To address the problem Utrecht mentioned, you can usually get the property owner to send you the address of the property then you can look at google streetview to check out the area surrounding the property. Those dudes drinking 40's from a paper bag will show up (along with the artistic graffiti) in Google Streetview.
Using this technique, we almost skipped an airbnb rental because it looked like it was in a bad neighborhood in Montreal. Turns out it wasn't bad at all, just a small amount of graffiti and otherwise a nice artsy neighborhood filled with mixed-income tenants (that mostly spoke French).
Our two VRBO rentals were perfectly acceptable. Once at a lake house in the NC mountains and once in Oaxaca, Mexico.
The Oaxaca house wasn't quite as nice as we hoped (bathrooms were a little more dated than we would like), but the location and price were unbelievably good. We had a few problems while we were there, but the landlord was on the go immediately to fix what he could. During our stay, we broke a few things (thanks, 3 year old kid!), and the landlord let us slide on those because of the excessive amount of problems we had (some of which were "life in Mexico" problems like the water being shut off for 3 weeks or more, and us depleting the cistern reserves after 1 week of living there). At $21/nt, we got a decent 3 bedroom, 3 bath rental with a well equipped kitchen, multiple patios/gardens, good location near town in an upscale Mexican neighborhood (neighbors included a yoga studio and orthodontists and dentists). That's why I can't complain!