Vacation rental management tech startup Vacasa isn’t slowing down its ambitions to conquer the market: this week, it announced that it has purchased Sterling Resorts, a vacation management company on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Sterling has changed hands before: it was bought by Pacifica Companies in 2015 and currently manages 450 homes.
Now it will become a part of Vacasa’s effort to expand its presence in vacation destinations such as northern Florida, where Sterling is based.
At the time of this latest purchase, Sterling’s home inventory was down from 585 properties in 2015.
Vacasa has raised more than $200 million since its launch 10 years ago. Founder Eric Breon said he was motivated to start the company after struggling to find a satisfactory management solution for a cabin belonging to his wife’s family on the Washington coast.
Now Vacasa seeks to provide rental property owners with “a seamless experience…through innovative technology and local staff,” that give them peace of mind — especially critical if the owners are far and can’t easily check up on a property — and maximize their earnings from renters with tech-enabled variable pricing. Vacasa says that it employs a data analytics team to “customize each home’s pricing patterns to maximize profitability,” so that every separate booking of a single property could conceivably have a different price, depending on not just seasonality, but the booking timing, property features and more.
For renters, Vacasa offers a rental/vacation home search option similar to other vacation rental booking websites (though Vacasa has previously been clear to point out that it sees itself as a compliment, not a competitor, to Airbnb).
Over the last year, Vacasa has taken several steps to expand its offering. It has launched a real estate arm that connects agents to buyers and sellers and started a management program for condo developments that are primarily used as vacation rentals.
After this acquisition, Vacasa will have control of over 13,000 vacation rentals, furthering its goals of become the largest vacation management company in North America.