Vacation rental giant HomeAway has added a new revenue stream almost in the blink of an eye with the launch of a holiday home sales business.
The company today launched HomeAwayRealEstate.com, a portal for holiday home owners to also put their properties on the market to a potentially wide and willing audience.
The site is aimed at the North American and Caribbean marketplace initially, but is expected to be rolled out to other HomeAway territories (primarily Europe at the moment) in due course.
HomeAway will use a similar subscription model to its existing business - charging owners a fee to list their property on the service - rather than develop a new commission system based on sales.
CEO Brian Sharples is unwilling to say how much the marketplace is worth, except that "there is a global market for vacation home sales that is substantial".
Understandably the company will utilise the rental end of the business to expose property owners and consumers to the new division.
A property's rental history will also be displayed within any listing so prospective owners can size up prospective income from putting the property back on the rental market.
Sharples adds:
"We believe that these two businesses are closely related, as approximately 25% of new vacation home buyers will rent immediately, and approximately 10-15% of existing rental owners are looking to sell their properties at any point in time."
The HomeAway boss recently responded to comments from Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi regarding the future ownership of the business.
Sharples said there are no plans to put the company in public ownership despite Khosrowshahi claiming otherwise during a conference speech in February 2010.