You may remember not all that long ago we reported in the Furnished Homes Blog about Homeaway.com securing $160 million to fuel acquisitions and future growth. See the blog entry – titled “Vacation Rental by Owner Websites – Get Online.” New and existing investors just upped the ante again - to a whopping $250 Million!
According to PE Hub – A Public Forum for Private Equity- “As the economy has soured, fresh funding has moved out of the reach of many startups. Not so for four-year-old HomeAway, an Austin-based group of vacation-rental Webs sites that just announced a stunning $250 million in new funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from existing investors Institutional Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures…..” the article continues….”Like most Web content companies, Homeaway isn’t relying on ad revenue, either. Rather, it charges homeowners $275 a year to list their vacation properties.”
The article points out why HomeAway would need so much money…..”particularly considering that it has already raised a whopping $231 million since its inception, from Austin Ventures, Trident Capital, IVP and Redpoint? According to the company, it’s to eliminate $60 million in debt, introduce a stock repurchase program for certain shareholders, and to acquire more vacation rental sites.”
Most important to Vacation Rental Homeowners would have to be the fact stated in the article about increased competition within the vacation home rental pool. “…vacation home owners increasingly resort to renting out their peaceful hideaways to offset market losses. Even before the downturn picked up velocity, roughly one-quarter of vacation home buyers said they planned to rent out their vacation property in 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors. In 2006, only 18 percent planned to rent out their retreats.”
The Point- More and more vacation rental owners will find the need to rent out their property to offset expenses and losses. This suggests that you need really good advertising and really good presentation. And you may very well need more of it too! Make sure your images are updated, high resolution, as big as you can show them and take advantage of every quality vacation rental website on the internet – especially those with free listings for at least 3 months.
See the entire HomeAway Article “HomeAway Raises Whopping $250M Round” at PEHUB.com – A Public Forum for Private Equity.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Vacation Resort Owner // Nov 12, 2008 at 2:52 pm
It is amazing to see them gain so much growth in a market such as this. I only hope they can continue to see such success so that the market turns around more quickly.
2 MyorlandoStay // Nov 12, 2008 at 9:21 pm
I agree – its is astonishing that they are able to get these many paid listings. I guess as the economy sours and tourism is down vacation home owners are getting to stay afloat. But the Point is that in case of vacation rental marketing MORE listings is not better… maybe that is why the need to have more websites for homeaway!!
3 Heather // Nov 13, 2008 at 6:29 am
Home owners need to find their unique selling point and capitalise on it through an educated marketing strategy; listing on sites that really do the work, and illustrating their USP with fabulous photos, as you have suggested. There will be a huge amount of competition this coming year, and standing out from the rest is going to be the key to maximising occupancy.
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