Thinking about Long-term renting through Airbnb...

[Paul154]

Are there any hosts out there who have had a good experience with 1 - 3 month rentals?

Seattle regulations will require me to retire some of my STR and I am having nightmares of renting long term.

I know Airbnb is not good for long term rentals:

1. Airbnb may aribitratily entertain a customer complaint, refund guest dollars AND let them stay for free.

2. While airbnb has a review system, they have no credit qualification or criminal history check.

3. They don't collect the deposit up-front.

4. There is no contract.

But what are my options? Craiglist is a nightmare.

So I'm thinking about trying to use Airbnb  for renting with a 31 day minimum:

1. I will require a contract.

2. I will require a copy of ID.

3. I'll have a large deposit.

Does anyone have good luck with long-term renting with Airbnb?

What am I overlooking?

I am thinking 

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Paul154

why the craigslist is a nightmare?

we have something like craigslist here in Croatia and we all use it to sell things and rent long term through it, it works great.

[Paul154]

How do I hate Craigslist. 

Let me count the ways...

1. Craigslist is free. Anyone can advertise. Scammers, People testing the waters, hackers who know how to create many copies of their listings.

2. It is difficult to tell who is my real competition. So many scammers.

3. I must compete against professional managers. They create many listings with great pictures and a range of prices. "$899- $1,999" irregardless that the studio price at $899 is unavaialbe. These corporations are good at low-balling theirr rent prices by burying other expenses. Parking +$125 , Patio +$100, Movein fees +....

4 The prospective tenants are unverified. 

5. Many, many looky-loos wear me down.

6. I must market and negotiate in person. Prospective tenants can read me and screw me.

7. 1-2 month of vacancy in between occupancy makes me nervious and  makes me desperate.

I'm glad Croatian Craigslist works well for you, but I hate it and wish there was another way.

[Emiel1]

@Paul154

Also consider:

Minimum stay of 31 nights can result in your listing not to be found, unless it is labeled by Airbnb as 

- "suitable for work". Also monthly discount is obliged to be set for long term stay, otherwise you will not be found in search, see:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1233/how-do-i-set-custom-weekly-or-monthly-pricing

- if an installment (except the first one, which is processed anyway at time of booking) can not be charged by Airbnb, they simply say "sorry" and no further action is taken place by Airbnb to force te guest to pay.

- Contract needs to be mentioned in the listing and terms need to be communicated to the guest before booking, which can be rather time consuming

I do long term stays upto about 10 weeks (no renting contract involved), it went OK, but if a guest is not that super, you are stucked with them for long period. Changing a long term reservation can be a nightmare as calculations are weird, like shortening a stay can result in higher price.

Best regards,

Emiel

[Ange2]

@Paul154   How about trying sites that deal with foreign exchange students, interns for local business, local theatre groups, it maybe a better way to go. I have had a few 3 monther's,  interns, foreign exchange students, actors in a travelling theatre, visiting artists and curators. They are here for a finite time for a specific purpose and all the ones I have hosted have been super responsible and easy to host. Many such places have online and physical bulletin boards.

[Paul154]

@Ange2

Thanks for the great suggestion. I will follow your advice.

Before Airbnb, I did host international students and I will return to that. I won't make as much money as airbnb and I will have to play "Mother" figure, but it's the best possibility.

Because of low rents and high risk, I will not rent to Seattle tenants - they play hardball.

[Sarah977]

@Paul154  A couple things you have going for you as far as long-term renters- you seem a no-BS kind of guy, and you've been doing this long enough to be adept at vetting prospective guests.

I used to board kids for the school year when I lived in Canada. They all came from an island an hour bus ride and an hour ferry ride from my town. The school on the island only went up to 10th grade, so the school board gave an allowance for them to board elsewhere and their parents topped it up a hundred bucks or more, as it wasn't very much $. They were all delightful  (they happened to all be girls) and I had teenage daughters as well, so they were all friends.We all took turns doing dishes, and preparing dinner.

Sometimes less $ isn't really less money if the situation turns out to be hassle-free. The lack of stress level alone has to be counted as worth something.

And I hear you re Craigslist- I think it very much depends on the area. Craigslist Puerto Vallarta was filled with hooker ads in every personal classified section, not only those looking for hook-ups or relationships, but even the Missed Connections and Rants and Raves. They have now closed the classified section altogether.

[Cecilia155]

@Paul154, I've had a guest stay long term with me through Airbnb.  Probably my worst guest ever, initially it starts well, then they start to bend your rules as they become complacent.  The constant mothering and reminders, in the end I couldn't wait to see the back of him.  If I could write down a list and show you photos of all the issues I had with them, you would be horrified.  I could write an essay.  Again, this is just through my experience, since then  I maximised my stays to 4 days and haven't had any issues.  Best of luck with it.

[Graham-And-Michelle0]

Hi Paul,

we have had several long term guests with good success.

In our situation the payments were up front full payment , in a couple 

of cases theses were for 3-4 months stays.

And all through Airbnb.  We did not consider separate contracts or deposits but 

would in the future.

Often we have been away ourselves and co hosts have

coped very well. Other times we have been home and we check in every week to do

garden chores, remove rubbish and generally keep an eye on our property in a friendly

helpful way.  

We are facing a similar situation here in Auckland with our council bringing in a new

tax regime for those providing short term accommodation. We are not sure how to

deal with this as I believe that even long term hosting doesn’t avoid the tax rate if it is through a 

a platform such as Airbnb. 

Others have made excellent suggestions and I think we have avoided many problems by asking 

many questions and opening up a strong dialogue before accepting a booking.

Best Luck and Seasons Greetings.

Michelle

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Paul154

I use the ABB platform mostly to host international exchange student guests in our private room listing and I think overall Henry and I have been pretty lucky. We actually did the math recently and came to the conclusion that hosting longer-term is more profitable than STR with high turnovers if we factor in the time and cost of all the cleaning and laundry we'd have to do plus the extra communication and check-ins we'd have to juggle.

We price ourselves to factor in generous (but not wasteful) use of amenities and the fact that Henry and I will handle laundry of all bedding, sheets and towels as well as all trash disposal. We don't provide meals and what we do is nothing close to hotel house keeping but still way more than they could expect in a dorm 🙂

Based on my experience, for longer stays, doing my own vetting, getting to know the potential guest, making sure they really understand the house rules (especially my no guest(s)/visitor(s) of the ABB guest), making sure they fully agree to respect all my house rules, getting a feel for the type of person they are, hearing why they were attracted to my home (as opposed to other listings that they could have chosen and in my case, I always ask why they did not choose to stay in the international dorm) have all been helpful when I chose who I would accept as my next guest.