New host & got a request to lease for 1 year

[Martha900]

I am new to hosting, just under 1 week. I haven't hosted anyone yet, but I have 1 booking coming up in a few weeks and a few others interested! I renovated my property and spent a pretty penny on it to change it from 1970s to current aesthetics. I have beautiful brand new modern furniture (Pottery Barn, West Elm, leather sectional). A brand new open concept kitchen with brand new stainless steel appliances. Wood flooring throughout, not laminate and no carpeting anywhere and the restrooms are perfection. It is most definitely the most updated home in the Airbnb community for my city in California.

I got a message from someone who is relocating with their family to my Airbnb city for work and is interested in renting my property for "no less than 1 year". It would be 4 total tenants. They told me where they would be working, they will be opening a new office in the city near the home. 

Since we are in California anyone staying over 30 days becomes a tenant, and tenant/landlord relationship ensues. I have previously rented this home to a lovely family for many years, but once they moved I decided to renovate and Airbnb. I am well versed in rental contracts, background checks, deposits etc. for tenants. I was enthusiastic about this Airbnb opportunity as it would allow my family to check in on holidays and not have to rent another Airbnb or hotel. With that said, the reason this opportunity is enticing is it will bring more revenue on a monthly basis. By my Airbnb calculations, the property would be rented out approximately 40% of the year, mostly on weekends. Versus a long term tenant who will pay a set amount. I have a great eviction attorney in the area, that I am hoping I won't have to call. 

How do I come up with a monthly rental amount that is fair for both parties since I calculate my rental will be rented 40% of the time? How do I deal with the furniture, decor, bedding, cutlery, dinnerware etc (I haven't done a fully furnished dwelling before)? Does this sound like a scam? What should I look out for? Any pros/cons? 

[Janeris0]

This sounds like a scam. If you’d like to go through with it, seek out legal advice on a good contract. But I’d ask more questions before getting a contract drawn up. I wouldn’t discount it much. They could have gotten a regular lease for a year. If they choose abb it’s because it’sa scam targeting a new host or they don’t care about price. I’d drop it 10% max. If they say they want to go off platform and send you a check, it’s definitely a scam

[Martha900]

Thank you for your input. That is my gut feeling, to keep going with the STR originally intended. And you’re so right about them getting a regular lease, they could have done it but chose to try a brand new host. 

[Gillian166]

It could be a coincidence, but the red flag is this offer for you on your new listing/new host situation.  Have you done a check on this person, looked them up on FB and Linkedin? are they legit? 

[Martha900]

Thanks for pointing out that red flag. I haven’t looked up the person, but if I did and couldn’t find them I’d know that’s another red flag.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Martha900 If your plan was to do STR then stick to your guns and do STR. You have gone to a lot of trouble setting it up so don't waste this effort.

[Elisabeth40]

As I just joined Airbnb many many years ago, I got right away a request from one and the first guest to rent for an entire month. I even reserved the entire month for him on my calendar. It turned out it was a scam, please don’t take any long term guests before you haven’t rented them in pieces (10 days) each time for such long periods of time. Speaking out of experience, people change quickly their attitude after they get what they wanted. You can end up living a horror scenario for a year and a huge battle with them to leave. You can offer them to rent from you first for a certain amount of days and they are welcome to place a new booking later for little amount of days again. But you don’t want someone signing up a long term contract because it’s not good. First of all, if they want to rent for an entire year right away, they will need to pay extreme amount of money to Airbnb at once. I cannot even imagine someone to have so much money so they can pay one year rent up in front, it’s very very rare that someone is capable  paying one year rent up in front. If you take them out of Airbnb, you run a risk of them not paying you at all. Please please just drop this request. It’s seriously not worse the stress. 

[Elisabeth40]

Also it could be a trick to get you make a low price for a month only, Pretending as if they are renting for a year. I just don’t think and believe someone, again, it’s very rare that some can pay one year rent for 4 people, with all the fees and taxes for an entire year! If people have already this money, there is no need to use Airbnb, because with having so much money, everyone can rent anywhere long term. It’s not realistic. Even if you rent out on a month to month basis, you risk to loose money because you made such a low price based on a year promise. Also with al the fees and tax it’s a bad deal for 4 people for long term rental. There is something off with this request 

[Andrea-and-Glenn0]

@Elisabeth40  AirBnb does not collect months of fees in advance and pay the host upfront. 

Payouts for long-term reservations

When guests settle in for a long-term stay, you can look forward to a reliable source of income for a while. For reservations like these, we collect payments in monthly instalments.

1. We’ll charge your guest for the first month up front and release that first payment to you 24 hours after their scheduled check-in time
2. Future payments are released to you on a monthly basis, based on the check-in date, for the duration of the reservation

You can check the status of your monthly payouts in your Transaction History.

New Hosts

If you’re a new Host, we may hold your payouts for 30 days after your first reservation is confirmed. If your first reservation is more than 30 days away, your payout will be released 24 hours after your guest’s scheduled check-in. This will apply to any payouts scheduled for release during those 30 days.

If you accept a long term guest via the AirBnb platform, that guest is only required to pay the first month fees, then on a monthly basis “only if they continue to pay AirBnb”. What happens if they (guest) cancel their credit card or payment method on file? 

This happened to us, but it was a simple solve/fix by our fantastic guest who immediately updated AirBnb with his new credit card that had expired on the AirBnb platform. It does not always go that way, especially when someone is out to scam a new, inexperienced host that they are trying to deceive for a long term “free” rental. 

Hope this helps/Glenn

[Elisabeth40]

Glenn, 

this is great information. Thank you so much. Well I never had long term guests through Airbnb. Some guests ask me if they can stay longer here but they all also say they would love to get out of Airbnb because they cannot pay this amounts at once. I guess I got used to hear this from potential long term guests. I also never allowed to get outside of Airbnb, because I believed if they cannot pay on Airbnb they wouldn’t be able to pay me either. 
thank you, good to know