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Quick question for hosts out there who have stand alone rentals that are in shutdown areas:
Will you be switching to rent Long Term to locals in need? Or providing nights on charity?
I’m in this situation myself, with a luxury Lakehouse in South Lake Tahoe. STR and LTR to anyone who is not a local is forbidden by current town regulation, and so my house sits empty. We are lucky to be able to tighten our belts and keep our heads down and continue paying the mortgage without having any revenue, but I do hate to see wasted resources when there is such need and have been considering dropping the price to a token for locals and “essential” employees who otherwise can’t stay in the home they have.
There are a number of concerns I have, even using AirBNB to help with this, specifically that evictions are outlawed in our neck of California for an indeterminate period of time. What if things get going again and the person in my house refuses to leave?
Then only rent to someone who already has a home, this is low-risk and what we have done. Rent to these folks (they will want to go home when they can):
There are health care professionals that I know to be living in apartments so as not to risk infecting their families who are now constantly at home. Your home might be a blessing, should you feel comfortable with that scenario.
Would feel more comfortable if there wasn’t such a risk of overstay :(. I think damage would be covered by Airbnb insurance? Though maybe not in the squatter case.
It doesn’t take the place of your own insurance remember. I’d search the forum if I were you - there are lots of threads with advice about long term tenants versus short term Airbnb guests.
My problem with this is that just like Open Homes, scammers will realize that Airbnb doesn’t verify anything and then it will be a free-for-all scamming on hosts.
Not if damage was caused after the reservation ended.
Seriously, if someone is a medical professional they are so so much easier to vet than any of the guests you’ve had. Look up their name and “NPI number”. Check their to see if they have a valid license - you can do that with only a name. If they are a licensed professional, you can get their home address. I’m not suggesting you need it but health professionals are extraordinarily easy to vet. Almost all of our information is “public” because we have a professional license. Did you not vet your guests? Nothing has changed. But this is so so much easier.
I guess you get the opportunity to vet and reject without penalty. So I listed for charity. We’ll see what comes up. Will update here if I have an update, and would appreciate anyone else who has had the experience already to share how it went for them.
I am looking at advertising to this demographic, you can do targeted FB ads for one. For my listings in the mountains, near Palm Springs/Rancho Mirage I could look for people wanting to escape the summer heat. I am working on a marketing plan now.
In the OPs shoes, I would contact my local hospital. They will have a department, probably in HR, looking for accomodation for people a) staying away from their families whilst in the frontline b) Have travelled across the country to fill gaps in service provision in given areas.
You can express your concerns about people being bona fide temporary tenants; they should already have the answers for Landlords offering temporary accommodation for essential staff.
It’s very risky now to rent to longer terms . I ussualy have mostly longer terms but it’s clearly known now that there can’t be any evictions for 90 dayts . I would keep house empty unless you want to help someone .
Had a telemedicine appointment with my primary care doc today. I told her what my thinking was about hosting now (shared entry and vestibule, I’m 73, with a history of asthma and childhood TB) and she agreed that under those conditions, I shouldn’t host until the danger disappeared, which to both of us is when I can get vaccinated for COVID-19.
I’ve been pretty much self-isolated since my hernia surgery a month ago, and intend to stay that way. I don’t expect a tour business this year either, and I’m just waiting for programmers to get our state unemployment system set up to take applications from the self employed.
I once worked on that system, and some current staff tell me that there’s a demand for COBOL programmers again. I was under the impression that most was outsourced to India now, but if it’s not, maybe it’s time to pull out the old manuals and my box with the DOS compiler on floppies and polish up the resume that I haven’t used after 12 years of self employment…
I totally agree. I’ve talked to icu nurses who live with elderly parents and are so worried about coming home. The one instance I’ve heard of two doctors was that they were thinking of getting a hotel room, but nurse’s salaries can’t absorb these costs. The cleaning protocol is not too onerous, if you can help a first responder feel better not infecting others by coming to your quiet, empty ABnB, it is the least we can do! Yes I know there are scammers but my setting is that they need to request and I have been able to easily vet the requests I’ve gotten. My only regret is not being able to help more. And many of the nurses I have heard from are willing to share with another frontline person. As one woman said, that’s what I do all day long. Why should my house be vacant when people are flying in from other areas to do nursing shifts and people with families worry about going home and infecting their own. This should not be a job requirement to jeopardize your family when we can make it easier. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly swamped with requests to come visit one of the top hotspots in the US.
I am being reliably informed, right now over the kitchen table, that this is absolutely the case; there is no resource pool of COBOL Programmers In India, never was.
This is Mr Joan’s field. He says there is a HUGE demand on-shore in the US, so get re-skilled: they are not expecting you to be under 60 yrs old!!!
I asked where he’d seen the info; he can’t be sure but probably LinkedIN, and I’m now being shown Jobisite Alaska. There are COBOL roles posted on there. You could work remotely from home!
