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Short term rentals - airbnb or other


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2021 Jul 11, 3:02pm   53,028 views  269 comments

by YesYNot   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

Anybody doing short term rentals lately?

I'm thinking of doing this in the Shenandoah region in VA, which has very low inventory and lots of short term rentals on the market. I assume that as more and more people do this, the market will saturate. I'm not sure how long that will take, and exactly how that will play out - plenty of thoughts though. In particular, I think if people insist on working from home, the far flung mountain retreat type areas outside of cities will do very well. I'm thinking that people wouldn't commute long distance every day, but might be willing to commute further once or twice a week. So, the high property values in/close to cities will continue to spread outward.

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96   Booger   2022 Nov 6, 2:04pm  

mell says

If you don't use api gateway and vpcs/nats then aws is reasonably priced.

Running a database on AWS is expensive.
97   mell   2022 Nov 6, 2:26pm  

Booger says

mell says


If you don't use api gateway and vpcs/nats then aws is reasonably priced.

Running a database on AWS is expensive.

Any specific ones? Can't talk much for rds/aurora otmr anything self hosted, i.e. dedicated ec2 instance, but you can run a midsized company on auto scaled dynamodb for less than 5k / month, no db admin needed. Granted dynamo db is rather simplistic, but you can always work around its limitations and it forces you to keep it simple. Plus the event streams are nice
98   zzyzzx   2022 Nov 7, 6:51am  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-cleaning-fees-rates-departure-11667779247

Airbnb to Make Cleaning Fees Clearer on Searches After Customer Complaints
99   zzyzzx   2022 Nov 7, 8:38am  

https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/nyc-proposes-strict-airbnb-registration-rules-to-take-effect-in-january/

NYC proposes strict Airbnb registration rules to take effect in January
101   AD   2022 Nov 10, 6:59pm  

zzyzzx says






/

Fuck AirBnB and Fuck Joe Biden !

/
102   Patrick   2022 Nov 11, 3:03am  

Exactly - it's already a horrific surprise for AirBnB when the price nearly doubles right before your eyes.
103   WookieMan   2022 Nov 11, 3:33am  

Patrick says

Exactly - it's already a horrific surprise for AirBnB when the price nearly doubles right before your eyes.

We use it on family trips as I've said. Never had a problem just one shitty unit one time. Adding a 3rd kid has fucked up the hotel room thing. We need adjoining rooms and as the kids are getting older they don't want to be in the same room as mom and dad anyway and the feeling is mutual.

The fees are retarded. The taxes are even more retarded. My fucking property, I can do what I want with it. Airbnb and VRBO are an MLS type system/database. They provide a service that out of pocket costs them "maybe" $5 annually per listing. The fees they charge is exorbitant. Always search the property name if it has one. Odds are you'll save hundreds if not thousands if you're booking a big house.
104   SoTex   2022 Nov 11, 4:03am  

WookieMan says

The taxes are even more retarded.


It's not the owners that want to charge that. They are even higher in Maui - over 17%. State Transient Accommodations Tax, State General Excise Tax and last year Maui threw in a county General Excise Tax.

The cleaning fee looks high vs. what I charge on VRBO for ocean front condo: 150.

However, because taxes are on gross rents even though I pass the cleaning fee on to the customer I still lose money on it due to taxes. I also pay taxes on the taxes.

Yeah, the platforms take their cut too - way too much for way too little.
105   WookieMan   2022 Nov 11, 7:05am  

just_passing_through says

It's not the owners that want to charge that. They are even higher in Maui - over 17%. State Transient Accommodations Tax, State General Excise Tax and last year Maui threw in a county General Excise Tax.

I understand. I'm on your side as a vacation renter and potential owner of one regarding taxes. It screws both parties over, owner and renter.

There's got to be a way around it. Like signing a 6 month lease that is able to be cancelled at any time. A lot of trust would be involved with randoms, but you could lower your rate and probably get close to 90-100% occupancy because you'd be the cheapest game going. Not sure if people have tried this, but seems logical to me. You can have a separate agreement that states the day they have to leave. As long as you have a long term lease agreement, I'm uncertain of how the government could tax it. Otherwise they need to tax all landlords at the same rate as hotels and vacation rentals.
106   RWSGFY   2022 Nov 11, 11:11am  

just_passing_through says

WookieMan says


The taxes are even more retarded.


It's not the owners that want to charge that. They are even higher in Maui - over 17%. State Transient Accommodations Tax, State General Excise Tax and last year Maui threw in a county General Excise Tax.

The cleaning fee looks high vs. what I charge on VRBO for ocean front condo: 150.

However, because taxes are on gross rents even though I pass the cleaning fee on to the customer I still lose money on it due to taxes. I also pay taxes on the taxes.

Yeah, the platforms take their cut too - way too much for way too little.


