About HostPro
Rens, Lander and HostPro Academy.
HostPro Academy teaches you to build a short-term rental management business: you run properties for their owners and earn a share of what they make, without buying a property yourself. It was started by Rens Depraetere and Lander Volders, who built that model themselves. We also write free guides for anyone who wants to run short-term rentals properly.
How it started
From Antwerp and Marbella to an academy
HostPro Academy did not start as a course. It started as two management businesses, one in Antwerp and one in Marbella.
“We didn’t build a course. We reverse engineered the exact system that we use on a daily basis.”
Antwerp: Lander builds the model
Lander starts out cleaning windows and goes on to build a property management business in Antwerp. In almost five years it grows to more than 150 properties.
Marbella: Rens moves into rentals
Rens moves to Marbella at 21, starts in buying and selling property, and works his way up to handling all rentals, short and long term, at Homerun Brokers.
Around 2024: the model comes to Marbella
Together they take the Antwerp management model to Marbella and start managing properties there.
Late 2025: the idea
On a random evening in Marbella the idea comes up. Everyone around them is selling courses on ecommerce and dropshipping, while they run a model that needs no property of your own and works in almost any European city.
8 March 2026: HostPro Academy launches
After months of building, the academy opens. It is still run from Marbella, by the people who run properties themselves.
Founder and lead mentor
Meet Rens Depraetere
Rens grew up in Belgium, started out detailing cars and ran several businesses there before he left. At 21 he moved to Marbella and went into buying and selling property.
He worked his way up to Homerun Brokers, where he handled all the rentals, short and long term. He moved from sales to rentals for a simple reason: a sale takes a long time and only partly depends on you, while rentals bring money in every month.
With Lander he brought the management model to Marbella and started HostPro Academy. Today he leads the weekly live calls with members.
A letter from the founder
Welcome to HostPro Academy
If you’re reading this with a full-time job and no property to your name, you’re exactly who I built this for.
Operations can be learned. Anyone can learn to run an apartment. What stops people is the first owner: getting one person to hand you their property when you have no track record yet.
So that’s what HostPro Academy is built around. Not a course to watch. A sequence to run, with templates for the contracts, scripts and pricing, and a room full of people doing it in the same markets you are.
Whether you end up with one unit alongside your job or a team of your own, it starts the same way, with one conversation.
That’s also why we write the guides. Most of what you need to decide whether this is for you is in them, for free. If you want the full sequence and people to do it with, that’s what the academy is for.
Rens DepraetereFounder, HostPro Academy
Co-founder and head coach
Meet Lander Volders
Lander started out cleaning windows. He went on to build a property management business in Antwerp and ran it for almost five years. By the end it managed more than 150 properties and turned over more than a million euro a year.
He has since sold that portfolio, which freed him up to build HostPro Academy with Rens. Today he coaches members through the programme, and not only from behind a screen: he went to Ghent with a member for their first meeting with an owner, and to Antwerp to help another member sort out their first contract.
“If there’s one person you really want to learn this from, it’s him.”
Figures from Lander’s own Antwerp business, not a HostPro Academy result and not a promise.
What we believe
Smooth operations, happy guests and a portfolio that grows
We believe property management is about smooth operations, happy guests and a portfolio that grows in value. So everything we teach is practical: knowledge you can use, strategies you can act on and the details you only learn by doing the work. You apply it straight away.
No theory you’ll never use. Just real-world guidance you can put to work.
How we teach
Real lessons that actually work.
We focus on what works in the real world. Everything we teach is practical, actionable and based on real experience from property managers like you: the strategies, the details and step-by-step guidance to put them to work.
All you need to start is a computer and a phone. To build the business, add focused hours every week and a few thousand euro for setup, tools and insurance.
- Practical
- Actionable
- Based on real experience
Editorial standards
How we write our guides
Sources first, dated checks and corrections by email. This is the process every guide on this site goes through.
- We answer the question first, then go as deep as the topic needs.
- Every figure has a source, listed at the end of the guide with the date we checked it. Official sources first: EUR-Lex, the Airbnb Help Centre, Booking.com, the Belastingdienst, Toerisme Vlaanderen, Brussels Economy and Employment and city websites. Trade sources second.
- “Last checked” is the date we last verified the facts. Guides on fees, rules and tax are checked at least every quarter and on every known change date.
- Our own figures are labelled as ours. They are individual results, not typical and not a promise.
- We are not lawyers or tax advisers. Guides on rules, contracts, insurance and tax say so, and where the law is unsettled, they say that too.
- Found a mistake? Email info@hostproacademy.com. We check it, fix it, and update the checked date.
Our own figures
HostPro Academy in numbers
- 12
- levels live in the member platform
- 51
- lessons live today
- 100+
- HostPro Academy members
- 11
- countries with members
HostPro Academy’s own figures, updated September 2026.
Next step
Learn it from Rens and Lander
Start with the free guides, or see how the academy works.