Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Direct Bookings – The Reality that Many Investors Don’t Realize

In this video, we’re going to be talking about Airbnb VRBO booking.com. And some of the main differences, nuances and pros and cons of each platform. I’m also going to talk about having your own unique booking platform that’s a direct booking platform, and how that factors into the mix. So if you’re a host of a short term rental property, and you’re curious to know what the best platform is, or what the different challenges and pros and cons are going to be of listing on multiple or one or the other booking platforms, then this video is for you. So let’s get started. And let’s start by talking about the most popular booking platform out there. And that’s got to be Airbnb. Now, Airbnb is always a really great starting point, it’s the one that I always recommend to people that are just getting started with a new listing. The reason I recommend Airbnb above and beyond all the other platforms in 99% of scenarios, when you’re starting out, is simply because it’s the most popular, that means that there’s going to be the most traffic, it means that for the average property, you’re going to get the majority of your bookings from Airbnb. So it’s just a really strong starting point, we’re very likely to encounter initial success. When you list on one of these other platforms as a beginning as a starting point, then you risk just not having the right demographic of guests booking on those platforms for your property to actually get booked up. Now, Airbnb is super user friendly as well, going on there and listing your property really couldn’t be made much simpler. And they take care of a lot of the complicated stuff for you, for example, they take care of your payment processing, which we’re going to talk about when we get to VRBO booking.com isn’t always the case. That means that you never have to worry about checking for fraud on a credit card, you never have to worry about disputes and chargebacks. And largely the refund process is very much within your control. Obviously Airbnb can step in and intervene. So that can be a con. But honestly, in terms of ease of use, Airbnb has got that really nailed. Getting your listing up and running is really, really simple guests communication is really straightforward. And Airbnb recently over the last couple of years has done a lot to improve the hosting backend, you can add quick replies and automated messages now which in the past, you needed to have a third party channel management software to do. Now you can do that natively right on Airbnb is back end. So there’s all kinds of great stuff that makes it really, really easy for you to get your hosting up and going. You can even set up CO hosts organise cleanings, do a lot of that stuff. So it’s just a really, really great starting point. And again, the barrier to entry is super, super low there. That being said, there are definitely advantages to some of these other platforms. So let’s talk about those. Let’s start by next talking about VRBO VRBO is probably my second go to, it’s pretty tied with booking.com. To be honest, it really just depends on the type of property that you have to list. So Airbnb is really, really great at being a place that people go to book just about anything from a property large or small, to a villa to a vacation like an experience. There’s all kinds of things you can book on Airbnb, so they really nail that wide market, demographic VRBO and booking.com, on the other hand, really catered to a specific type of guests more than others. So VRBO let’s start there really caters to people booking vacation rentals, in case you didn’t know VRBO stands for vacation rental by owner. So that’s where it really started is people that had more traditional vacation rental properties. Think about, you know, a four bedroom home down in Florida, you’d go to every year with your family. That’s the type of properties that have always been listed on VRBO. And so the majority of people booking on VRBO aren’t looking for a one bedroom condo downtown, the way they might do on Airbnb, they’re typically going to be looking for larger homes. So in my experience, whole home listings do really well and larger properties do really well on VRBO will get more bookings. That being said, if you have that type of property, it can be a really good advantage to list that property on VRBO. But if you have like a one bedroom, condo, downtown and an urban area, you’re probably not going to get that many bookings and it might not even be worth your while to bother listing your property on VRBO. Now, it does come with some downsides. VRBO has a few options when it comes to payment processing. A lot of you’re going to want to set up your own internal payment processing to process payments, and that has some pros and some cons. Ultimately the biggest pro is that it gives you more control over the financials of your listing on the con side, it just means that there’s more complexity and more involved in the setup. If you are like me and you own or manage multiple properties on VRBO, then there’s going to be some complexities it’s not quite as straightforward and simple to sync it up with some of your back end software’s as it would be with say air b&b, for example, when we’re going to look and sync our property up with our channel management software on Airbnb, it’s pretty simple. It’s a few clicks, and it’s done with VRBO, you have to go through their team, you have to liaise with their support team, get it set up. And then you can really only get the proper API connection that you want. If you actually have more than five properties, your listing below that you’re going to be stuck with an iCal integration, which for anyone that doesn’t know all that means is that whenever you list on multiple platforms, you want to make sure that you don’t get double bookings, right, you want to make sure that when someone books on VRBO, that it blocks the dates off on Airbnb. Now there’s two ways to do