Vacasa focuses on fixing “elevated homeowner churn,” CFO steps down

Vacation rental management company Vacasa says it is focused on addressing the continued high rate of homeowners opting to pull their properties off its platform.

It’s one of the challenges the company has faced since going public in December 2021.

In a letter to shareholders accompanying the company’s financial results for the first quarter of this year, co-signed by CEO Rob Greyber and CFO Jamie Cohen, it said, “the business continues to experience elevated levels of homeowner churn, which we believe is primarily due to concerns about levels of homeowner income as the industry comes off two record years. The churn rate hasn’t increased since we issued our last letter in March, but we are focused on, and continue to take steps to address, the elevated homeowner churn.”

To provide more “peace of mind and transparency” to homeowners, in April Vacasa launched its “Homecare Dashboard” that provides details on when the property was last cleaned, the status of maintenance requests, guest cleaning reviews, etc.

According to Vacasa’s website, it has more than 44,000 homes on its platform, with two strategies to add properties: a sales team onboarding individual homeowners and a “portfolio approach” to acquire local vacation rental management companies. In the shareholder letter the company reiterated that the individual sales approach is a priority for this year, and March represented its highest per sales representative productivity over the past year. 

But costs and lack of profitability have continued to be issues for the company. In January Vacasa laid off 1,300 employees – about 17% of its workforce in an effort to bring down costs. The company says it finished Q1 2023 with “staffing levels that better matched demand,” which helped it to improve adjusted EBITDA to negative $12 million, compared to negative $22 million in the same period one year prior. 

Meanwhile, Vacasa’s stock has continued to struggle, falling below $1 per share since early April and putting it at risk of delisting from the Nasdaq Stock Market.

In other updates to shareholders, the company says Cohen will step down as CFO and will be replaced by Bruce Schuman, most recently CFO of Kiavi, beginning June 1. Cohen will remain as an advisor until October 1, and the company said, “The transition was not the result of any disagreements between Cohen and Vacasa.” 

In the first three months of this year, Vacasa’s gross booking value reached $521 million, up 5% year-over-year. Revenue was $257 million in Q1, up 4% compared to the same period in 2022. Net loss was $44 million for the first quarter of 2023. Vacasa is reiterating its full-year 2023 revenue guidance of low-double digit to high-single digit percent decline compared to 2022.