Scott McGillivray has spent more than 15 years on HGTV doing one thing: showing people exactly what separates a vacation property that earns money from one that doesn’t. The right renovation. The right layout. The right market position. Season after season, he walked into properties that weren’t working, figured out why, and fixed them.
At some point, the question had to become: if you know all of this, why are the platforms (such as Airbnb and Vrbo) still taking 15% of every booking?
Stay is Scott McGillivray’s answer. A vacation rental marketplace built not to replicate Airbnb, but to replace the part of it that was never working for hosts or travelers in the first place.
This is who he is, what he built, and why it matters if you’re looking to book (or list) a vacation rental.
Who Is Scott McGillivray? The HGTV Career That Built His Credentials
Scott McGillivray was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1978 and started investing in real estate while studying commerce at the University of Guelph, taking a business school assignment and turning it into a real strategy. He became a licensed contractor in 2004 and built his own construction crews before television came calling.
He’s been on HGTV in the US and Canada continuously since 2008. That run includes Income Property (11 seasons, aired in over 30 countries), Moving the McGillivrays, Buyers Bootcamp, Renovation Resort, and Scott’s Vacation House Rules, which returned for its sixth season on HGTV in 2025.
He’s won multiple Canadian Screen Awards, been watched by millions across North America, and built one of the most recognized names in real estate television.
Outside television, he’s the CEO of McGillivray Group and McGillivray Entertainment, and co-founder of Keyspire, a real estate investing education company with trained investors across North America.
But what makes McGillivray genuinely credible in the vacation rental space isn’t the TV resume. It’s the fact that he has been investing in real rental properties — buying them, renovating them, managing them — for over 20 years. He isn’t just showing you how to do it on camera. He’s still doing it himself.
Scott’s Vacation House Rules: The Show That Connects Directly to Stay
Of everything McGillivray has done on television, Scott’s Vacation House Rules is the closest to the philosophy Stay was built on.
The show, which has been running since 2020 and returned with new episodes in spring 2025, follows McGillivray and designer Debra Salmoni as they renovate cottages, cabins, chalets, and waterfront properties across Ontario, transforming each one into a professional-grade vacation rental.
Every episode is essentially a masterclass in what makes a rental property actually perform: the right renovation investment, the right design choices for the rental market (not just for personal taste), and the positioning that gets properties booked consistently.
McGillivray has worked with hundreds of property owners, understood exactly what travelers want to pay for, and learned the hard way what separates a property that earns from one that sits empty.
And here’s something most fans don’t realize: you can actually book the real homes from Renovation Resort. The properties listed under Scott’s host page on Stay are the exact cottages renovated on Renovation Resort (Scott’s HGTV series with Bryan Baeumler) professionally managed and open to guests year-round.
For a full walkthrough of how it works, see our post: How to Rent Scott McGillivray’s HGTV Vacation Homes (The Real Renovation Resort Properties).
How to Find Scott McGillivray Cottage Rentals on Stay
One of the most common questions people ask after watching Scott’s shows: where are the actual rentals, and can you book them?
Stay is where.
The platform lists professionally managed properties across key vacation markets in the US and Canada — not random one-off listings, but properties managed by experienced hosts who take quality seriously. The Scott’s Stays collection surfaces the best of them: every active show-featured property, curated by Scott himself, including the real homes from Renovation Resort.
For the full step-by-step on how to book, read: How to Rent Scott McGillivray’s HGTV Vacation Homes. Or go straight to the listings: staywithstay.com/host/1.
Why Scott Co-Founded Stay: The Real Problem With Existing Platforms
The vacation rental industry has been consolidating for years, and the result has been predictable: higher fees, less transparency, and platforms that increasingly serve themselves rather than the hosts and travelers using them.
Platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo add 15% or more in service fees on top of nightly rates. Those fees hit travelers at checkout. They squeeze host margins. And they fund platform infrastructure that does nothing for either side of the transaction.
McGillivray watched this happen while working directly with property owners on Vacation House Rules. He spent entire seasons helping people renovate beautifully, teaching them pricing strategy, coaching them on what makes a rental attract the right guests — and then those same hosts would list their properties on platforms that took a cut of every single booking, indefinitely.
If you want to go deeper on how the major platforms compare for hosts, our breakdown of Airbnb vs. Vrbo for hosts covers exactly where the cost differences add up.
“Stay is built to bring travelers and professional property managers together directly, reducing the unnecessary markups that traditional platforms layer on at checkout.”
