--- title: "October RM Update: Airbnb's New Guest Data Rules, Vrbo's Commission Hike, and 22.5% Revenue Growth" canonical_url: "https://freewyldfoundry.com/podcast/ep740-october-rm-update/" content_type: "podcast-episode" last_updated: "2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z" --- Episode 740 of the Get Paid For Your Pad podcast. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8fwtPyR_jU Audio: https://embed.acast.com/5afc793a028014b853c89db4/6ae7742af6b38070e2e5cf9c?accentColor=161616&bgColor=e48f0c&secondaryColor=161616 Want to outperform the market? Freewyld Foundry's Revenue and Pricing Management service is driving an average 19% performance lift for STR operators, even in down markets. If you are managing 15+ listings and want a free pricing audit, **[apply here](https://freewyldfoundry.com/get-started/)** Jasper covers the October 2026 portfolio performance update for Freewyld Foundry clients, plus two major platform changes operators need to know about: a sweeping Airbnb policy update and Vrbo's new commission structure. October turned out to be one of the strongest months Freewyld Foundry has recorded, with portfolios up 22.5% year over year against a market that was down slightly, for a corrected impact of 23.58%. Jasper also closes with what to focus on heading into low season. **You will learn:** * Airbnb's new house rules: hosts can now only choose from seven standard rules, with anything extra treated as a request guests can decline * Airbnb's new guest data restrictions: hosts can no longer collect guest email, phone number, ID copies, or other personal data during booking or the stay, even to send a door code * Vrbo's commission change from 5% or 8% up to a flat 12%, effective October 29th, and why markups need to be adjusted immediately to protect payouts * October's performance breakdown: 83 client portfolios up an average of 22.5% year over year, 23.58% once corrected for a slightly down market * The revenue impact broken out by client tenure: 20% for portfolios live under 2 months, 30.1% for 2-12 months, and 11.5% for clients over a year * Low season pricing strategy: why occupancy and booking momentum matter more than per-booking revenue once a market drops below about 30% occupancy **We also talk about:** * Why third-party check-in and guidebook apps that collect guest email addresses may now be out of compliance with Airbnb's new rules * October's top five gaining markets: Halifax, Camas, Nassau, San Antonio, and Miami * October's top five declining markets: Branson, Gainesville, San Diego, Myrtle Beach, and North Topsail Beach * What's driving the slowdown in booking pace heading into November and December, including gas prices, travel costs, and broader economic uncertainty * Why operators are leaving money on the table by overpricing far-out dates like next summer or spring break * A preview of Freewyld Foundry's upcoming free webinar on building a revenue management AI agent in Claude **Mentioned in the Episode:** * Free Revenue Report from Freewyld Foundry * Vrbo's new commission structure: live October 29th ## Transcript ## Introduction **Jasper:** There has been an Airbnb announcement that might have some significant consequences for how you run your business. Hosts generally can no longer collect guest email or phone number during booking or the stay, even if it's to send a door code, and we're no longer allowed to ask guests to help with cleaning. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Get Paid for Your Pad. Today's an episode of Rev Up, where we share insights behind the scenes of our revenue management business at Freewyld Foundry. I have a lot to share today because not only am I doing an update on October, but there has also been a pretty big Airbnb announcement, and Vrbo changed their commission structure as well. We've pretty much officially entered low season for most markets, so I also want to talk about what to focus on during the low season and how you can optimize your revenue during that time. Let's dive in. ## Airbnb's New Rules **Jasper:** You probably received an email from Airbnb. They're changing quite a bit, but I'm going to go through the most important things. Number one, they updated their house rules. We can no longer set as many house rules as we want. We have to choose from seven set rules, and anything we want to add has to be a request. If you have more rules than the standard, that's also going to be communicated to your guests. One big change has to do with cleaning. We're no longer allowed to ask guests to help with cleaning. A lot of guests have complained about this: when they pay a cleaning fee, they feel they shouldn't be required to do a lot of cleaning themselves, and I think that's fair. For example, what's no longer allowed is requiring guests to strip beds, wash or put away dishes, start laundry, or take trash off site. Most professional hosts probably don't request this from their guests. In my experience, it's usually the mom and pop hosts, the ones without a professional cleaning crew, who ask for more of these things. What's still okay as a reasonable request is things like gathering used towels, putting dishes in the sink, sorting trash into the bins, and locking up. Those are pretty much things you'd do anyway. But the one thing that's going to potentially