If I see something I like, I google the name of the house and the town or the address, if you can see it. Often, the owner has their own webpage where you can book directly or there is a local rental site with less expensive fees.

It seems to me that the % fees vary by property even on the same platform, and certainly cleaning fees do. I think you need to ignore the composition of the charges, and just decide if the all-in-per-night cost seems like good value to you.

I've steered clear of airbnb because I keep thinking of their room-in-a-home options.

I've had 31 Airbnb stays, literally around the world, and none of them have been a room-in-a-home.

You might be influenced by their current advertising campaign, which touts the sociability of renting rooms in a house. Not sure I'd do that, but I do like their "experiences" quite a bit as a way to get to know locals.

I think we've only done one air bnb, about 4 years ago. It was a very comfortable full house which we booked to share with our friends ( one other couple) when we visited St Augustine. It was a very good experience. We are going to rent a house for 2 nights at the end of August when we do a little road trip through Kentucky. We booked hotels for the other stops but decided to try air bnb for one of the stops.

It seems to me that the cleaning fees and fees in general are somewhat variable. Obviously staying in one space for 5 days as opposed to one night makes those fees more reasonable.

I do think that since Covid, the cleaning fees have become more substantial.

Either way, each of these rentals for us will bei in full priate homes. (the one that is coming up may be a guest house but it's all ours).

Last year booking my Cape Cod rental through a real estate rental place was a better deal than anything I found on VRBO or AirB&B. It appeared many of the same properties were listed multiple ways. I think I just googled rental properties in CC and a list of real estate places came up.

The two AirB&B rentals I did this summer where both for the full house/apt, not a room with the hosts. In Iceland the home owner met us at the house to show us around but they stayed elsewhere. Neither place had the crazy fees or excessive cleaning demands that are occasionally mentioned with those companies.

The taxes are obviously not set by the host, and as long as everybody is playing above board should be consistent across all properties in the area. The other fees- cleaning fees, breathing fees, etc are set by the host/ management and can vary wildly, sometimes doubling the nightly rent. There has been a lot of pushback lately on all these fees. My cleaning fee for instance is just what I’m charged by the cleaner ($75) which I think is fine. I don’t have to add profit to that…

We bought a little 3 bedroom villa at the beach in March, and we use a local company to manage it. They market it through VRBO and AirB&B, in addition to renting it directly through their website. We are just getting the hang of the whole process, but I can tell on my monthly reports how the renters booked and it seems like a good mix. I think the local company pretty much HAS to use those large companies bc they are the best way to capture people new to vacationing on the island. Old timers book directly. 😊

I've boycotted VRBO ever since we had to cancel a place in Venice due to Covid and the owner said his cancellation policy wasn't in effect now due to Covid. We were months ahead cancelling according to his policy. (I looked his listing up and it was still advertising the same cancellation policy (full refund if cancelled 14 days in advance.) I contacted VRBO and I got a form reply saying "We know longer support this owner." Thanks a lot. I was able to get my money back through my credit card but the whole thing just left a really bad taste in my mouth.