Buying an Operating Airbnb With Existing Bookings in Washington

Airbnb's help center states there is no way to transfer ownership of an account to a different host and that reservations cannot be transferred to a new host or account (Airbnb article 1431). Reviews are attached to the listing owner's profile (article 1550); a new owner starts a new listing with no history. The permitted workaround is co-hosting: the seller adds you as a co-host so you can run the remaining stays on the seller's listing until they are done, with payouts routed by agreement. If the seller cancels a booking instead, Airbnb's host cancellation policy imposes a fee of 10% of the reservation if canceled more than 30 days before check-in, 25% within 30 days, and 50% within 48 hours, with a $50 minimum, plus a blocked calendar and possible listing consequences (article 990).

Vrbo's position is the same: hosts cannot transfer listings to another person even when they sell, the new owner creates a new listing, and the seller should notify guests and offer full refunds on stays that cannot be honored, with cancellations potentially subject to Vrbo's host-cancellation consequences (Vrbo help). Vrbo will move reviews to a new listing at the same address for integrated property managers, which is one reason a manager-run home can keep more of its history than a self-managed one.

A property managed by Vacasa, Evolve or a local firm carries a contract that may or may not follow the house. Evolve's current vacation rental management agreement requires the owner to obtain Evolve's prior written consent to assign; on a sale, bookings that cannot be accommodated are treated as owner cancellations charged to the seller unless the buyer signs up for Evolve's services, in which case, with Evolve's approval, the buyer may honor the bookings and receive the payouts. Vacasa's published owner FAQ says an agreement can be canceled at any time with 90 days' notice while honoring reservations already booked in that window; how a buyer steps in is not addressed publicly and has to be negotiated with the manager directly.

The practical sequence: get the agreement during the inspection period, ask the manager in writing what they require to continue with a new owner, decide whether you want them, and calendar the notice period against your closing date. Remember the tax point from our tax benefits page: a full-service manager who out-hours you defeats the material-participation test, so the management decision is also a tax decision.

Everything above assumes the rental use can continue under you. Before you value a single booking, confirm on the Washington STR laws table and with the jurisdiction whether the permit transfers, whether a new one is available, and how long the gap is. In Ocean Shores the ordinance is explicit that no new bookings may be taken until the new owner's permit issues. In Long Beach the new owner must wait three months before even applying. In Jefferson County a buyer outside the resorts cannot rent nightly for the first calendar year. In those markets, honoring the seller's bookings as co-host may itself be a violation. Sequence the handoff around the permit, not the other way around.