In a second round of cuts since mid-year, property manager AvantStay laid off 144 staffers, about 22 percent of its workforce, according to a published report from Short Term Rentalz.
An Avantstay property in Isle of Palms by Charleston, South Carolina. Source: AvantStay.
This followed the Los Angeles-based vacation rental firm eliminating some 43 jobs around June 1.
In a letter to employees, AvantStay spun the latest round of layoffs as an issue of over-hiring and too rosy a forecast rather than slackened demand or any other underlying problems at the company.
However, at least one rival, public company Vacasa, reported softening demand for vacation rentals that began in the third quarter, which ended September 30.
AvantStay representatives didn’t respond to a Skift request for comment Wednesday.
Traveler demand for vacation rentals in the U.S. is still growing, but the pace has “started to decelerate quickly,” according to a report from property manager Evolve.
Property manager Evolve’s office, as seen in 2017. Evolve
While vacation rental demand was up 32 percent year over year in January 2022, it slowed to 9 percent growth in May, the report found.
At the same time, supply of vacation homes in the U.S. is holding steady, if not accelerating. Evolve said vacation rental supply growth stood at 10 percent in January 2022, and in May it notched 12 percent growth.
“This means the economic environment is beginning to impact summer travel demand, and there will be more vacation homes vying for fewer guest bookings overall,” Evolve stated.
Asked whether the slowing demand growth might cause Evolve to do a restructing, including layoffs, co-founder and CEO Brian Egan said there have been no layoffs.
“No, quite the opposite, we’re continuing to grow rapidly,” Egan said. “Relative to any pre-pandemic time period, 2022 has been an incredible year for demand, and the impact of the macroeconomy is showing up in modest ADR (Average Daily Rate) compression year over year. It’s not threatening the fundamentals of occupancy that really drive the economics of our business.”
Property manager AvantStay said Friday its employee roster was subject to 43 “job reductions” in the past 30 days.
The company argued that these weren’t layoffs because they came as part of a “gradual reorganization.” There actually was a net reduction of 19 employees over the last month because the company, which has around 600 staffers, also did hiring during the period, AvantStay said.
Skift earlier reported that AvantStay had fired around 80 employees, but AvantStay’s statement about 43 job reductions cast doubt on the original number. AvantStay, however, would only make statements about job reductions in the past 30 days.
Avantstay lists many upscale vacation homes for rental, including this property in Isle of Palms by Charleston, South Carolina. Source: AvantStay.
Avantstay said in December it managed more than 1,000 properties in more than 100 cities.
AvantStay founder and CEO Sean Breuner said: “As you know we recently hired a new COO and we executed a reorganization of our company to eliminate redundancies and introduce new executives. We have been and will continue to keep hiring as travel remains robust this summer (hopefully others seeing same).”
The company said it is not engaging in any fundraising at this time.
Several now-former AvantStay employees posted about the layoffs on various social media platforms. One said the company cited a looming recession, and investor losses as among reasons behind the job cuts.
An announcement on a Wanderjaunt customer service phone line said that “due to the current economic situation” Wanderjaunt is permanently closing on Thursday, June 30, and ceased operations Tuesday.
Guests with bookings that had checkouts by Thursday could complete their stays, the announcement said, and those with stays running after that should vacate the properties by June 30.
The company said it would process refund requests but customers should contact their credit card companies with any difficulties.
Guests who booked Wanderjaunt properties on Airbnb should contact Airbnb, the announcement said.
Co-founded by Michael Chen, Barrett Glasauer and Andres Green, the property manager, launched in 2016 in the San Francisco Bay Area, had raised $37 million from investors including Global Founders Capital, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures and Bossanova Investmentos.
WanderJaunt entered into long-term leases with developers, and distributed its rentals on Airbnb and other third-party websites. It was trying to build a brand.
