I have a friend at work and they have 3 condos in Destin. Nice condos. They rent them all the time. They got tired of getting ripped off by VRBO. She now lists them on her own website and gets more traffic there. She uses various means such as Facebook to direct traffic there, but now she just has a loyal following. I can assure anyone it's anything but "half assing" it. They've already paid for two of the condos and are paying off the 3rd one.

VRBO is kind of like the Uber of rentals. You create an app that uses other people's time, capital investments, hard work and resources, and then take about 40% of the cut for basically doing nothing and risking nothing. And then play all kinds of games with the people you are ripping off like listing them way down the search if they opt for a less expensive plan, holding your money, etc...

Interesting reviews from renters and owner's of vacation rental property owners:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/vrbo.html

I think VRBO may have started with a good plan, but they have strayed far away from that now.