Could Airbnb’s new co-host marketplace challenge property management companies?

After first announcing the creation of a co-hosting marketplace during the company’s Q2 earnings call in August, Airbnb today officially launched the service – enabling hosts to hire other hosts to help them manage their listing and property. 

“We’ve found that over 40% of hosts said they would host more than they do currently if they had help,” said Jay Carney, Airbnb’s global head of policy and communications. 

“It’s a great way for us to increase supply, improve the hosting experience overall for more hosts, lifting quality in general … and the co-host brings all this expertise to it so you’re going to enhance the experience for guests, so it’s a great flywheel for us.”

According to short-term rental analytics company AirDNA, hosts with just one unit are the fastest growing type of listings on Airbnb, with nearly 15% year over year growth in inventory as of August 2024.

Co-host vs. professional property manager

Airbnb’s criteria for co-hosts includes things such as an average guest rating of 4.8 over the past 12 months across all accounts and listings that the person has on Airbnb, cancellation rates of less than 3% and a verified identity. 

Hosts enter their address to find approved co-hosts nearby and then the two communicate directly to establish the scope of the partnership and the fee for the services – none of which goes to Airbnb, Carney said.

Examples of tasks co-hosts can be asked to handle include creating a listing on Airbnb, taking photos, cleaning, communicating with guests and managing check-in and checkout. 

Airbnb said the marketplace is launching with 10,000 co-hosts in 10 countries - the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and Brazil – with plans to add more countries in the future. 

When asked if professional property managers could become co-hosts, Carney said the co-host must be an individual, but that person could work for a property management company.

“The goal here is to have these incredibly high standards and … large property management companies don’t often clear that bar, individual hosts within them might, but the goal here is to deliver for existing hosts or new hosts this quality partnership with a co-host,” he said, noting that the average rating for large property management companies on Airbnb is 4.62, below the threshold for the co-host marketplace. 

According to AirDNA data, as of August 2024, there were more than 1.7 million short-term rental listings on Airbnb and Vrbo in the U.S. and about 20% of these listings - just over 330,000 - are managed by property managers. 

That leaves potentially hundreds of thousands – just in the U.S. – of properties whose hosts may want some support, but may not see the need – or want to pay the fees – to hire a full-service professional property management company.

According to upcoming Phocuswright data, about one-quarter of hosts with fewer than 10 properties have partial-management agreements with property management companies, and this marketplace could serve that type of rental owner, said Phocuswright manager of research and special projects Madeline List.

“This could threaten some property managers who are working to offer partial service, but it isn't going to take the place of full-service offerings,” she said.

“But depending on who is able to join the network, you may just have some property managers entering the network to offer partial services as opposed to just recruiting homeowners through other marketing channels.”

In early September, Thibault Masson, head of product marketing at PriceLabs, wrote about the coming co-hosting marketplace on LinkedIn and advised property managers to pay attention because, “Local co-hosts can now easily enter the market, potentially driving down property management fees…”

And Simon Lehmann, co-founder and CEO of rental consultancy AJL Atelier, reacted with an even stronger message: “This is not simply a new service—it's a shift in power dynamics. … While this model offers convenience and cost savings for property owners, it represents a serious challenge to traditional property managers…. Many co-hosts offer similar services with less bureaucracy, fewer fees, and often, a more tailored experience for both guests and property owners. With Airbnb providing a marketplace to match these co-hosts directly with property owners, the traditional management model is being undercut in ways that may soon become impossible to ignore.”

Additional updates

Along with the co-host marketplace, Airbnb’s latest product announcement also includes more than 50 updates for guests. Carney said Airbnb now has more than eight million listings around the world, and updates such as redesigned filters and suggested destinations are intended to make it easier and faster for users to find properties that meet their needs. 

“The updates will glean insights from a guest’s past trips or from their current search to help them search for a perfect listing in less time,” he said.

When asked if Airbnb may add natural language search in the future, Carney said Airbnb is “constantly upgrading the experience … and we’ll continue to introduce new features… and we are not in the business of hyping AI but we in the business of applying it where we think it makes the most sense to enhance the experience… and that may at some point include natural language search but certainly nothing to announce today.”