How do several month rentals work?

[Marguerite22]

I have a guest coming who wants to extend their stay through June 2022.

How does the billing work?
When do they get charged?
When do I get paid?

How does that work with my calendar, so I don't have other guests trying to book during that time?

Thank you

[Brian2036]

@Marguerite22 

Good questions-bad idea.

Airbnb is still working out the details for their long-term rental program and some things are not working very well yet.

For a long-term rental the landlord should have a written lease appropriate for the area and collect first/last/security deposit in advance.

Airbnb has no provision for these things.

NY state laws do not favor landlords and once a guest becomes a legal tenant the rules change.

You need to be very, very careful here.

[Sarah977]

@Marguerite22  That wouldn't be a guest, it would be a tenant. No safeguards for you should they prove objectionable, as they would be under landlord/tenant laws. 

As for your calendar, that seems an odd question. Of course any days booked are shown as blocked and no one else can book them.

[Ross810]

If you rent your place for 3 or 6 months to a snowbird, do they get billed one lump sum or are they billed monthly? Does Airbnb charge a one time service fee or do they do it each month? 

[Debra300]

@Ross810,

Before you venture into long-term rentals on Airbnb, I highly recommend that you become very familiar with their policies and procedures.  You should find most of the information you need at the Help Center: https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/removing-covid-19-as-an-extenuating-circumstance-52....

@Marguerite22,

What type of protection has Airbnb provided you against damage and missing items?  They don't collect a true security deposit, and Air Cover isn't a true insurance for hosts where they can file claims and expect reimbursement based upon the policy limits.

[Marguerite22]

Thanks for the advice everyone.
I've already been burned a couple of times by long term tenants, which is why I like AirBnb so much.   They protect me better vs damage or disappeared items than private leasing does.  
And I saw they recently changed their security deposit policy.  Hmm

Maybe no more tenants more than 30 days

Marguerite

[Huma0]

@Marguerite22 

As long as the guest is extending via the Airbnb booking system, then the calendar will be blocked to other guests, just like with any other booking. For long term bookings, Airbnb collects from the guest/pays you monthly. Be aware though, if the guest's payment method fails and Airbnb is unable to collect from them, you might be in a sticky situation.

That has never happened to me and I have hosted many long term guests. However, I do try to vet them carefully before accepting a booking.

What is most important though (as others have mentioned) is that you are aware of your local laws. At what point would these guests gain tenants' rights. If they would gain them, then you need a proper contract and security deposit rather than relying on Airbnb to help you should anything go wrong. Although you might have had good experiences with this in the past (I also prefer hosting long term Airbnb guests to regular long term tenants), Airbnb customer service is patchy and best and getting worse and worse. Just read some of the horror stories posted every day on this community centre. There is no guarantee that you will get fully, or even partially reimbursed for damages. If your guest ends up being a squatter, or otherwise problematic, Airbnb are not going to be coming to your door to evict that guest. You will be left to deal with the situation yourself if the guest refuses to leave.

Also, there may be legal limits to how many nights you can host on Airbnb. Have you checked these? In London, if you are renting out an entire unit as an STR, you are only allowed to do so for maximum 90 nights a year in total (across all stays). There may be a similar law in NY, so do check this out.

[Stacey537]

Great answers! We have done 2 long-term rentals through airbnb, both were employees staying to work locally for their business. Although payments were made on time they did not take care of the home re: cleaning (at all!), trash, leaving all sorts of personal items, and even breaking things. Airbnb was successful in getting us reimbursement for damages. We are now being asked again to host for 6 months (great money) but want to put some parameters in place. We do have a legal lease we can enact but does that mean we don't host through airbnb?

In the past we have not provided toilet paper, coffee, creamer, paper towel throughout the stay. Once they run out it is on them to provide. no complaints so far, but we would like to require biweekly cleaning or check ins to see if they cleaned and ensure they aren't damaging our home. thoughts? What is allowable through airbnb? Any other ideas from hosts on how to handle this? Our place has 10 beds and sleeps 15 so I believe that is why we get these requests often. And this one is from Oct-April which are typically slow so works out great!

thank you!