Shit like this is why I've been going to Fiji for my beach vacatios fix for the last 5-6 years. Still love Hawaii but for a family with kids the value is not there.
107   WookieMan   2022 Nov 11, 11:24am  

RWSGFY says

Shit like this is why I've been going to Fiji for my beach vacatios fix for the last 5-6 years. Still love Hawaii but for a family with kids the value is not there.

Fiji is a fucking flight for me from the Midwest. Best case airfare shopping I'm at $4-5k for 5 tickets. I can fly to the Caribbean for under $500 to any location for all 5 of us. I do want to go to Fiji or Southeast Asia though. Easier for the west coast folks.
108   Booger   2022 Nov 12, 5:37pm  

https://www.reddit.com/r/AirBnB/comments/yt3kxv/help_please_my_guest_is_a_prostitute_giving/

Help please. My guest is a prostitute giving services from my apartment

Off course I cant know for sure, but I received complaints from building administration that she is receiving 5-6 male visitors per night.
109   Eric Holder   2022 Nov 13, 1:37pm  

WookieMan says

RWSGFY says


Shit like this is why I've been going to Fiji for my beach vacatios fix for the last 5-6 years. Still love Hawaii but for a family with kids the value is not there.

Fiji is a fucking flight for me from the Midwest.


So is Hawaii.
110   RWSGFY   2022 Nov 13, 2:03pm  

Booger says

https://www.reddit.com/r/AirBnB/comments/yt3kxv/help_please_my_guest_is_a_prostitute_giving/

Help please. My guest is a prostitute giving services from my apartment

Off course I cant know for sure, but I received complaints from building administration that she is receiving 5-6 male visitors per night.


CHARGE MORE!!!
111   WookieMan   2022 Nov 13, 2:17pm  

Eric Holder says

So is Hawaii.

Domestic. $11.40pp to Hawaii. International fees are killer. Just booked a flight to Phoenix for $5.60 one way in late January. Don't have my plans laid out yet. Might fly up to Bozeman, MT after. No lodging or car. Food, golf, beer and snowboarding. I'm spoiled.

Would love to go to Fiji though. Need to explore that points realm. All this shit can be done for free basically. I'm a Caribbean guy though. Short flight. Minimal points. I do want to see the southern Pacific and Southeast Asia.
112   Reality   2022 Nov 13, 3:47pm  


Hotel corporations create additional buildings and units without affecting residential supply and demand. They add to an area. They create jobs and always make a positive impact. Even if they go out of business, a building remains, that may be renovated and turned into residential units. This is done without driving up housing prices to unacceptable levels. Hotels themselves do not affect residential house prices.

No offense but at this point, every day people bragging about how smart they are, because they can borrow money to mortgage a house make money on AIR-BNB really bothers me. These AIR-BNB motivated purchases gobble up the supply of existing homes and apartment units - for renting purposes. Far more existing units are gobbled up vs. new units being built in respect to AIR-BNB. And people are not selling their homes/units when they can rent them out on AIR-BNB further restricting the supply of additional units, driving up the prices.

Why? So people can sit back on their lazy asses and collect rents without working, inventing, creating, facilitating, improving, solving, contributing or doing anything. It's called parasite economics and it really bothers me.

I can't comment on this thread because I'm emotionally compromised when it comes to this subject.


No need to be upset or jealous of those who borrowed to buy their AirBnB units in the last 2-3 years. Soon many of them will get foreclosed due to cashflow difficulties. In the process, between the buy and the liquidation sale, they will essentially have provided liquidity for releasing those units from previous owners who wanted high sale prices, funds for renovating the units, and buyers who will want low prices after foreclosure and liquidation.

Hotel buildings can not be easily converted into apartment buildings due to most hotels not being extended-stay hotels with kitchens. The floor plans are entirely wrong, plus electricals and the plumbing. The high rise buildings efficient for hotels are also not desirable for most residential purposes. Not sure why you think hotels provide jobs whereas AirBnB etc. units requiring the same cleaning and booking would not result in jobs. If anything, the latter would result in more free labor, instead of unionized labor and/or illegal labor, both of which are essentially forms of unfree / semi-slavery labor due to economy of scale of hotels making unionization and slave-labor trafficking profitable. There is a reason why the governor of the ganster state of IL is from a family hotel fortune. The need for building hotels and tearing down hotels as a region's tourism fluctuates is quite a waste.

Besides remote-working allowing travel while working remotely, a big part of the drive for building/house owners to turn to short-term rental in the last 2-3 years is due to rent payment moratorium imposed in many cities and states. Instead of letting dead-beats wear the building and use utility while not paying, renting to travelers who pay make a lot of sense. Compared to long-term rental, short-term rental is actually a lot of work for the owner, so it's not at all "sit back on their lazy asses and collect rents without working."

