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U.S.-based HomeAway, which has quickly grown into the largest vacation-home rental operation in the world, is moving into sales.
HomeAway Real Estate will offer more than 200,000 listings at launch, drawing from vacation home clients and listings feeds, such as ListHub, according to a company spokesperson. HomeAway describes the new entity as “the first online marketplace dedicated to buying, selling and identifying vacation homes with rental potential.”
That is probably not entirely true—all sorts of sites make at least an attempt to sell “vacation homes with rental potential.” But certainly none of them can offer the focus and scale of HomeAway, which already touts more than 475,000 vacation listings in 120 countries, through its various sites.
While many rental and sales sites may envision merging the businesses, HomeAway is in a unique position, thanks to its existing relationship with vacation home owners. HomeAway has significantly upgraded the online rental process, adding reviews, guarantees and an interface that is friendly to both homeowners and renters.
With the sales effort in place, HomeAway will be able to service vacation home owners “for the lifecycle of their vacation properties,” the company said in a release.
“We believe that these two businesses are closely related,” said company chief executive Brian Sharples. “Approximately 10 to 15 percent of existing rental owners are looking to sell their properties at any point in time.”
HomeAway won’t operate as agents or create a commission model, the spokesperson said. “It will use a similar subscription model as the rental site, charging owners/agents a fee to list their property on the site,” she said.
The release notes the fortuitous timing of the launch, which comes just a week after a National Association of Realtors study showed an 8 percent uptick in the number of vacation home sales in the U.S. The NAR report also found 32 percent of vacation home buyers first look online for properties for sale, up from 22 percent in 2008, the company notes.
