There are quite a few new members at Houfy who might not really understand Houfy or who we are. We'll try to explain as clearly as we can below.

What is Houfy?

Houfy is a unique combination of a marketplace and a social network for the vacation rental industry. Our platform allows property owners and managers to share their vacation rentals and connect with their clients without paying any service fees. In addition to being a vacation rental marketplace, Houfy is also a social network where members can publish blog articles and attach them to their listings. More than 80K URLs are indexed by search engines, and Houfy has over 55K completed listings. Our platform is still in development, but the core features for adding listings, viewing listings, and browsing the marketplace are fully functional.

Who are we at Houfy:

I, Thijs H. Aaftink, am the owner of Houfy Inc., a Colorado company. Our programmer, Swapnil Chavan, is based in India, and we work primarily from 4 AM to 4 PM Eastern Time Zone. Swapnil and I have known each other for over 6 years. I am a homeowner who rents out properties and buys and sells properties. I was frustrated with fees and not being able to really "know" who was renting my properties, so I created Houfy as a simple platform to share local information with my guests and to enable them to book directly without paying high fees to online travel agencies (OTAs). In the past, we relied on the large OTAs to facilitate bookings, but now we have the technology to accept payments directly, which allows us to offer our guests a more affordable and personalized experience.

Why is Houfy free?

Houfy is free because we want to disrupt the current systems in place in the vacation rental industry. The larger OTAs such as Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group, and Tripadvisor, as well as the smaller OTAs, charge fees to property owners and managers in order to market their properties. We believe these fees are too high, and we want to provide a platform where property owners and managers can share their listings and connect with clients without paying any service fees. Our goal is to disrupt the dominance of the larger OTAs and create a more equitable marketplace for the vacation rental industry.

How will Houfy make money?

Houfy can generate revenue by licensing its technology to other sites, such as destination and specialty sites. These sites would charge a fee to market properties, and a fraction of that fee would go to Houfy for the use of the platform. Additionally, Houfy can make money through advertising, creating connected websites for owners and managers, and by charging fees to members who want to promote their properties through special offers and email campaigns.

When will Houfy make money? Houfy will start earning revenue in 2023

Are there any outside investors in Houfy? No.

How long can you manage to keep the site up without earning any money?

We expect to be able to keep Houfy up and running for the foreseeable future without earning much revenue. We believe our technology is comparable to that of Airbnb and Facebook, and our programmer, Swapnil, can provide more detailed information about the systems we use. We are confident in our ability to continue providing a high-quality platform for the vacation rental industry, even without generating much income in the short term.

Other plans?

We intend to share Houfy ownership in the future with Houfy members who actively participate in helping Houfy. Without your help we would not be where we are today. The more you share your listing, stories, guides and use Houfy for bookings, the more you help all of us and Houfy. We are actually calculating all the views you get on your stories/listings among many other factors. These could be converted into ownership or exchanged towards "specials/e-mail campaigns etc.". (Unfortunately, I do not have more details right now. I will share when the time is right and when this will be clearer) - please look at this link and the video minute 4.

Say yes to Houfy Facebook group:

This group is to share successes, errors on Houfy, any questions you have related to Houfy. This is a wonderful group of homeowners/managers and guests. The sole purpose of the group is to make Houfy better. If you have questions about VRBO or Airbnb, please ask in those groups.

Sometimes we cannot reply or correct your problem immediately, sometimes we just fix and forget to inform you it is fixed.. Swapnil and I and many volunteers are trying our very best to answer you promptly. I'm a strong believer in customer service and I hope together with many of you we can answer questions rapidly.

Please be kind and nice! This is all we ask for.

What can you do? Study Houfy! Spend some time on Houfy, test Houfy, Share Houfy with previous guests, with people around you. Educate people about the fees they are paying. Review these 3 helpful guides: Houfy Social & Vacation Rentals FAQ & About Houfy

I hope I answered some of your questions.

Thanks Thijs

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Would it be possible to create a searchable site for a subset of homes in 1 subdivision. I live in a resort with many individual owner who rent their homes. We would like to have a link where people can only search the homes in our community. If this is possible, how much would this cost on an annual basis? We all have many different PMS from ownerrez to lodgify.

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5 months ago

I just imported my reviews from Airbnb but it's not showing on Houfy yet, how soon would it start to display.

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5 months ago
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