this a direct what’s called an API integration, which is just basically having the two software’s or the two channels communicate pretty directly with one another. The other is iCal, which is essentially like VRBO, going and blocking off your iCal, and just saying that it’s busy, and that’s a little bit less reliable. So you’ll tend to run into issues and it can lead to double bookings, which is not great. So just be aware that if ever, you’re booking on multiple or listing on multiple different platforms, you’re gonna run into some technical complexities, which again, is why I highly recommend that when people are starting out, they list with just one. And generally I think that that should be Airbnb, when you’re just starting out. When you do branch out, I recommend branching out slowly, don’t list on all the different platforms all at once. And don’t deal with all your properties all at once, there are going to be some little errors and little kinks, you’re gonna want to work out along the way. So better to deal with that stuff on a small scale than on a large scale. Guys just want to take a quick break here to say that for those of you watching, who want to build cashflow, and long term wealth by purchasing Airbnb ease and short term rental properties, there’s a link in the description right down below for a free training that will walk you through my exact strategy for investing successfully in Airbnb ease. Now, if you’re not ready to actually buy properties, and you want to get started managing other people’s properties on Airbnb the same way I got started and build a full time income managing other people’s properties. There’s actually another free training linked in the description down below as well, there’ll be a really great fit for you. So whether you want to invest in short term rental properties and actually build amazing cash flow and long term wealth by acquiring the assets, buying the properties themselves, or you’re looking to earn a full time income managing other people’s properties on Airbnb, we’ve got some awesome trainings that are linked in the description down below, that’ll definitely help you out. When you sign up for the trainings, we’re also going to send you a few other tools and resources completely for free just to help you get started. Again, the links to sign up are in the description down below. And both trainings and all the tools are completely free. So make sure to register for the trainings, links in the description down below. Next, let’s talk about booking.com. The next most popular and honestly booking.com has got to be more popular, I haven’t actually looked at the numbers, but I would assume it’s more popular than VRBO. But you got to remember that booking.com, when they first started was really geared towards booking hotels, kind of like Expedia or other platforms like that. So that’s what people are used to when they go to booking.com, most of the guests on that platform are going to book a hotel. And so if you have a hotel equivalent property like that one bedroom or studio, condo or apartment in a downtown urban area, that’s typically going to do really well on booking.com. Because what is a one bedroom condo as a short term rental, if not just a hotel room that’s probably a bit nicer has some nicer amenities like a kitchen is going to be really desirable. So that type of property can do really, really well on booking.com. On the flip side, if you have a larger property, like a whole home listing, the type of property that would typically do well on VRBO, it’s generally not going to do quite so well on booking.com. So again, just like I said before, probably not going worth going through the hassle of listing on that platform if your property doesn’t really fit the mould. Now booking.com is a little bit of a wild west in my experience. Now I In fairness, most of the properties that I manage and own at this point are larger properties that aren’t really a great fit for booking.com. So it haven’t gone on there in several years to actually list a property it was a few years ago, last time we actually launched on the booking.com, what I can tell you is B where for fraud, you’re going to be doing your own payment processing when it comes to booking.com. That means when it gets checks out, they’re going to pay with you not pay booking.com And then how booking.com pay you, again, gives you more control, but opens you up to potential issues like fraud chargebacks. And I can tell you that a few years back when we list our properties on booking.com. It was fraud all the time, you will love to go and use stolen credit cards to book places on booking.com. So I don’t know the degree to which they’ve kind of remedied that issue or fix that up. But just be aware that if you don’t have anything set in place to prevent that type of activity, then you’re going to be running into issues. Even if the person doesn’t stay there with a fraudulent credit card. They’re still going to end up getting charged back. You’re going to have the dates blocked in your calendar. There’s going to be issues like that. also in terms of security, you get the least of it with booking.com. Because with Airbnb, you get probably the most comprehensive coverage from air cover, which gives you a million dollars, I think $3 million. Now, since their recent update in liability protection for your property and everything inside of it, that protects you from potential damage it damages guests would cause. Now with VRBO, you also get I believe, it’s still at $1 million of coverage with booking.com. To my knowledge, you don’t really get anything. Now, all kinds of hosts will tell you that the best protection is going to be your own home insurance policy and a security deposit. And so a lot of people don’t like that on Airbnb, the only security deposit you get is Airbnb authorising a charge. And it’s unclear whether they even do that anymore. So with claims you don’t actually have money that you’re holding back from the guest, Airbnb has to go and collect that or pay it out or