impact the way you do business more is contact info and guest data. Hosts generally cannot collect, during booking or the stay, guest email or phone number (even to send a door code), copies of ID documents, card or bank details, background or credit checks, or biometric or health data. We can also no longer send pre-arrival forms asking for names, phone, email, license plate, signature, or require third-party apps for entry or off-platform surveys. In-person ID checks and rental agreements can still be required. There are some exceptions when it's required by law, like if your HOA or local authorities require it. ID checks are only allowed if communicated in the listing, and you can't keep a copy of it. I think these restrictions have a pretty significant effect on how we do business, because a lot of us collect email and phone numbers from guests, and according to these new rules, that's no longer allowed. There are a lot of third-party apps people use to collect information, like guidebooks and check-in forms, that are often behind an email wall, where the guest has to enter their email to get access. Sometimes the Wi-Fi password is behind an email collector too. I don't know what the enforcement is going to look like, but I do expect some consequences here, especially if Airbnb really enforces this. I highly recommend going through the update if you haven't yet, and making sure you're in compliance. Airbnb is known to tolerate certain things outside of their terms of service, so there's always a bit of a gray area, but at a minimum, make an intentional decision on how you want to manage it. There's a lot of talk on Facebook and Reddit about these new rules, with a lot of hosts unhappy about them. I tend to stay out of that, but I've heard from several of our clients that there's a very active conversation going on about it. ## Vrbo's Commission Change **Jasper:** Next up, Vrbo has changed their commission structure. If you're on Vrbo, a few days ago, October 29th, they changed their commission from either 5% or 8% to a flat 12%. If you haven't made any changes to your markups on Vrbo, that's definitely something you need to look into, because you're now paying more in commission than before. That's also true for the cleaning fee. Essentially, you have to increase your prices by whatever the difference is between what you were paying and what you're paying now, so that for the same type of booking, you're still receiving the same amount of money as a payout. I'm assuming most people listening have already done this. We've done it for all of our clients. But if you haven't, look into it, because otherwise you're going to be missing out on revenue. ## October Performance Update **Jasper:** Next, I want to go through our results for October, like I do every month. October turned out to be a really good month for us at Freewyld. We saw a record impact for our clients. We have about 83 clients now, and for all of our clients, we were up 22.5% for comparable properties year over year, meaning properties that were available the entire month this year and last year, with no weird exceptions like a one-star review throwing things off. Our markets on average were down by about a percent, which means our impact corrected for the market was actually slightly higher, at 23.58%. That's a really strong result. The last couple of months have been the strongest we've seen since we started our revenue management business about three years ago. I think it's driven by a couple of things: our constant study of strategy, our team now over 10 people on revenue management, and the AI tools we're now using to find where on the calendar the biggest opportunities are. We're actually going to do a webinar on this. I did a workshop at VRMA on how to build a revenue management agent in Claude in under 45 minutes, and we're going to make a version of that available as a free webinar in a couple of weeks. The agent scans your entire calendar every day and tells you where your prices might be too high, too low, or where your pacing is off, something no human can realistically do manually every single day for every property. If you want to be part of that webinar, make sure you're on our email list at freewyldfoundry.com. I also split the results by client tenure, since for clients who've been with us over a year, we're essentially competing with our own prior strategy rather than the client's old approach. Portfolios live less than two months were up an average of 20%. Portfolios live between two and twelve months were up 30.1% year over year. Clients who've been with us over twelve months were up 11.5%, still outperforming a roughly flat market by over 11 points, with that gain coming purely from strategy improvements. ## Market Breakdown **Jasper:** I also put together a top five gainers and top five losers by market. Our biggest gainer was Halifax in Canada, up about 20%. Camas, Washington was also up just over 20%. Nassau in the Bahamas, where we now have a client, was up 17.5%. San Antonio did surprisingly well, up just over 15%, possibly tied to college football. And Miami was up just over 13%. On the downside, Branson, Missouri, which has been a tough market for a while, was down 22.8%. Gainesville was down 20.6%, likely related to college football schedules. San Diego was down almost 