For some regions of the country that have a lot of old housing stock (while suffering from housing shortage, like the Northeast), a big part of the problem is housing-stock vs. demand mismatch: a lot of the housing stock was built more than a century ago when typical households had many children so many bedrooms (typically 4 or more) whereas today's typical household only requires 1 or 2 bedrooms. In many locations, there are literally laws against more than 3 unrelated people sharing an apartment; plus section-8 housing where there might have been children years ago but now the single mother continues to stay in a 4BR house after the children have grown up and left simply because she is only responsible for paying a pittance if she stays with Section-8 paying the rest, whereas if she moves she would have to pay much more out of her own pocket even for a much smaller apartment. So it is a situation of both housing shortage and under-utilization of existing housing stock taking place at the same time, largely due to government regulations. The AirBnB wave in some ways provided the incentive for owners and/or new owners after purchase to convert some of that housing stock into extended stay BnB housing, which make them closer to what 1BR, 2BR and studio units are like. In many cases also utilizing parts of existing buildings that could not be legally rented out long-term, such as basement, attic, guest suites, etc.. The AirBnB wave provided the incentive to turn them into habitable space while avoiding the local drugged and/or criminal population that would otherwise be attracted to sub-prime housing (which normally is a big reason why landlords don't find it worthwhile to finish those subprime parts of the house in the past; providing housing service is not just "sit back on their lazy asses and collect rents without working" either; there is a lot of executive decision making that can not have bad consequences handed off to shareholders or tax-payers while taking a golden parachute like running hotel corporation or public housing project). To the extent that many government bureaucrats got involved in buying AirBnB's in the past half decade, that also give them some training on how to survive and prosper in the competitive economy instead of their habit of "sitting back on their lazy asses and collect" economic rent via government sinecures.
113   Hugh_Mongous   2022 Nov 13, 8:44pm  

WookieMan says

Eric Holder says


So is Hawaii.

Domestic. $11.40pp to Hawaii. International fees are killer. Just booked a flight to Phoenix for $5.60 one way in late January.


These are bus ticket prices. You aren't taking Greyhound, are you? I mean, it's possible for Phoenix but could be tough for Hawaii...
114   Patrick   2022 Nov 13, 11:12pm  

RWSGFY says

Shit like this is why I've been going to Fiji for my beach vacatios fix for the last 5-6 years. Still love Hawaii but for a family with kids the value is not there.


@RWSGFY do you have any advice on flights, places to stay?
115   WookieMan   2022 Nov 14, 2:24am  

Hugh_Mongous says

WookieMan says


Eric Holder says



So is Hawaii.

Domestic. $11.40pp to Hawaii. International fees are killer. Just booked a flight to Phoenix for $5.60 one way in late January.



These are bus ticket prices. You aren't taking Greyhound, are you? I mean, it's possible for Phoenix but could be tough for Hawaii...

Flying. It's the 9/11 fee or whatever everyone pays for on a flight, so in essence free. Points my man.

I've only paid for 2 flights in the last 5-6 years and that was a solo trip and I wanted first class because I was going out to Bozeman before Southwest flew there. So flew United since I was bringing my snowboard. Discount airlines like Frontier would have been the same price as a first class ticket with the checked snowboard and carryon.

You can get a bunch of free flight solo on Southwest if you just open 2 credit card. Don't do that if you're not responsible with paying it back. Love or hate Southwest, no airline can beat it in the points game for free flying. Mind you we have 3 kids too and they travel with us 80% of the time. We fly about 7-10 times a year, wife more for work. Hell she just had her quarterly meeting. Average about 45 night a year in a hotel work. So we also get point/kickbacks there as well. And those are rooms we don't pay for.

If you want to take 2 flights a year for free just put your daily monthly/expenses that you can on the CC and search SW every morning with your coffee (Tuesdays are best). It's kind of fun. Leave for Mexico tomorrow morning. Staying at a RUI all inclusive, upgraded swimout suite for 5 nights. $900 for two. It take effort to learn this stuff but once you do it's like riding a bike. I need to learn my overseas points game outside of this hemisphere.
116   WookieMan   2022 Nov 14, 2:40am  

Reality says

No need to be upset or jealous of those who borrowed to buy their AirBnB units in the last 2-3 years. Soon many of them will get foreclosed due to cashflow difficulties. In the process, between the buy and the liquidation sale, they will essentially have provided liquidity for releasing those units from previous owners who wanted high sale prices, funds for renovating the units, and buyers who will want low prices after foreclosure and liquidation.

Most of these are exactly that though, vacation rentals. There're not necessarily places people would "want" to live. I would never have lived in my parents condo in Navarre Beach, FL yet I love the area. The unit was a basic 2/2 and would have been great without kids. Still wouldn't have wanted to live there.

