After two years of beta testing, vacation rental
marketplace Tansler launched last month, giving rental property owners and
managers another place to list and offering consumers the chance to initiate a
reverse auction for rental properties.
Tansler, an anagram of rentals, lists more than 500,000
properties worldwide. Property owners create their listings, including what
price they are asking per night, and keep their calendars updated to reflect
availability.
Consumers enter how much they want to pay per night,
their dates of travel and the number of people in their party. Tansler then
presents the potential renter with the listed rate of each property alongside
the renter’s offer and the discount off the posted price. A map identifying the
location of each property appears on the right-hand side of the page.
For example, a search done in mid-December for a party of
four traveling to Orlando from Jan. 11 to 17 hoping to spend $100 per night
generated scores of results. Among them was a three-bedroom condo that normally
goes for $117; at $100 per night, that would be 15% off. Also among the results
was a five-bedroom house that normally goes for $148 per night, a discount of
32%.
The consumer picks as many properties as he or she wants
(a minimum of two) and submits one binding offer to those hosts. The first to
accept the offer completes the transaction and ends the reverse auction.
If none is accepted in 24 hours, the offer expires. If
the auction is successful, however, the consumer is charged a 6% service fee,
and the host is charged a 3% service fee. Consumers’ cards are charged
immediately upon the auction’s close. Otherwise, the site is free for both
hosts and consumers.
According to Tansler, the majority of the site’s
inventory is professionally managed and, therefore, vetted. Individual listings
are vetted in-house. Reviews will be incorporated on the site in the coming
months.
Property managers have given Tansler good feedback, said
Jeremy Bernard, its CEO and founder. He said they like that it cuts time spent
dealing with consumers inquiring about lowering the rental’s price. They also
like that the offer is binding.
According to Bernard, Tansler is the only reverse auction
site for rental properties right now, and the company has a patent pending on
the process.
He said the target market ranges from young travelers
hoping to save money to families looking for accommodations that are larger
than hotel rooms but at a lower price point.
Bernard’s own experiences sparked the idea for Tansler.
His family rents houses each summer, he said, a process he would begin in March
or April. It took about 30 to 60 days to find the right deal on the right
property, he said.
“I would be having multiple discussions with different
owners or property managers simultaneously, going back and forth, and it would
just be a very time-consuming and laborious process,” he said.
Tansler represents the most recent spin on the home-based
rentals market, which continues to attract more revenue and greater investment
interest. Earlier this month Airbnb confirmed that it had secured a $1.5
billion funding round in July.
Also, vacation-rentals service HomeAway was acquired by
Expedia last week for $3.9 billion. HomeAway’s third-quarter revenue was up 12%
from a year earlier, to $130.7 million.
Neither Airbnb nor HomeAway include a price-bidding or
reverse auction component.