19%. Myrtle Beach was down about 17%. And North Topsail Beach in North Carolina was also down about 17%. On average, the market was down slightly in October, which has basically been the theme for the year. 2026 was a pretty similar year to 2025, maybe slightly weaker depending on the market. ## Economic Outlook **Jasper:** What we've seen recently is that booking pace is coming down a little. I think gas prices and the cost of travel are part of it, along with broader economic uncertainty: elections, what's going on in the Middle East and Ukraine, inflation. It's interesting, if you look at the stock market, you'd think nothing's going on because it's near an all-time high, but if you look under the hood, most individual stocks are actually down this year. It's masked by massive gains in anything AI-related. Interest rates are at a 20 to 25 year high, last this high in the late nineties or early two-thousands. Once people start worrying about their finances, travel is usually one of the first things they cut. I'm not predicting anything drastic, but pacing and pickup do seem to be weakening a bit, so we'll see how November and December unfold. ## Low Season Strategy **Jasper:** With that in mind, let's talk about what to focus on right now. We're moving into low season for most markets, though not all. Miami, for example, is heading into its high season from December through March, and there are other markets, like ski destinations or Coachella, with their own different seasonality. But I'd say about 75% of people listening are probably looking at their low season right now. For any days where occupancy in the market is really low, say around 30% or lower, you pretty much want to price at your minimum. At that point it's not really a revenue-maximizing strategy anymore, it's a momentum strategy. If you don't get bookings, your visibility on Airbnb goes down. So it becomes more important to keep momentum than to maximize revenue on any single low-season booking. You might not make much on a one or two night booking on a random Tuesday in November, but getting that booking sends a signal to the OTA that your unit is in demand, and that visibility can help you pick up an early booking for next summer, spring break, or the holidays, when there's still real money to be made: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, Presidents Day, Valentine's Day, MLK weekend, and of course spring break markets. So in low season, just focus on occupancy and don't worry too much about revenue per booking. Every booking can also lead to a review or a referral, so there's indirect value too. That said, you still want to protect yourself depending on your product. If you have big houses, you don't want to price them so low that you invite parties or lower-quality guests. That's a judgment call you have to make based on how sensitive your market is to guest quality. But from a pure revenue management standpoint, you want to be competitive. If the rest of the market is priced between $150 and $250, maybe you price at $145 so you're clearly an attractive option. Apply flexible cancellation policies, allow one night stays if that works operationally, and don't put restrictions in place that keep people from booking when the pickings are already slim. At the same time, focus on the high-demand periods ahead. Some markets are already booking for summer or spring break. The biggest mistake I see hosts make is not paying attention to that because it feels far out, so they leave their prices too high and miss that early booking flow by essentially outpricing themselves. Look at your entire calendar through the summer and make sure you're not overpriced. Keep an eye on your pacing too. If the market is already 10, 15, 20, 25% booked and you have no bookings yet, it's time to look at your pricing and probably lower it a little, or loosen up your minimum night stay settings. You can't just sit idle while the market books up around you. ## Closing **Jasper:** That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. There's a lot that happened this month, so make sure you're up to date on the changes, that you've got your Vrbo markup implemented, and that you've gone through the new Airbnb updates so you understand what's happening and how to take action in your business. And of course, keep an eye out for the webinar I mentioned, so make sure you're subscribed to our emails and to this podcast. If you're interested in working with us on the revenue management side, we do a free revenue audit that you can request at freewyldfoundry.com. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll be back soon. --- ## About this file This is the agent-readable version of a page on freewyldfoundry.com. The canonical page for people is https://freewyldfoundry.com/podcast/ep740-october-rm-update/ Freewyld Foundry runs revenue management for short-term rental operators: pricing strategy, distribution, and the systems around them. We manage 4,000+ listings representing $220M+ in annual bookings for 80+ clients. Pricing is custom and scales with portfolio size. Related machine-readable resources: - Every page in this format: https://freewyldfoundry.com/agent/pages/index.json - Site overview: https://freewyldfoundry.com/llms.txt - Request a free revenue report: https://freewyldfoundry.com/get-started/