In February, Casago announced that founder Steve Schwab would step down as CEO and become chairman, with President Joe Riley set to take over in October. That handoff is now official.
Casago said on October 2nd that Riley has taken over as CEO. The company finalized the change once it completed its last Vacasa market transitions in September.
Riley Steps Up After the Vacasa Handoff
Riley has been Casago's president since 2024. He came to the company through Patriot Family Homes, a short-term rental management company he founded that merged with Casago that year.
"Now that we are through market transitions, our focus is on the continued success of our franchise partners and adding new markets," Riley said in the announcement.
Schwab, who also served as CEO of Vacasa through the transition, remains with the company as Founder and Chairman, where he will focus on industry advocacy and working with Casago's franchise partners.
From Rocky Point to Vacasa
Schwab founded Casago in 2001 in Rocky Point, Mexico, and spent the next 25 years growing it from a single-market property manager into an international vacation rental management franchise. Under that model, local owners run their own P&L on Casago's shared systems.
In 2025, Casago closed its roughly $130 million acquisition of Vacasa, a competitor with nearly eight times as many homes under management. At the time of the deal, the combined company managed more than 40,000 properties.
Rather than keep Vacasa's centralized structure, Casago spent the following year selling its markets to local operators. In August, the company said it had sold all of the former Vacasa markets. Casago now says those markets are "locally owned and operated by Casago's franchises or other partners," and its network covers hundreds of cities across the U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize and the Caribbean.
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