whatever. When you’re charging when you’re your own merchant processor, like with VRBO, you can choose whether you want to run authorization for the security deposit and just do it slightly before the guest checks in or actually charge the guests a security deposit and then just refund it to them after they check out if everything is on the up and up. But that also means that you don’t get as much coverage from those platforms natively. And so what I would say is that, it’s really going to come down to you as a host and how you operate for me, I’ve gone through Airbnb to resolve issues and get reimbursement for damages a number of times, and I haven’t run into issues, because we know exactly how to do it the right way. It means documenting what’s damage, taking ample photographs, following up communicating clearly and quickly with Airbnb. And I know a lot of hosts don’t do that. They just don’t document things. Well, they don’t get charged, they’ll get like bills for things collected. And so they have a hard time collecting. So I would say that as long as you are strategic, and you are an organised detail oriented person, you’re not going to have a problem collecting on Airbnb is coverage. And it’s actually going to be a really, really nice security blanket. But ultimately, for those that want just more control more in their own hands, booking.com and VRBO do allow you to actually have the money on hand that you’ve charged to the guest so that you don’t have to worry about collections later on down the road. So that’s kind of the main landscape when it comes to Airbnb, VRBO and booking.com. But what about your own direct booking website, this is becoming more and more popular hosts want to list their properties on their own direct booking platform so they can avoid the fees. Because with any one of these over the OTAs, you’re going to end up paying fees of around 15%. Now the fees do vary. And you can look into those free fee structures on your own because they do change from time to time. But generally, you’re going to be paying about 15% for the marketing, essentially, that you’re getting from these platforms along with some of the other benefits. Now if you want to list your own property on your own direct booking website, that can be a really great way to avoid those fees. But do bear in mind that if you’re using that to get new bookings, then you’re probably going to pay about 15% in a marketing expense. If you’re looking to get repeat bookings, and it’s as simple as just emailing guests that have already stayed at your place, then it can be a really great way to do it. Don’t get me wrong. But if you’re going and trying to get Sally who’s never seen you doesn’t know anything about your property and get her to book with you, it’s going to take either a bunch of time or a bunch of money to get your property in front of Sally. So you’re typically going to pay that 15% as a marketing expense. That being said, you do get to keep all leads, there’s all kinds of other benefits to it. So I’m not saying don’t go the direct route. But just be aware that it’s not necessarily the same thing that people think when they think oh, I can just not pay the 15% get it completely for free. And without effort, you’re going to be paying, you’re just gonna be paying it to different things. So there are advantages, but I wouldn’t say that it’s as clear cut as just earning 15% More, there are going to be additional costs. And there is going to be additional time put into that, when you’re going to actually launch on direct booking website. I personally recommend using a channel management software like host away that allows you to do it in just a few quick and easy clicks. So you don’t have to have any kind of web development background. You don’t have to hire a web designer, you can do it really, really easily and have an integrated, so you can take care of all your guests messaging, you’re checking in checkout instructions, absolutely everything you need all in one place. So the link will be in the description down below to check out hostway There the channel management software that I use, I really love working with them. And I highly recommend them. And one of the big advantages of them is their direct booking platform. Now, again, like other other platforms that mentioned like booking.com VRBO, you’re obviously going to be processing your own payments because it’s your own website. So again, there’s the pros and cons that come along with that. You also are going to need to make sure that you screen your guests much more diligently if they haven’t stayed with you before because they’re not going to be doing any kind of verification outside of what you get them to do. You want to make sure that they actually are who they say they are. Their credit card is legitimate, that they’re coming in and not going to take back Add care of your property a whole bunch of other stuff and absolutely in all cases, but especially with your direct booking website, make sure that you have a home insurance policy that covers you from any damages that could be caused from a short term rental guess if you don’t have that, then you are taking a really really big risk. So I hope this been helpful. I hope this gives you a good overview of some of the main pros cons differences, nuances between these different platforms. If you have any other specific questions that didn’t cover in this video, make sure you let me know in the comment section down below. Just comment with your question, and I’ll be sure to get back to you. If you liked this video, make sure you give it a huge thumbs up it really does help me with the channel here. If you’re new here, make sure you hit that subscribe button as well. We post two new videos every single week that help you to become a better host on Airbnb helping you make more money managing properties, investing in properties, whatever it is for you. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date. With all that said, thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.