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Greetings all, this is my first post. My wife and I live in L.A. and have been Airbnbing our “Mother-in-Law” apartment that is a sectioned off part of our Craftsman house, which we also live in. The apartment has a front and back entrance of its own, is furnished, has a kitchen and bathroom. We have been hosting on Airbnb for 9 years now and it’s been for the most part an awesome experience. We recently got it into our heads that we were going to move back to the Pacific N.W. where we’re from. Our local laws with doing short term rentals allow a host to get a permit for all year or for only 120 days a year. Since we were thinking we were moving we only got the 120 day permit. Upon closer examination we decided not to move after all. So now we have almost used all of our 120 days and no one is reachable in any official capacity to try to work this out with the city. We made longer stays available in the Airbnb app but no hits on that yet. The way we see it we have a really great apartment with off street parking that someone could use for work or whatnot. We basically just need to get through to the end of the year and then can get the whole year permit and get rolling again. Anybody have any suggestions of how to market this or services or apps that we could use? Thanks in advance!
I’d echo the Furnished Finder suggestion. If you are near a hospital, contact them as well. Many residents need a place and have a hard time finding one — best part is they work all the time so never at home. Got a college nearby? Call them……professors need places too.
Is your market hot for new home construction? If so contact realtors — so many people need a temp home while theirs is being built and they don’t want an apartment.
Hospitals and universities also sometimes have physical bulletin boards in the staff areas. Not every way of finding guests is necessarily online. A friend who’s a nurse got some rentals just by putting up a notice on the hospital staff bulletin board. There was a big community bulletin board right outside a local natural foods store in the town I’m from in Canada.
I think the question is asking what the consequences might be if you just continued renting, as you’re doing now, until January when you would get the permit for the full year.
As an aside I’m curious on how this year is shaping up revenue-wise. We’ve seen a number of Hosts say that they have very little business, some with no bookings for months. Is this a slow year for you?
Ahh gotcha. I would honestly, (or dishonestly) not be opposed to that at this point. Our local laws concerning short term rentals are pretty badly written. We are willing to pay more to change our eligibility but no one from the city is available to discuss it. We have, however, decided to stay in compliance with local laws nevertheless. We do scoff at their law though.
The Airbnb app is aware of how many days you can host as are all the other short term rental apps. It’s pretty strict in L.A. as there is quite the housing availability crisis here. The app cuts your availability when your amount of days are up.
As far as business this year, it’s pretty much popping off as usual. We are in the center of Los Angeles, close to the freeways but not too close. That’s partly why we are hesitant to move. Our spot seems to be pretty solid for consistent booking, it’s gamble to move and try it elsewhere. We also love sunny L.A. still.
So I assume, @KirkD that the permits are given at the beginning of January and the one for a year means a calendar year? You couldn’t get one now for a full year that ran from June 1st, 2023 to May 31, 2024?
Just hang on a few years. What with climate change, the PNW may end up being nice and sunny most of the time, and LA might be so hot no one can live there.
You would think. Hence the stupidly written laws. They actually do it by the calendar year of Jan. 1st thru Dec. 31st. So basically if we got a yearly permit now, it would go into effect Jan. 1st of 2024.
That was actually one of the biggest reasons we decided not to sell and move. This area we’re in is beautiful but intense. Helicopters, crime, big city life. I’m getting to the point where some peace and quiet sounds pretty good. I feel like it’s not time quite yet. It’s not ideal in every way, we have kids and this environment is intense. But every situation we’ve looked at so far for moving seems like a step backwards from where we are now.
So that means no one could start up a legal str at any time of the year aside from early January, or have to get the permit in January, even if they weren’t ready to start hosting until May. It does seem unnecessarily difficult.
I can understand Airbnb’s position. If they allow rentals that are illegal in the eyes of local authorities, that just leads municipalities to ban strs altogether.
And in a lot of places, Airbnb has no choice- they are forced by local governments to do certain things. I used to be able to fly under the radar with my little private room homeshare, but the Mexican tax dept. made the str platforms start collecting taxes, both from the hosts and the guests, and reporting them and submitting them, so the good old days are over.
