Finding a Better Way
The rental market on Nantucket is evolving, with traditional brokerages and modern platforms like Airbnb and VRBO competing for dominance. NantucketRentals.com was created to bridge the gap between these two approaches, offering a solution that combines the best of both worlds to address inefficiencies and provide more flexibility for both homeowners and renters.
The Current State of the Nantucket Rental Market
The Nantucket rental market today is characterized by two distinct silos: traditional Nantucket brokerages and modern online platforms like Airbnb and VRBO. Nantucket brokerages, some with roots dating back nearly a century, have long dominated the local rental scene. They primarily offer weekly rentals, typically centered around a Saturday or Sunday turnover day, and have built a reputation on personal service and deep local knowledge.
However, in recent years, a shift has been occurring. Platforms like Airbnb and VRBO have introduced a new way of doing business, allowing homeowners to control every aspect of their rental process — creating listings, managing bookings, setting rates, and more — all from the convenience of a single online dashboard. This DIY approach has proven increasingly attractive to homeowners looking for more control and flexibility.
Amidst this shift, there has been significant discussion within the industry, particularly from those on the brokerage side, about a supposed decline in the rental market. Various narratives have circulated, with some claiming rentals are down as much as 20%, while others suggest the decline is closer to 10%. These claims are predominantly coming from the traditional brokerage sector, which has faced increasing pressure as online platforms gain market share.
Despite these claims, the reality painted by the 11.7% short-term rental tax, which applies uniformly across all bookings — whether through a brokerage, Airbnb, VRBO, or other means — suggests a different story. Tax revenues have been steadily growing, indicating that the rental market, in terms of dollar volume, is not in decline. Those arguing that rentals are down suggest that this increase in tax revenue is merely a result of rising rental rates, driven by inflation and the naturally increasing value of Nantucket properties. While this may be partially true, it’s also clear that platforms like Airbnb and VRBO are capturing a larger share of the market, leading to a redistribution of rental activity rather than an outright decline.
From a Homeowner’s View: Listing with Brokerages vs Airbnb and VRBO
Homeowners looking to rent out their properties on Nantucket face a critical decision: whether to list on a platform like Airbnb or VRBO or to go through a traditional local brokerage. Each option comes with its own set of pros and cons, and the choice ultimately depends on what the homeowner values most — control and flexibility, or convenience and support.
On platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, homeowners have complete control over their listings. They can create their own property descriptions, set their own rates, and establish their own booking rules. They also have the flexibility to adjust availability in real-time, respond directly to inquiries, and manage bookings without any intermediaries. This DIY approach can be highly appealing to homeowners who prefer to stay involved in the rental process and who are comfortable handling all aspects of property management, from marketing to guest communication.
However, this level of control comes with significant responsibilities. Homeowners must be prepared to handle everything on their own, including responding to inquiries at all hours, dealing with guest complaints or issues during their stay, and managing the financial aspects of the rental, such as collecting payments and handling refunds. For some homeowners, this level of involvement can be overwhelming, particularly if they do not live on Nantucket full-time or have other commitments.
On the other hand, listing with a traditional brokerage offers a more hands-off approach. When homeowners choose to work with a brokerage, they benefit from a team of professionals who handle most of the day-to-day responsibilities associated with renting out a property. This includes creating a compelling listing, taking professional photographs, marketing the property to potential renters, vetting potential tenants, and managing all aspects of the booking process.
The trade-off, however, is that homeowners must relinquish some control over how their property is marketed and rented. Additionally, the traditional brokerage model tends to be less flexible to renters than platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, particularly when it comes to accommodating non-standard booking dates or customizing the rental terms to suit specific needs.
Airbnb and VRBO: Booking Process
The booking process on these platforms is streamlined: renters see real-time availability, select their dates, and confirm their booking with just a few clicks. Payment is handled directly through the platform, and the homeowner receives the funds (minus a service fee) shortly after the booking is confirmed. Communication between the homeowner and the renter is facilitated through the platform’s messaging system, allowing for easy coordination before, during, and after the stay.
The Traditional Brokerage: Booking Process
To understand why this shift is happening, it’s essential to look closely at the processes currently employed by traditional brokerages. When a renter begins their search with a brokerage, they often encounter listings with a disclaimer: “Information believed to be accurate but calendars and rates are subject to change.” This uncertainty stems from Nantucket’s shared rental listing environment, where many homeowners list their properties with multiple brokerages to maximize exposure. Each brokerage maintains its own calendar for the property, leading to a situation where no single brokerage can be entirely sure of a property’s availability.
The process that follows is cumbersome. When a renter inquires about a property, the brokerage typically requires them to fill out a form providing contact information, travel dates, guest count, and sometimes a brief message about their group. This information is then routed to the “up agent” — the agent currently on shift according to the brokerage’s rotating schedule.
