Leasing to a business that subleases on AirBNB?

Question

I'm curious to hear about experiences people have had with leasing to companies that sublease the premises as a short term rental. How did your experience compare to a standard long term lease to an individual/family? How frequent were repairs?

I have this LLC wanting to rent one of my houses which they plan to list on AirBNB. They are insured up to $1 mil and would be handling all management, furnishing, cleaning, inspections etc while I get my flat monthly rents via ACH. The company is legit based on my research and claims that they focus on working professionals who are traveling for business purposes.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

This question is asked quite often and the experienced Landlords/Property Managers tell you to avoid this. Go check out the Short Term and Vacation Rentals forum to get more opinions on the subject.You have no idea who they are or who they rent to. Just because they have an LLC or even a website doesn't mean they have any long-term experience or track record. Most of these AirBnB arbitrage "companies" are young people looking to make money off your property with no real concern about you or the property. If the market shuts down, they will abandon you without hesitation. How do you know they will maintain the home? Pay taxes? Respect the neighborhood? Is your home even zoned for AirBnB? Will they abide by city/state laws? Will they maintain the home properly? Do they really rent to corporations, or are they more likely a crash pad for partiers?If your home is desirable for a short-term rental, figure it out and do it yourself. Even if you hire a professional, established, local company that manages vacation rentals, you'll probably still make more than if you hired this other company that solicited you out of the blue.

Dylan Thomas · Answer

We have not experienced first-hand, but have several current PM clients that came to us with horror stories about these arrangements. I would 2nd what both @Jonathan Greene and @Nathan G. had to say, do the management and leg-work yourself, you will almost assuredly make more money and cut your risk down into a fraction of what it would be.

Jerry W. · Answer

@Chuck Emhoff, for what it is worth, I would vet the potential tenant or business like any other tenant. Check with other folks who they rent from, check to make sure they pay on time, etc. In my experience people who do STR usually keep their properties up nice, but not all of them. Look to see how many 5 star reviews they have on their properties, look to see if they have outdoor cameras or sound sensors etc. to notify them of parties. They are folks wanting to make a living and get ahead just like us. As long as they are financially secure and take care of the house then why not rent to them? I definitely would if they checked out well.

Jonathan Greene · Answer

Arbitrage makes no sense to me. You can do the same thing yourself as @Nathan G. said, even with management. If you want a steady paycheck, that's what regular renters are for, not some random LLC who is going to use your property as their crashpad/investment opportunity. What is the gain for you in arbitrage over just having a regular tenant? It's more wear and tear and you get none of the bonuses of the money.

Chuck E. · Answer

Thank you everyone for providing insight and perspective!I am indeed passing on this sort of lease agreement. It just doesn't make sense to subject myself to heightened risks without greater reward than my current leasing model. The cited risks simply can't be ignored.

Steven Wang · Answer

So I will come at this from a different angle than the previous responses. Rental arbitrage makes sense for landlords in some asset classes and not others. If you are a mom-and-pop landlord with 1-2 single-family investment properties in popular markets, there's no point leasing to a rental arbitrage company at a fixed rental rate. If you are a multi-family developer that builds 300-unit complexes all over the country, there are massive benefits in working with carefully vetted and professional rental arbitrage companies. A mom-and-pop real investor has the time to learn and run an STR hospitality business, a massive multi-family developer doesn't and it's not even part of their core competencies, not to mention a hospital business at that scale requires a sophisticated tech stack and manpower. In terms of the other arguments about horror stories and party crash pads, this is just a matter of bad vendor vetting and selection and the general nature of the STR industry. Bad LTR PMs will run your investments into the ground, just like bad STR operators and managers will run your investments into the ground. As someone who has been in the STR industry for quite a bit now, you would be surprised at how horribly most "professional, established, local compan[ies]" manage their STR portfolios. Large companies like Vacasa, Turnkey, or Evolve aren't any better, either. In fact, my experience with their properties is that they are managed just as terribly as the smaller companies, as those companies implement portfolio-wide pricing strategies and don't really care about optimizing RevPAN and occupancy at the individual property level and don't really care about vetting guests and proactively avoiding anything. Just because they are established doesn't mean they have the systems, technologies, and strategies in place to proactively vet guests and deter bad guests from booking in the first place. There is always a risk of hosting bad guests in the STR world, especially if your properties are on the lower end of the rate spectrum. Even at the upscale end of the spectrum, a $1,000/night mansion that can host 20 people is only $50/night/person, something a bunch of wild college kids on spring break can easily afford once a year. My advice to the OP would be to first vet this company (and any PM company honestly) and see exactly how and what they use to proactively prevent issues from occurring, and what their approach is if an issue actually occurred. Dig deep into the $1 million coverage they are referring to, as Airbnb's coverage is also $1 million and that's not considered insurance. You want to make sure that rental arbitrage companies use insurance coverages that specifically cover rental arbitrage arrangements, which at this time according to my knowledge is only offered by Proper (www.proper.insure). If a company don't use noise monitors, security cameras, and smart locks to actively manage guest codes, don't even bother with them (don't ask them if they use these, just ask them what's their method for preventing and addressing bad guests and party situations). Lastly, propose a profit-share/management model instead of leasing to them at long-term lease rates. As the previous people mentioned, there's really no reason why in your situation you should give up the benefit of STR cash flow and have your home be a STR. There is so much more that I would recommend you ask these companies to really see if they are seasoned operators or just a bunch of kids trying to get rich quick. Honoestly, this kind of vetting should be done with any management company, not just STR operators, albeit the questions you ask will be drastically different. Running a STR/hospitality business and preventing problems by yourself is not as easy as some people make it out to be, especially if you run it at scale. If you don't like hospitality and heavy operations management, and can't deal with Airbnb's dictatorial way of managing bookings, you will get burned really quick, especially if you don't have the higher-end properties that don't really get booked by people looking to party. Hope this helps!