Cease Or Consolidate

18.01.2024 - 12:09 / skift.com / Srividya Kalyanaraman

Good morning, folks. Hope you’re having an easy week. Please note that Dwell will hit your inboxes on Thursdays every week with a digest of the top short-term rental stories published on Skift. You can sign up for it on our newsletters page.

This week, we have a roster full of stories — from company shutdowns to acquisitions, the short-term rental industry is on the brink of consolidation and professionalization that industry insiders keep harping on. Plus the latest from corporate housing provider, Blueground. 

New Year Bonus: Hope you aren’t busy this weekend — Skift’s much-awaited Megatrends 2024 is now live, and waiting for your read. But before you go, on the agenda today:

Miami-based Here.co, which offered fractional ownership investments in short-term rentals, has ceased operations. Launched in 2022, buoyed by the pandemic-induced interest in short-term rentals, Here aimed to allow everyone to invest and fractionally own short-term rental properties. But the macroeconomic conditions and higher interest rates forced the company to shut down – effective immediately.

Operational Details:

Here is the third company to cease operations in the recent past. The previous week saw Frontdesk, a property management company based in Wisconsin, terminate all 200 of its employees and suspend its operations. Despite securing nearly $26 million in venture capital, Frontdesk, which aspired to be a leading property manager in the U.S., faced a significant setback.

And in November, Cabana, a startup specializing in renting camper vans for vacations, actively sought potential buyers to avoid shutting down. Despite exhausting all attempts to secure additional venture capital, the company’s CEO, Scott Kubly, announced on LinkedIn that Cabana had ceased operations and initiated the sales process.

Short-Term Rental Investment Platform Here.Co Ceases Operations

Short-term rental data provider AirDNA has expanded its business into property technology by acquiring Uplisting, a vacation rental software and channel management system. Uplisting, based in New York, synchronizes short-term rental listings across major platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. 

AirDNA Expands Into Property Management Tech With Uplisting Acquisition

Blueground, a New York-based provider of furnished, flexible rentals for stays of 30 days or more, has entered into its first franchise agreement with Mitsubishi Estate, a real estate and hospitality company, to introduce its services in Japan. 

This collaboration is part of Blueground’s partner network initiative launched in summer 2023 to expand its current portfolio of 15,000 apartments in 32 cities. Under the agreement, Mitsubishi Estate will establish a network of 13,000 furnished