Excellent
Based on 662 reviews
Houfy4.8Honesty, pricing, process and quality scores appear once 5 customers have rated them.
Houfy is the largest vacation rentals direct booking marketplace for rental property types such as homes, condos, cabins, apartments and rooms all over the world. The Houfy community offers more than 87,000 vacation rentals with no booking or service fees. Guests and hosts save money by booking vacation homes directly on Houfy. Easily search for a Houfy property and book your next condo, cabin, or house directly with a Houfy host anywhere in the world.Our mission is to empower everyone to book direct and save on service fees.We designed Houfy with hosts for hosts to be a true digital market place, not a middle man!
Houfy (houfy.com) has 662 customer reviews on Folks Told, with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Showing 6 reviews with 2 stars · Clear filters
Adam L.
The app was clunky. Does not automatically sign in and difficult to use when on it
Reply from HoufyJul 4, 2026
Thanks for flagging this. "Clunky" and "won't stay signed in" aren't the experience we want, and specific notes like yours are how we find the rough edges worth fixing.
Workshop321
In well over a year (close to 2), I received one booking for multiple properties I have listed. Obviously, this application has a very, very long way to go.
Reply from HoufyMay 16, 2026
Hi — Nicholas here, on the Houfy team. I appreciate the honesty and I want to give you an honest answer back. Houfy isn't Airbnb, and we never will be. We're built Houfy as a commission-free direct-booking layer — the model works best when hosts drive their own guests through social, repeat bookings, and their own marketing, and use Houfy to take the booking without losing 15–20% to fees. That's a different value prop than a pure demand engine, and we should probably do a better job of setting that expectation upfront. That said, two years and one booking across multiple listings is worse than what we'd want even within that model — which usually means something fixable. If you're open to it, send me a note at [email protected] and I'll personally look at your listings and tell you straight what I see. We're also investing more in paid guest acquisition this year, which should help shift the picture. Either way, thanks for the feedback.
Michelle
Houfy does not get any visitors and for almost 2 years never had a booking
Reply from HoufyFeb 22, 2026
Hi, We’re sorry to hear you feel this way. Looking at your account, there have in fact been successful bookings through Houfy, so the platform has generated value for you — though we understand expectations may have been higher. Houfy operates differently from commission-based platforms. Because we don’t take service fees from bookings, we don’t/can't fund large-scale marketing in the same way traditional marketplaces do. Instead, we focus on giving hosts control and keeping costs low. This year, we’re rolling out additional tools and automations designed to help hosts directly market and grow their business more effectively from within Houfy - addressing the "traffic" dilemma. We appreciate the feedback and remain committed to improving the platform.
Linse M.
Whenever a guest clicks on my calendar, they aren’t able to select their preferred dates. Instead, it should prompt them with a clear message that a 30-day minimum stay is required. Right now, guests have to contact me to figure out why they can’t book, and then I have to troubleshoot the issue. Ideally, the system should automatically show the 30-day minimum when dates aren’t available for shorter stays. Additionally, the system did not prompt guests to pay for their booking. On the backend, I had to Google how to send a payment request, and the button to do this was very hard to find. It looks like plain text, the same as everything else on the page. This button needs to be clearly highlighted and styled as an actual button so hosts can quickly recognize and use it. It would also be helpful if the payment request link auto-populated in the confirmation email. For example, when we receive a booking request, the email should include a “Send Payment Request” button that we can click directly. Finally, if there’s a way to fully automate data transfer when connecting our Airbnb account to Houfy, rather than only transferring some information, that would be ideal. Other than these issues, the website looks very nice.
Reply from HoufySep 24, 2025
Hi Linse, Thanks again for sharing your detailed feedback with us — we’ve already responded directly to your email and are working your suggestions into our upcoming UI updates. Houfy was built by hosts, for hosts, and we truly value constructive input like yours — it helps us improve and often gets implemented. That’s why we were a bit surprised to see a 2-star review, as this rating typically signals poor or untrustworthy service, which we don’t believe reflects your actual experience or the positive points you noted. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and hope you’ll reconsider the rating as we continue to improve.
happy C.
Poor communication Other platforms have much better communication I had to reach out to the host to get address, for code door etc. also had to reach out to get security deposit. I shouldn’t have to reach out myself for all of this. Update - what a disappointing reply from houfy to me. Blame the customer for their poor communication. I am both a host/owner of my own properties as well as a frequent renter so yes I know how this works and houfy is not keeping up with the competition as to communication in my opinion
Reply from HoufySep 8, 2024
We were surprised to see such a harsh review, especially as you didn’t reach out to the Houfy team with any questions or concerns prior. We would have been happy to assist and clarify any issues. To address your concerns: in the vacation rental industry, it is standard practice for guests to message the host directly for information like the address and access codes. This allows hosts to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information. Regarding transactions, Houfy doesn’t act as a mediator or booking agent. All payments and deposits are handled directly between hosts and guests. While we strive to make the process as smooth as possible by providing reminders and facilitating communication, the responsibility for these interactions lies with both parties.
JJEMN L.
Houfy is not new, and it is no longer free, does not work very well, help is non existent (you can post on the Facebook page, but any criticisms are likely to get you booted off the page), they are now partnered to sync Airbnb calendar and pricing through Hospitable, but do not sync pricing and are only known to be compatible with Pricelabs as a dynamic pricing tool individually.
Reply from HoufyMar 30, 2024
Dear JJEMN, Thank you for being a valued Houfy customer. We aim to offer the best possible product with Houfy but are realistic about the fact that sometimes mistakes can happen. In this case however, we feel compelled to rectify some of your statements as it seems that user error was the origin of your problem. Both pricing and calendar do sync flawlessly thru Hospitable but you do need to map your Houfy listing to your Airbnb listing in the provided space. You do not need to create a Hospitable account but without providing the info of the property you like to sync, there is no syncing possible. A reply and directions on how to do this correctly had been sent to you 8 hours after you contacted us on Facebook. At Houfy we try to reply faster than 8 hours and regret this was not up to your expectations, however we still feel this is relatively fast compared to Airbnb’s policy of 96 hours.
