Your Vacasa Property Changed Hands Again: What to Check in Your Agreement

If you owned a short-term rental managed by Vacasa, your property has changed hands twice in about sixteen months, and the second handoff has just finished. Casago announced on August 20, 2026 that it had sold every former Vacasa market it acquired, and the last moves into local franchise ownership or other ownership structures wrapped up in September. In October, Joe Riley took over as Casago’s CEO, with founder Steve Schwab moving to chairman.

Most owners we talk to found out through a change of billing contact, not a phone call. This post explains what actually changed, what to check in your agreement, and what your options look like, including the parts that work against switching.

What actually happened to Vacasa?

Casago acquired Vacasa in a deal that closed on May 1, 2025. Rather than run the portfolio centrally, Casago spent the following year selling the markets on. In July 2026, Skift reported that of roughly 32,000 units, all but about 600 had been sold, and that the Vacasa name is being repositioned as a booking site rather than a company that manages homes itself. In August 2026 Casago said every market had been sold, and the last transitions finished in September.

One detail that matters more than it sounds: not every market went to a franchisee. Coverage of Casago’s August announcement describes the new operators as local franchise owners, destination-based businesses, or larger regional managers running several markets. If you want to know who holds your contract now, the answer is specific to your market, and you have to ask.

Is this bad news for owners?

Not automatically, and it would be dishonest to tell you otherwise. Reporting indicates franchise partners rehired roughly 89% of former Vacasa field staff, so in a lot of markets the person cleaning your unit and meeting the plumber has not changed. That is the single biggest predictor of whether your guests notice anything, and it points the right way.

What changed is further up. The entity holding your management agreement is now a smaller, independent operator rather than a national company. That cuts both ways: local operators are often more responsive and more willing to negotiate, but they also vary far more in pricing, reporting quality, and financial stability. The brand on the paperwork no longer tells you much about what you are getting.

What should I check in my management agreement?

Four things, in this order. The first one is time-sensitive.

1. Your notice period. Ninety days’ written notice is the industry norm for full-service management, and it was standard in Vacasa’s agreements. If that carried over, leaving by January means giving notice in October. Find the clause and diary the date before you do anything else.
2. Who your agreement is actually with now. Assignment clauses generally let a manager transfer your contract without asking you. Get the new entity’s legal name in writing, along with a current W-9 and remittance details. This is also the moment fraud tends to happen, so verify new payment instructions by phone using a number you looked up yourself.
3. Your fee, in total. Ask for the management percentage and every line that isn’t the percentage: onboarding, software or technology fees, linen programs, maintenance markups, and whether cleaning is billed to you or the guest. A 15% fee with a maintenance markup can cost more than an 18% fee without one.
4. Who owns the listing and the reviews. If the listing sits on the manager’s Airbnb account rather than yours, leaving means starting from zero reviews, which for most owners is a bigger financial hit than any fee difference. Ask whose account holds the listing and get the answer in writing.

Do I lose my reviews if I switch managers?

It depends entirely on whose account the listing lives on, and this is the question owners most often skip.

If the listing is on your own Airbnb or Vrbo account and the manager has co-host or team access, you keep everything: the listing, the review history, the Superhost progress. Removing their access is a settings change. If the listing was created on the management company’s account, the reviews belong to that account, and moving means a new listing with no history. Some managers will not transfer it at all.

There is no platform-level trick that undoes this after the fact. It is decided by how the account was set up, which is why it is worth checking now rather than during a notice period.

How do the alternatives compare?

Published terms, checked in October 2026. Where a company does not publish a figure, we have said so rather than estimate. Several widely-cited “comparison” pages quote fees that the companies themselves do not publish anywhere.

We are not the cheapest option on that table and we do not claim to be: Evolve’s 10% Core tier is a lower percentage than ours. The difference is what the percentage covers and how quickly you can leave if it stops working. Compare the total of every line, not the headline rate.

Should I switch, or stay put?

Staying is a perfectly reasonable answer, and it is the right one more often than switching. If your bookings are steady, your payouts arrive on time, and the local team is the same crew as last year, a change of ownership on paper is not a reason to move. Switching managers has real costs: a transition gap, a possible calendar disruption in your highest-demand weeks, and the listing-ownership risk above.

It is worth looking harder if you see two or more of these: payouts arriving later or reconciling differently than before; a new fee appearing without a conversation; maintenance response times slipping; nobody able to tell you which entity now holds your agreement; or a rate strategy that has visibly stopped being managed.

What we do differently

HostStarter charges 12.5% of revenue plus a $99/month software fee, on a month-to-month agreement with 30 days’ notice. Listings stay on your account, so the reviews are yours whether you stay with us or not. You can see a revenue estimate for your property without a sales call or an email gate.

If you are inside a 90-day notice window right now, the useful thing is to know your dates before you decide anything. We are happy to read your current agreement and tell you what it says, including when the honest answer is that you should stay where you are.