How Host Agents scaled to 1,000+ monthly bookings and global expansion with Rentals United
Host Agents is a South African based holiday rental management company that has grown from a local operator into an international company with 350+ properties across South Africa, Mauritius, and Dubai.
| No. Properties Connected | 350+ |
| Headquarter Location | Cape Town, South Africa |
| Tech Used | Rentals United Custom API |
| Website | Visit Now |
The challenges
Inefficient dynamic pricing:
Their previous channel manager could not support dynamic rate optimization, which limited their ability to maximize revenue across 350+ properties.
Technical overload:
Building and maintaining direct API connections to dozens of international channels in-house was becoming financially and technically impractical.
Expansion friction:
Launching in new territories like Dubai required a distribution partner with a proven, ready-to-use international channel reach.
The Solution
Outcome
350+
Properties managed1,000+
Bookings per month+3
New countries
The complexity of building our own channel manager, leaving that to the experts, makes sense. What I liked about Rentals United is that you offer an API, and we're only scratching the surface
The success story behind Host Agents
Host Agents has been a fixture in the short-term rental market since 2011, beginning when the industry was still in its infancy. Over the last thirteen years, they have evolved from a local South African operator into an international property management powerhouse.
Today, they manage more than 350 properties across three distinct markets: South Africa, Mauritius, and Dubai. What sets Host Agents apart is their high-tech, centralized approach; their 50-person head office in Cape Town manages international operations remotely, combining local field staff with sophisticated, custom-built technology. As they expanded globally, their goal was to maintain 8–10% monthly growth without becoming overwhelmed by the technical complexity of diverse markets.
The challenge
Despite having a dedicated team of five in-house developers and a custom Property Management System (PMS), Host Agents hit a ceiling with their existing distribution tools. They faced several critical bottlenecks:
- Inefficient dynamic pricing: Their previous channel manager could not support dynamic rate optimization, which limited their ability to maximize revenue across 350+ properties.
- The “double CM” problem: To maintain bookings from Lekkerslaap, the most critical local channel in South Africa, the team was forced to run two separate channel managers simultaneously.
- Technical overload: Building and maintaining direct API connections to dozens of international channels in-house was becoming financially and technically impractical, distracting their developers from core PMS improvements.
- Expansion friction: Launching in new territories like Dubai required a distribution partner with a proven, ready-to-use international channel reach.
The solution
Host Agents turned to Rentals United to provide the expert infrastructure they needed to scale. By integrating the Rentals United API directly into their custom PMS, they unlocked several key capabilities:
- Consolidated distribution: Rentals United provided the crucial Lekkerslaap integration, allowing Host Agents to retire their “workaround” and manage all bookings through a single, unified platform.
- Revenue optimization: RU’s platform enabled full support for dynamic pricing tools like PriceLabs, turning on the revenue growth they had previously been missing.
- Developer freedom: By leveraging RU’s open API, the Host Agents dev team could pull deep booking and distribution data into their own system without having to build individual channel connections from scratch.
- Global readiness: The partnership provided immediate access to international OTAs, allowing the South African head office to launch and manage properties in Mauritius and Dubai with “the distribution correct” from day one.
The results
The impact of consolidating onto the Rentals United platform was both immediate and significant:
- Steady growth: Host Agents is achieving a consistent 8–10% monthly growth rate in the South African market.
- High-volume performance: The team now successfully manages over 1,000 bookings per month.
- International scale: They have successfully expanded into 3 countries, proving they can run global operations remotely from a single headquarters.
- Higher ROI for owners: By distributing properties across a wider array of channels, with 49% of leads now coming through Booking.com, Host Agents can offer property owners a superior return on investment.