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Everyday Investors Are Helping To Reinvent Vacation Home Ownership — Here's How
With the cost of real estate higher than ever, the prospect of owning a vacation home has become a pipe dream for many. But co-ownership — a new approach to home buying — is keeping that ambition alive, and Pacaso is leading the charge in opening this market up. Real estate investors, take note.
Twenty years ago, going on vacation meant spending on one of two things: a hotel or a vacation home rental. The latter option was probably more of a gamble — no guarantees on the quality, and no tried-and-tested platform to book it. Erring on the side of caution often came at the expense of an overpriced hotel room.
And then came Airbnb. Intuitively, it should have been riskier; shacking up at a stranger’s house for a week probably wasn’t top of anyone’s vacation to-do list in 2005. But all of a sudden, the Airbnb stay became a viable vacation alternative, taking you further and wider and offering the kind of lived-in charm that hotels just couldn’t match.
The Airbnb wave made vacation rentals accessible — but they also gave us an appetite for the home away from home. Today, 40% of Americans want to buy a vacation home, but as the cost of real estate continues to outpace real wages (nevermind interest rates and additional taxes), even the ambitions of wealthy would-be buyers have dwindled.
Going co-op
It’s no wonder, then, that people are turning to a model of fractional ownership, or co-ownership, to buy vacation homes. Informally, co-ownership is on the rise across the US: a growing number of people are pursuing home-buying with friends, expanding beyond the traditional model of purchasing with a spouse or parent.
But in the upper tier of the real estate market, there is a significant audience for co-ownership, too. That’s the $1.3 trillion American market opportunity1 that Pacaso, a co-ownership platform for luxury vacation homes, has identified.
Pacaso poses a question that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in an Airbnb pitch those twenty years ago: wouldn’t this market function better if there was a formalized, systematic, and accessible way to own a vacation home?
Of course, Pacaso’s disruption is specific to the luxury vacation home market; plus buying a vacation home entails many more moving parts than simply renting one. But therein lies Pacaso’s appeal: the company’s fully-managed, LLC model repackages the decades-old practice of DIY co-ownership and makes it… luxurious. Co-buyers can purchase ⅛ to ½ of a high-end home, which reduces buy-in but still gives owners the proportionate amount of equity.
From there, Pacaso handles the details from furnishing and upkeep to stay scheduling, so owners can have a turnkey, hassle-free, five-star-style experience all while building equity in a real property asset.
Real appeal
Broadening the accessibility of luxury real estate is likely to hit home with Pacaso’s target market for reasons that go beyond the lifestyle benefit. After all, while the option of owning real estate has eluded many in recent years, Americans have been steadfast in their trust of home ownership as a sound financial move.
Since 2013, real estate has routinely beaten out stocks, mutual funds, gold, and savings accounts in opinion polling on long-term investments. Despite the difficult landscape for first-time buyers in recent years, that lead has prevailed — favor for real estate as the best investment option peaked at 45% in 2022. In the most recent poll, real estate still cleared the top by a considerable margin, with stocks and mutual funds winning 22% of Americans’ favor as the second-most popular investment option.
Americans’ high regard of real estate as an investment is consistent with perceptions around rising house prices. The same polling series shows that 68% of Americans expect house prices in their area to increase — and trends in real property prices suggest their expectations are correct.
For wealthy Americans, we see a similar trend — with younger high-net-worth individuals still favoring real estate over crypto and stocks. Indeed, Gen X buyers are a key growth segment as the fastest-growing age group for luxury homeownership — and appropriately termed the “luxury latchkey generation”.
Clearly, the growth opportunity presented by homebuying is resonant among this demographic — which is part of Pacaso’s unique appeal. Buying a stake in a Pacaso home means truly owning it. Unlike a traditional time-share, Pacaso owners have equity that they can sell through Pacaso's marketplace further down the line.
Packed up and going global
With the benefits of co-ownership proving out and real estate firmly holding Americans’ investment favor, Pacaso is catching eyes in the luxury market. So far, Pacaso’s community spans 2,000+ homeowners with vacation homes across the U.S., and recent additions in Paris, London, and Cabo.
Pacaso believes the international opportunities for co-owned luxury properties could go far beyond. According to a survey conducted among affluent Americans in the 2024 Trend Report, 40% of respondents were intent on buying a home in a foreign country within the next year — and Pacaso is scaling to meet that demand. They’ve already compiled localized expertise on buying and owning properties in different national markets, with a full service model that removes the uncertainty of buying and maintaining a property overseas. Now, a “swap” feature is enabling Pacaso owners to stay in other Pacaso homes worldwide.
As for the broader impact, Pacaso’s ownership model simultaneously monetizes vacancy and stimulates local business in areas of operation. Where typical second homes are occupied just 11% of the time, Pacaso’s homes boast a ~90% vacancy rate — which is good news for the communities that surround them. Apart from the social fact that regular vacationers are preferable neighbors to one-off renters, a 2025 study also suggests that higher occupancy leads to more local spending. In California, per the study, Pacaso homeowners spent over 2x more on average than traditional second-home owners in local economies.
Everyday investors are building Pacaso
Having recently crossed the $100M2 (in gross profit) milestone, Pacaso is ready to go all-in on international expansion for their next stage of growth. And they’re doing it hand-in-hand with retail investors. Funds from the current raise were already deployed towards securing a new property in France — an 18th-century apartment in the capital’s 7th arrondissement — but the expansion presents further requirements for Pacaso’s homes, services, and technology.
Opening Pacaso up to everyday investors is a key part of Pacaso’s approach. After all, for a company pioneering co-ownership, it just makes sense.
You can join Pacaso as a shareholder now at $2.80/share. The share price is changing after May 29 — invest by then to lock in this current price.3
Advertiser’s Disclosures
1 Pacaso estimates the U.S. market at $1.3 trillion and the European market as $500 billion. See website for further details.
2 The $100M gross profit is calculated from 2021-2024. For more details on the Gross Profit for 2021- 2023, please see management discussion of the financial condition section of the offering circular. For more details on the 2024 gross profit, please see the 1-K Financial Statements section.
3 The minimum investment is $1,037.45 when including the 3.5% investor fee. This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.pacaso.com.
Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities.
Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Under Regulation A+, a company has the ability to change its share price by up to 20%, without requalifying the offering with the SEC. There’s no guarantee that Pacaso will file for an IPO.
DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.