How to manage your Listing with a 30 Day HOA short term rental minimum

[Doug95]

Hello,

I started renting out my Lake House with Airbnb in May of 2016 and was stopped by my POA (property owners association) in August.  They state that there are no short term rentals and that it is in my by laws that the short term lease has to be at least 30 days or more.  That being said, I stopped renting.  Has anyone been able to successfully rent out their place for the 30 days?  Honestly I am now only trying to rent out one room in my lake house for 30 days.  Here are the problems I have run into using the airbnb app while trying to do this 30 day short term rental for a room share only:

First I have people trying to book it for only 4 days or 7 days when the title and body say 30 day minimum, etc in the ad.  Well I haven't had one person try and book it for the 30 days except a woman and her son, but she could only put 20 days on her credit card, so I had to reply and say that she must pay for the 30 days or I cannot approve of her booking.  Part of me feels that it may have been the neighborhood POA/HOA, testing me, but regardless, it is confusing and has not allowed me to book any rentals this year or last.  

Second, what if a guest does book for 30 days, but then 20 days into their vacation rental, they have to leave for work or family reasons.  Would they be refunded the last 10 days?  Doesn't this make it a 20 day rental now?  I guess its hard to make the rental attractive and its a smallwer market niche, but I believe the airbnb system doesn't have a clean or clearer way of renting these 30 day minimum vacation rentals.  

I've never had anyone leave my vacation rental early, but if they do is there a way for them to get their unused portion back for refund?  That would be the only thing that would make this not work I think.  Personally I could care less if they left.  I know if I leased it for a 30 day rental, and they left 10 days prior to the rental ending and still checked out. I would have to keep that room vacant for the rest of the duration of their paid rental.  Anyone know of anything I can change or do for this 30 day Airbnb Dilema?

I feel that the $760 total for the month plus cleaning fees is a very good price for a lake house room for a month, however being that we have to advertise the nighly rate that is $26 (to total $760) which in the vacationer's mind is a steal and the potential guest just thinks its $26 a night, when its really $760 for the month!  I keep getting people that only try and get half of the calendar approved, its annoying and has messed up my response rate as people don't read the entire add.  I beleve something else needs to be done so that Airbnb can be able to provide their booking services to this HOA 30 day minimmum class.  Help is needed.  

[David126]

I would set 30 days as the minimum rental period.

[Steve143 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Doug95,

You must set the minimum stay to 30 nights. At the moment your calendar says "Minimum stay varies". On trying, it seems to be set to 2 nights minimum for most dates which is why you're getting requests for 4 or 7 nights.

The article below explains how to set the minimum and maximum nights' stay.

How do I set the minimum and maximum number of nights a guest can book?

Airbnb automatically applies the long term cancellation policy for reservations of 28 days or more irrespective of the flexible policy you have selected.

Under the long term policy canceling 10 days of a 30 day stay would mean no automatic refund. You could, of course, elect to refund the guest for those days using the "Send or request money" link on their reservation.

updated_cancellation_policies#long-term

Yes, if poeple search without entering dates, they'll see the nightly rate which you've set.

If they search having entered dates they'll see the total for the period like in the 1st to 31st of March example below.

Steve.

[Andrew1872]

I'm struggling with the same thing.  Any luck in adjusting your strategy?

[David2499]

My issue with 30 day rentals is when a guest books to close to the previous rental. This leave a gap Issa then 30 days which means I can’t rent in between those Teo dates. They should have it automated to where you can’t leave gaps in between FHA’s are less than 30 days.