I would not use AirBnb to facilitate long term bookings, I have read too many horror stories. I am thinking of using Zillow to advertise as well as craigslist . I am going to be looking for a 3-4 month guest and the lease will need to be prepaid. I am hoping that if someone can afford to prepay a 9 to 11K lease I will not have to worry about a squatter.
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I definitely agree. I’m sure that @HH would agree too. Any experienced host would ask themselves why a guest would use Airbnb and there are no good answers to that.
We used Craigslist and got a lot of response right away, almost all med professionals actually. I listed under “temporary and sublets”.
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From the Airbnb website about long term stays.
Asking guests to sign a rental agreement
“If you rent your home or apartment for monthly stays, consider whether you want guests to sign a rental agreement. If so, you should make these requirements clear in your House Rules before finalizing a booking. Laws governing these subjects vary widely depending on where you live, so be sure to contact a landlord-tenant attorney familiar with your local laws and regulations.”
I don’t know when this changed but earlier Airbnb RECOMMENDED getting a separate lease agreement .
I have gotten several rentals >30 days via Airbnb. I get a supplemental lease agreement. It isn’t perfect. I have the risk of a squatter and doing a pre-rental credit/reference check isn’t possible.
I second this motion → The hosting fees and guest fees start to make it prohibitive especially when the overall cost needs to be less than STL
Which brings me to Question #2: Pricing LongTerm vs ShortTerm. It obviously needs to be much less but what are others experiences with the price differential. 50% or?
I’m looking at what the comparable are, but then other factors include
- furnishings, utilities, & accessories (linens, dishes, etc) included
- what is reasonable to charge a traveling medical professional or one that is isolating from home? Market value or further discounted.
Thanks for all the Input especially our AllSTAR participant: @JJD
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I’ve found that it doesn’t need to be very much cheaper - which is great news. 
As I always say when the subject of pricing comes up, it’s just a case of doing the arithmetic. If you know how much does the property costs you per month (mortgage, insurance, utilities, property taxes etc.) then you know what to charge to make a profit. It’s important to include all the factors that you need to take into consideration - even little things like the window cleaner and the lawn service.
In some areas, rentals of 90 days or under are still considered to be STR so insurance costs may remain the same. Licenses and other officialdom too, although it depends on your local authorities. Of course, there won’t be cleaning expenses or consumables (unless your deal with the guests includes a weekly fettle) but it’s always an idea to add a goodly sum for contingencies - it’s likely that (just to spite you ) fate will ensure that your AC breaks down or the loo floods or something during the tenancy period.
But once you’ve done the maths, you’ll probably see that yes, you’ll be able to charge less but not drastically.
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Yes, no good answers at all, because they include things like avoiding a credit check, avoiding a background check, and avoiding a security deposit.
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One exception to this would be the very young (18-22). Most are still students or military and may not have any experience with rentals other than airbnb. But I don’t think they are avoiding it as much as just doing what they’re familiar with. When the dorms closed at local universities, we had lots of hits for lengthy rentals on Airbnb.
Also, it’s not as if there were a bunch of furnished places listed anywhere else other than Airbnb until recently (there are more now obviously). So, access to furnished places with utilities included and less than a year lease would be the main reason people book long-term stays on Airbnb. It’s where I looked when I needed a place before closing on our house - and I have references and perfect credit - e.g. there wasn’t anywhere else to find a fully furnished medium-term housing other than Airbnb and extended stay hotels (ewww).
I can’t imagine anyone is avoiding a security deposit this way either. The service fees on a LTR would be as much as many security deposits (and aren’t refundable).
Nonetheless, I do agree that it’s better for everyone involved to do a direct lease for more than a month. The main reason being that the high service fees end up coming out of your pocket as the price must be lower to compensate for them. And being able to take a real security deposit is the best protection and you don’t get that with Airbnb.
Just not an option for us, at least not since the changes to the law here recently. Our lawyer was dealing with three or four cases where tenants simply stopped paying rent, his best case scenario was eight to twelve months before owners could regain possession.
Unless you have either a golden tenant lined up, or a portfolio large enough that you can weather the non payers it’s simply not viable here now. More’s the pity, big demand in the centre of Jerez for LTR.
JF
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So true. I wouldn’t want to deal with just the random public right now. We took university students that have a dorm to move back into in Sept and a local med professional that has a much nicer home to return to - both have solid employment and too much to lose/no good reason to squat.
