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I’m sure it can work. Experienced hosts know how to vet guests and guests booking long term to be close to where they are building their retirement home sound like a good and hassle-free booking.
This thread was started off by a new host looking at a 3 month booking from guests with no reviews. Which probably isn’t at all a great idea for her. Hosts at least need some experience not only at vetting prospective guests, but at learning that Airbnb isn’t going to come to their rescue if things go south.
I understand. The first time I did a 30 night rental, I frequently checked Craigslist to see if they were selling my furniture.
As of 9/1/21 a friend did not extend her tenants lease. Like me she is a remote host (3.5 hours). She does use a property management company to find renters for both LTR & STR and deal with issues that need immediate response.
The tenant took the 5 year old smart tv and the couch must be replaced. Chances are the TV is going to fail soon anyway. She used the condo for STR until this LTR. STR is brutal on soft furniture so couch replacement would probably be required regardless.
Regardless of having a management company vetting guests, there are risks. We do the best we can.
We have (a lot of) laws against messing with “essential utilities” here. So much so that landlords with non-paying tenants get very scared if something breaks or goes off by accident, because we can be harshly punished.
However, in case anyone might need it someday, it is not hard to put a tenant on their own wifi signal (most routers have multiple wifi lines now and a satellite is easy to attach), that is not shared with others, and then slow the tenant’s signal way way down, track what IP addresses the particular tenants access and block those IP addresses and also max out those parental controls.
As there are in Scotland, however WiFi is not considered “essential” and if a utility fault is external, there is a lot of leeway.
That’un was a one off and many years ago, my OH would have my bollocks nailed to the kitchen wall if I pulled a stunt like that again. She hates me messing around with live electricity
Landlords are usually off-site. And hosts doing long-term rentals are landlords regardless of whether they do them through Airbnb or not.
We have a photo of our property tax invoice with our IDs in it that we send to potential tenants on Furnished Finders. We also include a link to the public property record for our address. This proves that we own the property and have a right to rent it. I also give them a link to our Airbnb listings which again shows that the apartments exist and their quality. This is for folks that can’t come see the unit in person for one reason or another.
I am in the don’t-do-long-term-rentals-on-ABB camp. We do great with Furnished Finders, so much so that I haven’t been doing Zillow or Craigslist for a while, but they are there if I need them. Zillow used to be free to list but is now $9/week (for me, I believe the charge varies by location). However, they do give a month free for your first listing. It can also be helpful to just list on Zillow the last week of the month when people are scurrying to get something by the 1st. And Zillow is nice because they charge tenants a small fee to have their credit and background done that they can submit to landlords for 30 or 60 days or something, so you can get some of that done free-to-you and easy on Zillow.
Lots of people will tell you not to use Craigslist, but it is a primary source for rentals in my market and we have had great luck on there. Anyone who contacts me from Craigslist gets referred to my Zillow listing that requires the Zillow credit and background check. Scammers will not go to the trouble or expense.
We have also listed on University housing boards in the past, we have 7 colleges and universities in the area so that is a primary part of our market. It is not really younger students because they are required to live on campus but it is medical residents, PhD students, visiting professors and researchers.
Always m’dear, always even if I need to roll a barrel all the way there.
If you’re all good and behave well, in the camp, I may bring some of this.
I was at a tasting recently and have found a new bestest bestest friend. Sadly, my new friend is a bit high end, around €60 a bottle here, and a lot more outside of Jerez. Not one for the roof terrace and Spotify on a Saturday evening…!
even if I need to roll a barrel all the way there.