Editorial standards
We publish content to help short-term rental owners make better decisions — including decisions that don’t involve hiring us. This page explains how that content is produced, reviewed, and corrected.
What we hold ourselves to
- First-hand operating experience, not aggregated content
- Every guide, destination guide, and answer is written by someone who operates short-term rentals or works on them daily. Where we have not done something ourselves, we say so rather than paraphrasing another site.
- We publish what we don't know
- Ordinance entries carry an explicit 'confirm these directly' section. Destination guides label illustrative math as illustrative. A visible gap is more useful than a confident guess.
- Official sources for anything regulatory
- Regulatory claims link to government sources — the jurisdiction, the state revenue department, or the licensing agency. We do not cite blogs, listing sites, or competitor pages as authority on rules.
- No guaranteed outcomes
- We do not promise revenue, occupancy, ranking, or savings. Comparisons are worked examples using stated assumptions, and they say so on the page.
- Neutral competitor framing
- Full-service property management is the right answer for many owners, and our content says when. We compare structures and trade-offs, and we do not name or disparage individual companies.
- We stay inside what we can support
- Vacohost is a remote co-hosting service, not a law firm, accounting firm, brokerage, or licensed property manager. Where a question needs a licensed professional, our content says so and stops there. The disclosures page carries the full statement.
- Pricing has one source of truth
- Every published price on this site is generated from a single internal price catalog, last verified 2026-08-24. If a number appears in two places, it came from the same record.
Who writes and reviews
Connor Cushman
Real estate investor, broker, and operator
Real estate investor, broker, and operator sharing what actually works in short-term rentals. Writes about buying, regulations, pricing, and the day-to-day operating decisions that protect an owner's time and revenue.
Vacohost Team
Vacohost
The Vacohost co-hosting team. We manage short-term rentals on a flat fee so owners keep control of their listing, their revenue, and their refund decisions.
Review and update cadence
- Destination guides are reviewed at least twice a year, and whenever pricing or service scope changes.
- Ordinance entries carry an individual last verified date and a change log. We re-verify against the official source rather than refreshing the date.
- Guides are updated when the underlying platform behavior, pricing, or our own operating practice changes — not on a cosmetic schedule.
- Corrections are made in place with the change log or updated date reflecting the edit.
Commercial disclosure
Vacohost sells flat-fee co-hosting and related services, so this site is not disinterested. We manage that by publishing the cases where our model is the wrong choice, by using stated assumptions in every cost comparison, and by never gating regulatory or educational information behind a sales conversation. We do not run affiliate links or paid placements in editorial content.
What we’re working on next
These are questions owners have actually asked us, grouped by topic. Each one names what still has to be verified before it can be published — if the sourcing doesn’t hold up, the piece doesn’t ship.
Regulations and compliance
What is legal where, which layer of government controls it, and how to confirm it yourself.
Grandfathering and nonconforming use: how STR ordinances treat existing rentals
Asked as: “My city just passed something. How do I find out if I'm grandfathered?”
Researching sources · Primary-source examples of legacy/nonconforming-use language from at least four ordinances, plus a plain description of why this is a question for a local land-use attorney rather than for us.
Entity structure and STR permits: what the ordinance cares about versus what your CPA cares about
Asked as: “Do I need an LLC, and does it change my permit or my taxes?”
Researching sources · Ordinance language on owner-of-record and permit transferability. Must route all tax and liability questions to a CPA and attorney without giving advice.
Who remits your lodging tax: platform collection versus owner filing
Asked as: “Who actually remits the lodging tax — me, or Airbnb?”
Drafting · Current platform tax-collection documentation plus two or three state revenue department pages showing where platform collection does and does not discharge the owner's filing duty.
Channel diversification
Where bookings come from, what each channel charges, and how much of your demand should sit on one platform.
Concentration risk: how much of your calendar one channel should own
Asked as: “How much of my booking volume should sit on Airbnb?”
