Skift Take
Industry veteran Carl Shepherd voices skepticism about short-term rental arbitrage.
Earlier this month, Skift published a list of top U.S. cities that offer the potential to profit from short-term rental arbitrage.
The idea: To lock in a long-term lease on a property and collect more than the lease amount by renting it out. The added bonus here, and the “arbitrage” part is that you don’t have to deal with owning the property.
Since then we received feedback from industry experts expressing skepticism about the model and its repercussions on the industry. Skift spoke to Carl Shepherd, who founded HomeAway in the early 2000s and is a prominent board member at several companies including Hostelworld, Turnkey, Edge Resorts, and more.
Shepherd helped unpack the phenomenon of short-term rental arbitrage. To sum it up: He noted that arbitrage increases inventory a