Staying at SPI right now. Those fees are nearly 50% here. This is why I won't buy a vacation rental property here. You can't make any money at $200/night net for a 4 bedroom with a heated pool.

I've never seen fees like that, I'd move on to another property! We've done two fairly recent SPI trips and I've found very reasonable, beachfront rentals through AirBnB without fees like that, so it's definitely doable.

That's what happens when you buy a property and turn it over to a management company. You can either pay all their fees out of your profit, or you can let them charge the fees (but likely lose some bookings!)

As an owner, I think the most profitable option is to self manage if you have the time. But many people don't need the monthly income, they just want to break even. All those management expenses are deductible, so they end up paying little to no taxes on the rental income that way, and someone else's money is building equity.

Crappy for vacationers, though.

Agreed…I've found rentals that either don't charge the excessive fees, or have them baked into the nightly rate.

I will typically rule out a property if it comes up in my search as being within my budget but then adds 30% or more in fees when I actually try to book.

I have been able to book a place with just a nominal cleaning fee and reasonable taxes added to the nightly rate but these are becoming fewer and farther between.

It's also becoming less and less common to rent from the actual owner/host. Even if the place isn't managed by a company, often the "host" is just a paid booking manager with no actual ownership in the property.

I also won't book a place that doesn't have a decent cancellation policy. Keeping 1/2 of the total cost after 24-48 hours from booking is not acceptable to me.

With that said, hotels are doing the same thing. I booked a hotel in NYC last year. If I had booked directly on the hotel website, there would have been an extra 30% in taxes and fees above the nightly rate. When I booked through my cc travel portal, the extra fees were not added (and I was not charged when I checked in).

I believe AirBNB was going to start showing the all-in cost for people, including all taxes, fees, etc., but I haven't personally booked on there in a while so I am not sure. (Recent trip I mentioned my SO booked)

I'm a long-time customer of VRBO, and have never had a bad experience. But I still prefer to rent from individuals rather than management companies. It's just one of the filters I use when making a decision.

VRBO's original business model seems to lend itself more to owners who care about their home and its guests, vs. those who just bought a property to rent it out. Or maybe I've just been fortunate.

Yes this particular properly is nice and I think the owner has taken the hit so that the management company can make theirs. It isn't a crappy place. I just think SPI has become a market of management company and realtor vultures where the property owners and renters take it in the shorts.

They really should do this. But I typically search by price per night, and while you get a "total", the last time I searched (a couple of months ago), that number went up significantly once taxes and fees kicked in. A lot of properties wound up being way outside the range I set because of that.

And if it's a flat fee, it's harder aggregate by price per night, if you're searching by that.

I'd personally prefer to see all those extra charges baked into one quote, but I think the industry is way beyond that - both hotels and rentals.