Drafting · A framework based on cancellation, delisting, and policy-change exposure. No claimed revenue lift from diversifying.
Direct booking for small portfolios: what it costs you before it saves you anything
Asked as: “Is a direct booking site worth it for two properties?”
Queued · Honest accounting of payment processing, damage protection, insurance, and the demand-generation work most owners underestimate.
Running Airbnb and Vrbo together: calendar sync, double bookings, and rate parity
Asked as: “What actually happens to my listing when I go on Vrbo too?”
Queued · Platform documentation on calendar sync behaviour and our own operating notes on what breaks in practice.
Listing optimization
How a listing gets found and chosen: filters, amenity accuracy, completeness, photos, reviews, and guest fit.
Photo sequencing: what your first five images have to do
Asked as: “How many photos is too many, and what order should they be in?”
Queued · Platform guidance on photo tours and captions. Framed around guest decision-making, with no claims about ranking weights.
Views without bookings: a diagnostic order of operations
Asked as: “My listing gets views but no bookings. Where do I start?”
Drafting · A repeatable checklist ordered from cheapest to most expensive fix, using the platform's own performance metrics rather than inferred ranking behaviour.
Pets in a short-term rental: demand, wear, and the rules you can actually enforce
Asked as: “Should I allow pets?”
Queued · Platform policy on assistance animals (which are not pets), plus honest cleaning and durability trade-offs. No demand-increase promises.
Operations
Guest communication, turnovers, vendors, maintenance, and the systems that stop small problems becoming reviews.
The turnover handoff: what your cleaner needs from you before every stay
Asked as: “What does a good cleaner handoff actually look like?”
Researching sources · Our own operating checklists, generalised so they work for an owner with one local cleaner.
Off-platform booking requests: the risks and a script that stays inside the rules
Asked as: “What do I do when a guest asks to book off-platform?”
Queued · Current platform policy on off-platform payment, plus the protection an owner forfeits. Must not encourage circumvention.
Responding to reviews: what to write, what to dispute, and what to leave alone
Asked as: “How do I handle a bad review that isn't accurate?”
Queued · Platform review policy on what qualifies for removal, plus response patterns that address the next reader rather than the reviewer.
Revenue management
Pricing tools, minimum stays, lead time, seasonality, and reading your own booking data.
Dynamic pricing versus seasonal rates: when a tool earns its subscription
Asked as: “Is a dynamic pricing tool worth it, or can I just set seasons?”
Drafting · Framed by portfolio size, market seasonality, and how much attention the owner has. No modelled revenue lift.
Minimum stays: the trade you are making between occupancy and turnover cost
Asked as: “Should I use a minimum stay, and how long?”
Queued · Cost-per-turn arithmetic with stated assumptions, plus ordinance-imposed minimums, which are a separate constraint entirely.
Booking window and lead time: how far out to open your calendar
Asked as: “How far ahead should my calendar be open?”
Researching sources · Our own booking-curve observations, labelled as our observations, with the reasoning an owner can test against their own data.
Property and design
Amenities, furnishing, durability, accessibility, and the additions that change how a property competes.
Furnishing for turnover: what fails first in a short-term rental
Asked as: “What furniture do I regret buying?”
Drafting · First-hand replacement experience across our portfolio. Material and construction specifics, not brand endorsements.
Accessibility features: what to document, what to build, and what not to claim
Asked as: “Does making the place accessible actually get me bookings?”
Researching sources · Platform accessibility-feature documentation and the measurement standard behind each claim. Must be explicit that inaccurate accessibility claims are worse than none.
Hot tubs: the real running cost, the liability, and the markets where it matters
Asked as: “Hot tub: yes or no?”
Queued · Maintenance and utility cost ranges with stated assumptions, plus local health/permit requirements, which vary by jurisdiction and belong in the regulation library.
Where to go next
Think we got something wrong?
Send the correction and the source. We'd rather fix it than defend it.
go@vacohost.com