitated so tenants and owners are responsible for processing their own payments. When using HomeAway/VRBO owners pay to advertise their space in exchange for a high number of traffic to their properties- and travelers can be sure that they will always have a great place to stay. To break it down here is a few highlights of HomeAway/VRBO:

Property Manager Fee: $349 to list

Guest Fee: $0
Communication: Direct contact through phone or VRBO’s online form
Listing: Restrictions on listing property website or direct email
Example: $349 flat fee per year regardless of the rental rate charge

Visit HomeAway

Airbnb

Airbnb is an online community service for people to list, discover, and book unique spaces around the world. Airbnb assists with the process of listing and booking a space by handling all financial transactions. The site was founded in October 2007 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. In July 2011, the company had over 100,000 listings in 16,000 cities and 186 countries. The site was founded in October 2007 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. In July 2011, the company had over 100,000 listings in 16,000 cities and 186 countries. Airbnb makes both finding an awesome place to stay and finding great people to book your home during their travels secure and fun. To break it down here is a few of the highlights of Airbnb:

Property Manager Fee:  3% collected for payment processing

Guest Fee: 6% – 12% service fee
Communication: Must be logged into AirBnB to communicate with travelers
Listing: Restrictions on listing property owners phone number, website or email
Example: For a property rental that costs $12,000/year, fees total $360 – $1,440

Visit Airbnb

Related posts:

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9 Comments

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Comments

  1. ian says

    July 1, 2015 at 5:14 am

    As a host I have had absolutely terrible experiences with airbnb. They lost $4000.00 of listings and customer service is almost impossible to contact and when you FINALLY get someone they are extremely unhelpful. Many other hosts I know have had zero help from airbnb standing behind contractual disputes. There are websites of thousands of people having similar problems as I. STAY AWAY FROM AIRBNB! Please don’t support their business. I had one very good year with them and suddenly it has been terrible… And the more I read the more I discover.

    Reply
    • Peter says

      January 27, 2016 at 4:43 pm

      Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of this from other people too. It’s really sad because it could be such an awesome service, but it’s ruined by their lousy customer support.

      Reply
    • Jerry says

      May 28, 2016 at 6:17 am

      I’ve been an Airbnb host for 4 years and have not had any problems with them at all. When I’ve call customer service they’ve always been helpful. But I’ll definitely read up on problems that others have had because it could happen to me at any time.

      Reply
  2. Annie says

    August 27, 2016 at 8:41 pm

    I host a lot through Airbnb and as of now have not had any problems. My experience have been great and whenever I have a question or concern they have helped me.

    Reply
  3. Garrett Smith says

    November 25, 2016 at 10:16 am

    AirBnB is great. Or it would be, were it not for the 14% occupancy tax (hotel tax) plus the additional service fees. Hosts get about 70% of what the guest pays. A large part of AirBnB’s business expenses go to paying for lawyers to battle the politicians (and astroturf groups, hotel lobby, etc) and millions of dollars in back hotel taxes.

    AirBnB customer service is good. The website is troubled, though, and the iOS app even more so.

    Because of AirBnB, I am not (yet) homeless.

    AirBnB is great. Or at least it would be, were it not for the extremely high fees and taxes.

    Reply
    • dee says

      June 2, 2018 at 12:14 pm

      AirBnB is responsible for making deals with the states who see a pot of gold i to collecting sales taxes for them directly from person(s) booking and paying for the stay at hotel rates because the states have made it possible now to rent a residential property highly like a hotel and why they collect the higher sales tax rate and submit it to the state under their EIN. The good old I’ll scratch your back you scratch mine scenario.

      These online websites now want to call themselves your manager??? Think not read the TOS agreements! This site is not up to date as to these websites in 2018 they are worse.

      Reply
  4. Zarria says

    February 27, 2017 at 12:27 am

    You should be add Bakuun.com, its also room booking website such as full day room booking, hourly room booking. This is the first site in the world that does not require the commission from accommodation for reservation of rooms in all day use.

    Reply
  5. Carolyn says

    September 23, 2018 at 9:13 am

    Airbnb is extremely popular on a global scale and I would be tempted to use it to market properties to those from abroad

    Reply
  6. Miranda Strekas says

    September 11, 2020 at 5:21 am

    i loved this

    Reply

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