Embattled vacation rental management company Vacasa announced more layoffs as part of a “significant restructuring of the company” Thursday ahead of its scheduled earnings call at the end of the business day.
The company laid off 5% of its workforce in February and said at the time it was still facing substantial challenges. A memo from CEO Rob Greyber Thursday didn’t specify how many staff members are affected, writing “we will be parting ways with a lot of talented and hard-working people who have made many meaningful and lasting contributions to Vacasa.”
The company’s earnings call was scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday. Greyber’s memo offered something of a preview.
“When we last spoke, I shared with you the challenging market dynamics we saw emerge in the first few months of the year,” he wrote. “The industry continues to adjust to softening demand for domestic, non-urban vacation rentals, as well as increases in the supply of short-term rental units. We believed the headwinds we were experiencing were beginning to ease and kept a close eye on our targets. As the year has progressed, it has become increasingly apparent this is unlikely to be the case and we are in for another difficult year.”
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The February announcement — which included word that chief operating officer John Banczak was stepping down at the end of March — came amid news that Vacasa’s fourth quarter results for 2023 were the third straight to see a drop in bookings.
Gross booking value and revenue were both down 19% year over year for that quarter. Gross booking value for the full year stood at $2.3 billion, down 10% compared with 2022. The company finished the year with 42,000 homes on its platform, a 5% drop from the previous year.
Greyber’s memo on Thursday implied most of the cuts would come from Vacasa’s corporate office.
“We have the opportunity to completely transform Vacasa and do what no other vacation rental company has been successful in doing: build a thriving business that combines the best of being a local property manager with the support, scale and reach of a national company,” he wrote. “This is why we are focused on ensuring the continued staffing of our local market teams, while we are taking hard steps to streamline our centralized corporate functions.”
Brooke Pfautz, the founder and CEO at Vintory, a platform designed to help short-term rental managers recruit new homeowners, said Vacasa’s announcement was bad news for the sector.
“This is only hurts us as a whole,” he said in an email to PhocusWire. “We should want there to be successful companies in the space as it drives more capital and investment into the industry.”
Pfautz estimated Vacasa’s inventory was worth significantly more than the company’s enterprise value.
“There’s a huge opportunity for someone out there to buy Vacasa or take them private and sell off their inventory for a nice profit,” he said. “I’m sure the sharks are circling.”
*This is a breaking story and will be updated as news unfolds.