We had other folks inquire and avoided the bulk of them. Especially the one who asked if she could just pay cash weekly. lol.
I didn’t actually approach it like that. I don’t think a percentage of your STR rates is much help necessarily. I figured out what the cost would be for us in utilities (at their highest), added a bit due to our furnishings and what we would like to make on top of that and then did comps from Zillow, Craigslist and a couple furnished lists.
Ultimately you have to be competitive for the market so it’s important to compare to other available places. Many of the hosts in my neighborhood also put their places up on Craigslist but their prices were not reasonable and I notice that they are still listed, whereas, we filled our apartments 2.5 weeks ago.
I didn’t go low, I just went reasonable for the market and am pleased about what we got. Maybe think of what you’d make in your very slowest month as a starting point? That’s about what we got and it seems like a deal right now (compared to nada). Our 2 apartments are paying for our mortgage and utilities and that was my goal right now. It seemed like a practical goal was needed for these crazy times
For our med professional, I did take a $200 off a month for him. He didn’t ask but I was happy to give the discount which was ultimately our “low” that we were willing to accept anyway.
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Does Zillow have estimates for furnished rentals with less than a 1-year lease? They didn’t the last time I looked, and prices on a typical 12-month lease for an unfurnished unit will be really low (at least 30%). If you can find a nearby apartment complex that does leases less than 12 months and has units with similar number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and square feet, you’ll get a feel for the going rate.
That might actually be nada in Phoenix. My slowest month (not including the worst month that I blocked off) was under $400.
BTW, consider utilities. If your listing has a dedicated meter, you might not want to transfer the utilities into the renters’ name for 3 months, so you can do “pass-through” where you bill the renter the exact amount of the utilities that you pay. If you don’t do that, you have to pay rental tax on the utilities paid by the renter.
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I looked at actual furnished-all-utilities-included-rentals on various websites for my neighborhood. That’s where I got the “comps”. They were really the only relevant comps at the time. I also have the benefit of knowing what my apartments fetch as unfurnished-no-utilities-included rental in my neighborhood as I have had regular tenants not that long ago (1.5 years ago).
Yes, of course, those were considered in my calculations along with regular similar rentals in my neighborhood.
It was my major consideration, as I mentioned:
All the apartments have separate utilities, so it wasn’t difficult. But I also proportioned out the cost of the WiFi, TV subscriptions, Sewer and Water which we pay all of regardless. I more or less added up the cost of the utilities, added $400 for it being furnished and then added what we would rent the apartment at without utilities and furnishings.
The cost for “being furnished” was somewhat random but the total amount for the rent put us at a competitive and fair price for what we are offering in our neighborhood at this particular time as compared to what else was actually available at the time.
Ok, sorry, that was bad advice. We do well even in our slowest month but it’s ultimately a huge coincidence that our price ending up being about the same as a slow month. I guess it just made me feel good when I thought of it. “Well, no cleaning, and we’re doing as well as a slow month”. It was just a relief after getting 20 cancellations in one day 
edit to add: I used to do LTRs, this isn’t my first rodeo 
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Yes, it is quite evident in your advice.
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Apartments dot com has a filter function “furnished” if you want to see 1. If there are Furnished rentals in your area. 2. Pricing
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Is a good choice for a longer STR. There are lots of Medical professionals looking for accommodations right now. We just accepted a mail lady who is living with her parents locally and needs to distance herself due to her job. Not sure how long she will stay ( month to month lease) but that’s OK with me.
It’s better than nothing for awhile.
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thanks for posting this!
For those looking to list, while it states that there are no booking fees, there is a $99 per year listing charge that you pay as you fill out the application.
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Yes that’s the only charge
I’m sure that we will eventually find someone from this site later on in the year. We had multiple inquiries but decided on the first person that replied. My neighbor has been on FurnishedFinders for several years with good tenants.
Honestly I don’t think people are going to be traveling for vacations anytime in the near future. Stay safe everyone
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Depends on what is considered long term. In this forum we consider long term >28 nights. Most people think of long term as 1 year or more.
My LTR rentals via Airbnb have been 30-60 day snowbirds. They are familiar with VRBO & Airbnb for weekly rentals so they start there.
You are correct there isn’t a good reason for using Airbnb for a 12 month lease
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thanks so much! little acts of kindness go a long way…
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