I've been a fan of vacation rentals for years. Pretty early, in March 2010, I discovered Airbnb. When I was launching HeyCrowd and searched for ways to make extra money, I posted a listing on Craigslist to rent my apartment. One day, someone contacted me, in French, saying that she liked my place and that I should put it on a site called Airbnb. I visited the site, found it really well designed, and put my apartment on there.

A few years later, I discovered that this email on Craigslist was actually a dodgy growth hacking trick used massively by Airbnb at the beginning. I've hosted about 20 guests since then, from Australian tourists to Romanian prostitutes (yes, really.)

In a few years, Airbnb became one of the most successful startups of the decade. I've heard that on a given night, more people sleep in an Airbnb-rented apartment in New York than in the biggest hotel of the city. There has even been some similar sites taking off like the european Housetrip.

But to me the problem with Airbnb is something else. It's just money.

The thing that got me excited in vacation rentals in the beginning was great returns. By putting a little more work to rent your place to foreigners several times a year, you'd get a better return on average than if you rent it to locals. And it was all the more true at the beginning where there was a lot of demand from Americans visiting Paris and not many offers.

But this is merely the case anymore. As more and more people started to rent their apartment on Airbnb, the market became more efficient, and the prices almost similar to a "normal" rent, just with more hassle of having to manage the whole process. In some cases, the prices are even lower than a normal rent! Because some people use it as a quick way to make cash by subletting an apartment that they do not own, just rent, when they go on vacation. This is why in the summer, it's not necessarily a good time to rent his place on Airbnb as even if their is increased demand, there is also much more offers.

When the return was good, you'd pay happily a hefty commission to the website Airbnb. When the return is average, you start to question it.

At the beginning, guests would be early adopters that enjoyed a new way of travelling. Now that the site is famous, guests are very demanding, as they feel like booking a place on hotels.com and expecting perfect service.

In other words, it's becoming a pain for apartment owners who aren't compensated enough for that extra work. Airbnb will probably continue to be a great business, but in my case, I now feel that it's better to just use it as tourist, not as apartment owner.

Since having a big amount of great properties is actually the hardest part for starting off this kind of marketplace, I suspect there will be new entrants sweetening the deal for them.