All Forum Posts by: Julie McCoy

@Jon S. I plan to do something similar when I move to my new primary home in Nashville.  @Michael Nelson gave some really solid advice.  (@Paul Sandhu is an expert at this but I suspect his demographic is very different from what you'll get in Orange County)

What I have to add is: see if your homeowner's insurance policy offers a rider for short-term rental usage.  Last thing you want is some issue to happen while a guest is there, and your policy to refuse to cover it because the home is occupied by a paying guest.  

And review the local laws.  Depending on where you're located (if you're in Anaheim, for example) it may not be worth it if STRs are heavily regulated or outlawed.  

Good luck!

 Would this be an event, though?  My understanding is that the request is to offer a private stay at the condo as a raffle prize, not that any event would actually be held at the condo.

 No they do not.

 I think it's a totally reasonable thing for them to not allow you to potentially use your listing on their site as a way to solicit off-platform bookings, which is what displaying contact information would do.  As I said, a watermark (that does not include contact information) is in all likelihood fine, though I haven't looked at the TOS to verify.  

Nope.  Not only are they asking you, a total stranger, to give them something for free, you also have zero control over whomever actually stays at your place.  

If it were an organization you already supported or were involved with, I can see considering it with some caveats, but a big no to total strangers soliciting your place for free.  

@Jason D. Any contact information embedded in photos posted on AirBNB or VRBO etc. is a violation of their TOS.  A watermark is fine, I imagine, but if AirBNB or VRBO found contact information they'd take some sort of negative action against my account.  It's against their TOS to use your listing with them to solicit bookings outside their platform.

Find the listing on Craigslist and flag it - they'll take it down.  The difficulty will be catching it every time it pops up again - I don't know that Craigslist is particularly proactive about that kind of thing (I don't know that they'll ban accounts or anything like that - and even if they did, it's super easy to make another one).

The sad fact of the matter is that fraudsters like this are common, and to the best of my knowledge the only way to fight this particular activity is to keep an eye on Craigslist and flag listings when they appear.

You may also consider writing up a BEWARE OF FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY post to post in the VR section of CL, and explain what happened and that people should use extreme caution when booking direct via Craigslist - they should only go through booking platforms like AirBNB/VRBO to protect themselves.  (this sucks for people doing legit direct bookings, but I don't have any better ideas at this point)

 I do manage mine remotely.  I was familiar with the area in the sense that I had visited as a child, and have been visiting the Smokies (albeit mainly the NC side) for most of my life.  However, I chose to invest there specifically because it fit all the things I was looking for in a market: nearly year-round demand and low cost of entry.  A bonus is that the area is so dependent up on STRs that the vendors are very used to working with them.  I've been in the area for a little over a year now, and all my expectations have been exceeded. :) 

 That definitely makes a difference!  With those factors in mind, I think it's really up to you to decide if:

a) your market can support five similar units and you won't be taking business from yourself

b) the additional time/effort/expense of running STRs is worth the projected cash flow

If you're confident your market won't be fazed by the quantity of units you'll be putting up (which I assume are comparable to each other and thus will compete with each other), and you feel confident in managing that many units, I say go for it!

Since you've already got a lot of the up-front expenses taken care of (e.g. furniture), you can always do my phase-in plan in reverse if necessary... start with them all as STRs, and if for whatever reason in the future you no longer want all 5 of them, you can gradually phase into LTRs (or mid-term stays like @Michael Nelson suggested).  

If I had a similar property in a promising market, you bet I'd be doing the same thing!  Good luck!

@Paul Sandhu strikes again!  Excellent idea indeed.