201–210 of 386 posts
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Easy: at the point where your sole use of the property is for short-term rentals.
So the guest house example. A hotel? Or because it's part of the property you also live in, not-a-hotel? If I bought an apartment building and lived in the penthouse, could I rent all the apartments out short-term and not be a hotel?
I live in constant fear of getting a bad review. I wonder when is someone going to come up with an idea how to fix this. As far as I can tell there's not a lot a supplier on airbnb/ebay/etc can do about them. It's all too consumer centric... My subjective opinion is that most bad reviews are unwarranted, left by customers that have unrealistic demands.
TripAdvisor and others came up with a good solution a while ago - they let the property owner write a reply to a bad review, and post the reply right underneath the bad review.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Easy: at the point where your sole use of the property is for short-term rentals.
So the guest house example. A hotel? Or because it's part of the property you also live in, not-a-hotel? If I bought an apartment building and lived in the penthouse, could I rent all the apartments out short-term and not be a hotel?
Letting someone live in your apartment while you're temporarily away (or while you're still present) is a very different thing from regularly renting out a unit in which you don't reside. If you can't see the difference between those situations, I don't know much more clearly I can make it.
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In my personal experience, I love travel agents. They were able to: (1) Make valuable recommendations (2) Offer me a better price than any website (3) Save me hours upon hours of wasted time
(2) only because they are members of larger organizations that can strong arm prices down. (1) I'd rather the aggregate recommendations of a million people than the personal opinion of just one in most of these situations - you want the statistical mean experience, because a travel agent can be given special treatment or just have had a lucky streak placing clients in an otherwise seedy place. (3) Hopefully another t…
(1) How many online reviews are fake? How many are written out of spite? There is a level of trust you have to give someone: either an online reviewer or a person.
(3) Having a human to work with is usually better service than not. But it really depends on the situation.
Edit: I'd like to mention that I am not an agent of any sort. I do more business online than anyone I know, but I also realize the pros/cons of both sides of the spectrum.
Sounds risky. Four years is a long time. The price of the property can fall sharply, cities might decide they don't want "commercial" one-room hotels, and finally a renter might wreck the place or sue you for something. Yeah, I know, reputation system, rare chance, but rare chances is the kind of thing you often don't want happening to 60K investment!
"I'm buying up this incredibly valuable resource to lease it to people who only need it temporarily so I can turn a profit! Cool, right?"
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Illegal hotels aka slums. There is a reason hotels are fairly highly regulated. My first (and only) stay at an Airbnb rental resulted in me getting bedbugs.
It is unrealistic to expect any dwelling, whether it be hotel or hostel, to be free of bed bugs, especially if you're in a region with lots of international travelers. There is no effective insecticide for them, they can be impossible to see, and they don't need to eat for months. Now, any decent hotel will be doing periodic checks for bedbugs around the box spring and headboard, and any other wooden furniture. But t…
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Rather than saying "don't do this", it would probably be better to say "Step 1: make sure it is legal to do this". As you've pointed out, there are plenty of places where it is perfectly legal to do this. My guess is that it's harder to find a profit opportunity, though, because the more profitable use (legal use as a short term hotel) is already priced into the unit. I suspect that one reason airbnb is so profitable…
Done: It is legal. This is a contract issue and is therefore covered by civil procedure and not criminal code. So, it is "legal". But, you may be sued for breach of contract and be found to have damaged the other party. But, that all has to be argued in civil court and you may win or the other party may be found to have no damages. Finally, be sure to pay your taxes. That actually is a law.
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NY wants to protect the classic hotel business. Hotels and building owners need to take care of all kind of legal and administrative procedures, including security considerations for their users. Airbnb apartment owners are now competing for free with those business. Not saying i agree, but that's the main motivation behind of Airbnb regulations, in NY and other places.
Not really - it's the rights of the neighbours, who didn't sign up to live in a hotel with people coming and going at all hours, partying, damage/wear and tear, etc.
Hmm I don't see any mention of equity here but only profit. If you're able to cover the cost of mortgage + HOA/property tax + expenses of running the place then the equity is the profit. Assuming the price of the place is the same in, say, 10 years. Then you've built up 10 years worth of equity buy having someone else pay your mortgage... Of course if this place was bought cash, you could have done the same thing in…