So it's not really freeing up housing inventory as a primary dwelling in my opinion. Someone will just buy and rent it out again. I mean who wants to live in a place where you'll never have neighbors? Sure you can meet some interesting people that are on vacation, but socially I need to trust you for you to get into my circle and be a friend. That takes time and would be tough in vacation areas. And everyone there year round is either retired or works in the vacation rental, hotel or restaurant industry. Sounds like a fun crowd....
117   zzyzzx   2022 Nov 14, 5:38am  

RWSGFY says

Booger says


https://www.reddit.com/r/AirBnB/comments/yt3kxv/help_please_my_guest_is_a_prostitute_giving/

Help please. My guest is a prostitute giving services from my apartment

Off course I cant know for sure, but I received complaints from building administration that she is receiving 5-6 male visitors per night.


CHARGE MORE!!!


Or at least charge more for the cleaning! She must be using a lot of water with all the bathing and laundry.
119   SoTex   2022 Nov 15, 7:44am  

Reality says

Compared to long-term rental, short-term rental is actually a lot of work for the owner, so it's not at all "sit back on their lazy asses and collect rents without working."


I do both and that is correct except even my long terms are a lot of work. Then again, I'm not a CA landlord and like to keep them in good shape. It's always telling when someone states we "just collect rents" rather than provide a service that they are clueless and haven't done it.
120   beershrine   2022 Nov 15, 11:11am  

I've done vacation rentals and I would advise against it. Tenants will destroy your property and steal any of value in it and it will happen over and over. Much better option is a full time rental once you get a great tenant it's good income.
121   SoTex   2022 Nov 16, 7:10am  

beershrine says


I've done vacation rentals and I would advise against it. Tenants will destroy your property and steal any of value in it and it will happen over and over. Much better option is a full time rental once you get a great tenant it's good income.


Five years so far with nearly perfect guests. I get around 100/year and only about 1% of them are a pain in the ass. But not too bad. I posted on here before how one bent a small frying pan I had into the shape of a taco - that's it. It's appreciated 50% (paid cash, no mortgage) and I'm doing quite well on the revenue. I generally gross around 100K/year and keep about 1/3rd of that after all is said and done (taxes, expenses etc.,) plus I get to expense trips to Maui!

I suspect it depends on where you do it and what platform you used. I would never use AirBNB for instance and people tend to be in a good mood when they travel to Maui. Lots of old people and honeymooners. As they say, "Hawaii is for the newly wed or nearly dead".

I've had great luck with tenants in my long terms going on 10 years now as well.
126   DD214   2022 Dec 6, 8:11am  

129   zzyzzx   2022 Dec 29, 9:48am  

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/28/1145709106/nyc-could-lose-10-000-airbnb-listings-because-of-new-short-term-rental-regulatio

NYC could lose 10,000 Airbnb listings because of new short-term rental regulations
131   zzyzzx   2023 Jan 6, 8:55am  

https://www.reddit.com/r/AirBnB/comments/1044j3r/a_warning_for_travelers_booking_shortterm_airbnb/

I recently learned the hard way about the risks of booking short-term Airbnb rentals in Bangkok. Upon arriving at the building where I had booked a condo, I was confronted by a security guard who questioned my presence and became angry when I mentioned that I had rented the property on Airbnb. The guard proceeded to pull out a stack of documents and point to a specific phrase stating that "Airbnb Daily & Weekly Rentals are Illegal in Thailand - Hotel Act, Immigration Act, and Building Control Act."

I left the building and contacted Airbnb to report the issue. However, I was disappointed to learn that the company was not willing to take any responsibility for this and stated it was the guest's responsibility to ensure that the condo was legal - I was informed that my booking was non-refundable.
133   krc   2023 Jan 11, 8:43am  

We utilized an airBnB in London around Kensington area. Close to the underground, and V&A, etc....
Great location and cost a fraction of what we would have paid at a hotel.
The place was a bit run down - but had enough bedrooms/couches for family and friends, with a working kitchen.
Dryer didn't work - but that is common in Europe for some reason. They like to hang dry all clothes - even in the winter!
Bathroom was obscenely nice - the English seem to love their bathrooms: heated floor, heated towel rack, etc etc...
It was a great time.

It was my first time utilizing AirBnb. I think if you pay attention and read reviews and know what you are getting you will be fine.
135   WookieMan   2023 Feb 12, 12:59pm  

Booger says





You stay in Scottsdale. Phoenix proper is kind of trashy. Everything else is a Del Webb type community with geezers. I like AZ, but Phoenix itself is pretty much the blandest city I've been to. Not dangerous, but feels like one giant average suburb everywhere. Not really a destination unless you golf or have a conference there. And again, most of that is in Scottsdale. Or you go to ASU to fuck college chicks.

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