I agree. I prefer a week or less. I had one guest early in March extend another 3 days from a week stay, and it was annoyingly too long. The guests I’ve found the most enjoyable are 3 and 4 day stays, because they’re not madly trying to see or do everything and are more relaxed, but they’re not around long enough to get tired of them.
If I would want to rent my listing long term I would advertise for free on Facebook renting groups in my city and other similar advertisment sites (similar to craiqlist in US). And that would be without any fees. Would never give AirBnB some fees of long term stays lol!
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Doing some research on switching over to long-term.
The fair market for my listing with a 12-month lease, unfurnished, and utilities paid by the renter, is $2150/month. Utilities (gas, water, electricity, internet) are slightly over $250/month in the winter and nearly $500/month in the summer.
I did a search for 30-day stays at Airbnb listing in my area (within about 15 miles) and what I found is scary. Over half of “comparable” listings for 30-day stays during the month of May and June on Airbnb were priced at under $2400 and went as low as $1400.
I never checked on 30-day stays before, so I don’t know if these prices are temporarily low due to COVID-19 desperation or if they are normal seasonal prices. Prices were a LOT higher for February and March 2021, which is the highest season here. Still, now that I am forced to rent long-term, and Airbnb is emphasizing long-term, I’m worried about Airbnb creating a race-to-the-bottom for long-term rentals.
Are you looking at truly comparable? I assume you are but …
I don’t think Airbnb can be blamed. Desperate people can be blamed. They might be creating more competition by enticing people who wouldn’t normally be in the space to enter it. But I ultimately blame people for their prices.
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I was curious about fees. Local realtor/property manager for long term rentals varies. 10% is common
Zillow now has a fee. The fee depends on what services and for how long. The lowest is $9.95/month.
Airbnb LTR is 11%.
I think the differentiator is how long do you mean for long term. For rentals of less than 90 days, I’m not confident people will look to Zillow. I’m not sure a traditional property manager is an option either.
Airbnb, VRBO, Houfy etc or Craigslist or personal website maybe the best options for 30-180 day rentals.
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I looked for entire places that support at least 8 guests with a full kitchen. That comes up with a few that are 3-bedroom instead of 4, and a few that are condos/townhomes. My hunch is that not many people looking for 30-day or longer stays are also looking for 8 guests. They’re looking for 2-4 guests, which is a disadvantage for me, but they might be looking for the space/privacy of a single-family detached home vs. a condo or townhouse that is more typical for 2-4 guests.
Yes, for now, but if they make significant strides into into the long-term rental market…
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I’ll admit I know little about it as I’ve never rented a home in my entire adult life and have never been a landlord. But if Airbnb barrels into it, they will disrupt the market. And established players never like it when someone comes in and tips the cart. Hotels didn’t like Airbnb, now they can piss off landlords, HOAs and who knows who else.
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I have been and am a landlord and a renter. Landlords are not typically renting out furnished places or including utilities. A furnished airbnb with all the utilities (and forks and towels and a TV, etc) is more than a landlord wants to deal with (or they’d be an airbnb host).
Hotels didn’t like Airbnbs and now Extended-Stay Hotels won’t like long term Airbnbs. I don’t think that the venn diagram overlap of people looking for a long-term airbnb and people looking for an unfurnished vacant apartment is very significant. I doubt they overlap at all. (Either you have furniture and want to deal with turning on utilities or you don’t 
)
The HOA factor will be interesting. It seems that they’ve leaned on the issues with Airbnb being “short-term rentals” and without that to gripe about, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Maybe nothing, if they were sincere about the issue being “short-term” then they should be happy now.
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ABB also charges the guest so it pushes your rate up and they are paying more.
they created the race to the bottom for STR, and they will do it next to LTR
My bet is on Zillow.
Don’t forget the 3% charged to the host. Don’t buy that this is a just a payment processing fee they are passing through to the host. Of course there is a payment processing fee, but it’s not even close to 3%.
I hear you but the 11% charge to the guest doesn’t affect what hosts receive and the 3% the hosts pay doesn’t affect what the guest pays
All I care about is what ends up in my pocket. If the guest is willing to pay 11% fee, that’s ok with me
I can advertise through multiple venues. If someone thinks Airbnb fees are too high, they can advertise in multiple venues too
I don’t understand. 100% of any payment comes from the guest, the guest payment could be 3% lower, or you could have 3% more in your pocket without that host service fee.
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Sure it does. I’d imagine we all take that 3% that Airbnb charges us into account when pricing our listings. If Airbnb started charging us 6%, we’d probably adjust our pricing upwards. Which means more for the guest to pay.
I no longer care.
Quibble over 3%. Don’t use Airbnb. Get rentals on other platforms. Complain that a company is charging a fee to bring customers to you.
the world has changed around us and maybe short term rentals aren’t possible right now. We are all in the same boat.
I wish 3% was our biggest concern
I’ve never complained that Airbnb charges a fee to bring customers to me. Of course they do, and 3% is super reasonable. I only said that that is factored in to what the guest is charged.
Am I the only one who thinks this is the worst time in decades to get into long-term rental? What are the prospects for a renter actually being able to pay rent for the entire term of a lease? No freaking way I would do it.
Renters are going to be forced to default in droves when their income dries up. Then hosts will end up with defaulting tenants they can’t evict. Even if it’s legal to evict, the process is lengthy and expensive during normal times. It could take a lot longer if there is a burgeoning number of defaulters.
This virus isn’t going away any time soon. And if people are pushed back to work in weeks or even a few months, we’ll go through wave after wave of outbreaks.
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I think many people have become dependent on STR income and now they don’t have any choice but to take their chances. It’s not like they can give it up and go get a regular job with Depression level unemployment.
And yes while Covid is serious its not an automatic death sentence, especially for people not in risk groups. But people need to eat.
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