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I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

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Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#321

Find a great property manager / cleaner -- Without one of these doing this remotely would be impossible. I managed to find a great local cleaner on craigslist. She charges a flat fee of $200 per month which covers unlimited cleanings. And she's probably illegal . . . But even if she's not illegal, how can this "property manager" live with himself, taking advantage of people who don't "know" enough (whether of the lan…

It's even more abusive because the listing says, "$35 cleaning fee." If he rents it to 6 different people, he has already recouped his costs and the rest will be profit. Edit: I don't think I communicated my meaning well here. Bottom line is, Hilton doesn't charge me to clean the room--it's a cost of doing business and is rolled into the cost of the room. The practice of adding on a 'cleaning fee' reeks of profit gra…

I'm not seeing the abuse here. How is it abusive to make a profit if he gets enough volume? I am not aware of any commonly held moral value that forbids potentially making money on an honest business venture. My boss makes money on my work. Do you think he'd continue paying me if that were not the case? I would sincerely hope not.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#322
post #143

"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?"

Quick, pick a business where that isn't the way things work!

Guy: 'I run a Valvoline' Douche: 'OH! So you BUY UP all the mechanics and then CHARGE PEOPLE to access them?!' Guy: 'Uh, yes. This makes me, the customers and the mechanics better off, dipshit.'

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#324

$200 monthly for a local cleaner who does unlimited cleans AND handles the bookings/inquiries??? That's quite a steal!

she's probably getting ripped off in this deal.

She probably signed away her right to stop working for him, and is now stuck working $2 per hour! It can't be that she's a free person able to choose to work for a given rate. She must be a victim!

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#325
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more abusive because the listing says, "$35 cleaning fee." If he rents it to 6 different people, he has already recouped his costs and the rest will be profit. Edit: I don't think I communicated my meaning well here. Bottom line is, Hilton doesn't charge me to clean the room--it's a cost of doing business and is rolled into the cost of the room. The practice of adding on a 'cleaning fee' reeks of profit gra…

Seriously? It's abusive because he makes a profit and doesn't do all the work himself?? Watch out, all of business, ever!!

It's abusive because he is passing the cost of cleaning the place to the user... which in fairness should then be variable based on its usage. 1 OCD person gets charged the same fee as multiple slobs that brought their pets and smoked in the apartment. That 'fee' should be rolled into the rental cost/cost of doing business. He is using it to augment his profit.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#326
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even more abusive because the listing says, "$35 cleaning fee." If he rents it to 6 different people, he has already recouped his costs and the rest will be profit. Edit: I don't think I communicated my meaning well here. Bottom line is, Hilton doesn't charge me to clean the room--it's a cost of doing business and is rolled into the cost of the room. The practice of adding on a 'cleaning fee' reeks of profit gra…

I'm not seeing the abuse here. How is it abusive to make a profit if he gets enough volume? I am not aware of any commonly held moral value that forbids potentially making money on an honest business venture. My boss makes money on my work. Do you think he'd continue paying me if that were not the case? I would sincerely hope not.

It's abusive because he is passing the cost of cleaning the place to the user... which in fairness should then be variable based on its usage. 1 OCD person gets charged the same fee as multiple slobs that brought their pets and smoked in the apartment. That 'fee' should be rolled into the rental cost/cost of doing business. He is using it to augment his profit.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I worked for the HOA and I saw this I would try to figure out if anyone knows I saw it. If not, I would ignore it. It's technically against the rules but OP seems to be doing a good job of managing it, and I doubt I could apply a higher standard to the rest of the units. I'd wait for a resident to bring the issue to me, which would hopefully never happen. If I managed a ritzier condo complex I'd probably do someth…

Former HOA president here (for a 77 unit building in downtown San Diego). Short-term vacation rentals are forbidden here and they are absolutely shut down when found out. You can't 'manage' every single guest that comes thru - most will be respectful, but it won't take long before a group of college students use it as as a party pad. I lived next to one used for that purpose, and while I was on the board we had 4 oth…

Did you ever consider changing the rules to allow short-term rentals?

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#328

isnt he missing income taxes? In germany you would have to pay up to 42% income tax on the profits, depending what other earnings you have.. Still an okay return though.

adding to this: if hed use the profits to pay off the loan on the apartment, he probably wouldnt need to pay income taxes.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#329
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in hospitality for 5 years, and right now I'm staying at a hotel in downtown Vegas, a few miles from the author's Airbnb place. Hotels are obsolete. It's not the business model, short-term housing and hospitality certainly have no risk of obsolescence ever, it's the industry. Service sucks, rooms suck, tech really sucks. You have awkward kids in bad suits and clip-on ties at the front desk who're trained to…

OK, asshole here: "Then, there are the guests. As soon as someone stays at a hotel, they think they're entitled to act like an asshole." You know, you may have a tremendously challenging job, are jet-lagged and still have to give 100%. Then you pay 400 Euro for a hotel and they charge you another 30 or 40 Euros per day for Wifi. You get annoyed but you don't care because you will get reimbursed. Wifi will be unreliab…

The probability of getting cheap reliable internet is inversely proportional to the cost of the room, I've found.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#330
post #172
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently bought a condo in Maui to rent and those places are sent up for this sort of thing. They even call them Condotels. Being designed for short term rentals brings a lot of benefits like resort manages check-ins/outs for you. Also, there is an echo chamber in the tech community regarding AirBnB as the standard for short term rentals. From my experience, VRBO has been much better and provided significantly more…

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…

> As you've pointed out, there are plenty of places where it is perfectly legal to do this.

.. Why the everloving fuck would this be illegal? What sense could it possibly make? -You have some property and you're letting someone use it for a fee.

I get that this actually might be illegal somewhere - I'm just trying to highlight the fact that it would be absolutely fucking insane.

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