The up agent receives the inquiry and must then contact the homeowner to confirm the property’s availability, a process that often involves a series of phone calls, texts, or emails. If the homeowner is not immediately reachable, the agent and renter are left waiting. Once availability is confirmed, the agent follows up with the renter to confirm their interest in booking. If the renter decides to proceed, the agent drafts a lease agreement, typically using a rental management tool, and sends it to the tenant for electronic signature. After the tenant signs, the lease is sent to the homeowner for their signature. Finally, a payment link is sent to the renter for the first payment, and only then is the booking confirmed.
This entire process, while thorough, is time-consuming and labor-intensive. In an age where instant booking and real-time availability are increasingly the norm, the traditional brokerage process can feel outdated and inefficient.
The Shift Towards Online Platforms
This inefficiency is one of the primary reasons platforms like Airbnb and VRBO are gaining market share. On these platforms, renters can search for properties, see real-time availability, and book instantly without waiting for confirmation from an agent or homeowner. The nature of these platforms empowers renters to quickly find properties and dates that work for them. This is all made possible due to the technology enabling homeowners to set and update acceptable booking terms, such as minimum stay lengths, minimum acceptable rent amounts, and other rules, all of which are digitally updated and reflected in real time, offering a level of flexibility that traditional brokerages can not provide.
Moreover, the rigidity of the traditional brokerage model, with its emphasis on weekly rentals centered around specific turnover days, doesn’t align with the diverse needs of today’s renters. When a renter submits an inquiry for non-standard dates, such as a Thursday to Tuesday stay, the process becomes even more complicated. The agent must manually contact each homeowner to see if they would be willing to accommodate the non-standard dates and, if so, at what rate? Given the volume of properties and inquiries, this is an impractical task, leading to missed opportunities for both homeowners and renters.
Building a Better System with NantucketRentals.com
Recognizing these challenges, we set out two years ago to build NantucketRentals.com, combining the best aspects of Airbnb, VRBO, and traditional brokerages into one streamlined entity. From the outset, we partnered with Congdon and Coleman Real Estate, integrating their entire rental inventory into our platform. This partnership provided homeowners with additional marketing exposure at no extra cost, as their properties were now featured on two websites instead of one. Initially, we made it possible to submit booking requests for these properties entirely online, similar to Airbnb and VRBO, cutting out many of the labor-intensive steps from the traditional brokerage process. However, we were still modeling the preexisting rulesets of the brokerage world, specifically the strict, weekly-only, fixed turnover day model, and lacked an efficient mechanism to field booking requests and inquiries outside of these precise Saturday-to-Saturday stays.
As our platform grew, and we achieved the #1 organic search result for a majority of Nantucket rental-related keywords on Google, our site traffic exploded, with tens of thousands of searches being conducted on our website. We quickly realized that a vast majority of these searches were for date ranges outside the rigid brokerage model, such as ten-day stays, long weekends, or mid-week stays. This often led to renter frustration and forced them to contact us for assistance, at which point we had to follow up with homeowners, just like any traditional brokerage. We discovered that many homeowners were open to allowing these non-standard dates at specific rates and terms, but our platform did not initially have a way to accommodate these preferences proactively.
Realizing that this bottleneck was hindering our growth and creating consistent missed opportunities for the homeowners we worked with, we knew we needed to evolve. To truly fulfill our vision, we could not simply replicate the traditional brokerage model with its inherent inefficiencies. Instead, we needed to create a system where all acceptable terms for homeowners — including flexible dates, rates, and booking rules — were known ahead of time and accurately represented to renters searching on our platform. This shift from a reactive process to a proactive one is essential to better serve both renters and homeowners.
The Nantucket Rentals Listing Manager
In response, we developed the Nantucket Rentals Listing Manager, a custom tool designed to address the specific challenges of the Nantucket rental market. This tool allows homeowners to update their rates, availability, and booking rules online in real-time. They can adjust check-in and check-out days for different date ranges, manage their calendars, and ensure that the information renters see is accurate and up-to-date.
One of the most innovative features of the Listing Manager is its calendar-sharing tool, which allows homeowners to share updates with any brokerage on Nantucket with just a few clicks. This ensures that all parties are working with the most current information, reducing the inefficiencies and miscommunications that have plagued the market for years.
The Path Ahead
NantucketRentals.com is committed to continuously improving and evolving based on feedback from homeowners and renters alike. By merging the best elements of online platforms with the personalized service of traditional brokerages, we aim to create a rental experience that is both efficient and flexible, benefiting everyone involved.
As we move forward, we are excited about the potential to redefine the rental market on Nantucket. By addressing the inefficiencies that have long plagued the market and offering tools that empower both homeowners and renters, we believe that NantucketRentals.com is poised to lead the way in a new era of vacation rentals on the island.