For travelers, that means no fee shock at checkout. The price you see is much closer to what you pay. For hosts, it means keeping 100% of rental income on a flat annual subscription — instead of surrendering a percentage of every booking to a middleman.
This is not a celebrity endorsement of a platform that operates like Airbnb with a different logo. Stay’s entire model: the subscription structure, the professional-host focus, the direct communication between travelers and hosts, is a deliberate rejection of how dominant platforms work. Scott’s name is on it because his conviction about the broken commission model is what the platform was built to fix.
What Stay Means for Travelers
If you’ve ever gotten to the checkout page on Airbnb or Vrbo and watched a $150/night property become significantly more expensive after fees, Stay is built specifically to fix that.
Because Stay connects you directly with professional property managers rather than routing bookings through a fee-extracting intermediary, the pricing is more transparent and the all-in cost is lower.
Travelers also communicate directly with the host: better answers before booking, clearer expectations, and a real relationship with the person responsible for your experience.
It’s how vacation rental booking used to work, before platforms became the middleman.
Start browsing properties here.
What Stay Means for Property Managers and Hosts
If you manage vacation rentals professionally and you’re tired of paying 15% commission on every booking, Stay is commission-free. Hosts pay a flat annual subscription and keep everything they earn.
Stay integrates with the property management software most professionals already use: HostAway, Hostfully, OwnerRez, Lodgify, and many more. Listing is straightforward for anyone already managing properties on other channels, and the platform is built specifically for professional operators.
Scott McGillivray’s credibility is also a genuine asset for hosts. Properties listed on a platform co-founded by one of HGTV’s most recognized real estate experts carry a different kind of trust than listings on anonymous marketplaces.
That trust means higher-intent travelers, people who are already bought into the quality standard the platform represents.
FAQ: Scott McGillivray, Stay, and Vacation Rentals
Is Stay a legitimate vacation rental site?
Yes. Stay is a professionally operated marketplace co-founded by HGTV’s Scott McGillivray. It integrates with leading property management platforms including HostAway, Hostfully, OwnerRez, Lodgify and many other PMS.
Where can I find Scott McGillivray vacation rentals?
Visit staywithstay.com/scott-on-stay or staywithstay.com/host/1 to see Scott’s full collection of show properties, including the real homes from Renovation Resort.
For a step-by-step booking guide, read: How to Rent Scott McGillivray’s HGTV Vacation Homes.
Where is Scott McGillivray’s cottage?
McGillivray’s personal property is located in the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario, the same property featured on Scott’s Own Vacation House.
Several cottage and waterfront properties in a similar style are available to book through Stay.
How many properties does Scott McGillivray own?
McGillivray is an active real estate investor with rental properties across North America, accumulated over more than 20 years of investing. He has been continuously adding to his portfolio since the early 2000s.
What does it cost for hosts to list on Stay?
Hosts pay a flat annual subscription per property. There are no per-booking commissions — hosts keep 100% of their rental income.
What is Scott’s Vacation House Rules?
Scott’s Vacation House Rules is Scott McGillivray’s HGTV series (now in its sixth season as of 2025) in which he and designer Debra Salmoni renovate vacation properties — cottages, cabins, chalets, and waterfront homes — transforming them into professional-grade rental income properties.
Can you book properties from Renovation Resort on Stay?
Yes, these are the actual homes from the show, not replicas. The properties are professionally managed and available to book year-round.
View them at staywithstay.com/host/1, or read the full guide: How to Rent Scott McGillivray’s HGTV Vacation Homes.
Is Stay available in the US and Canada?
Yes. Stay operates across both the United States and Canada, with properties available in many vacation markets in both countries.
How does Stay compare to Airbnb and Vrbo for hosts?
The core difference is the fee model. Airbnb and Vrbo take 15% or more from every booking in perpetuity.
Stay charges a flat annual subscription (~$159/year per property) with no per-booking commission — so hosts keep 100% of their income. For a full breakdown, see our post on Airbnb vs. Vrbo for hosts.
The Bottom Line
Scott McGillivray built his reputation on a single idea: that vacation and rental properties, done right, are transformational investments.
Stay is that idea applied to the booking market itself, a platform that removes the friction, the fees, and the middleman that have built up around an industry that never needed them.
Whether you’re a traveler who wants to stop losing money at checkout, or a professional property manager who wants to stop handing a percentage of every booking to a platform, Stay was built for you. And it was built by someone who has spent 15 years proving he understands exactly what good vacation rentals look like.
Browse Scott’s curated collection and explore what Stay has to offer: staywithstay.com.