Hi! I live right next to Clemson University in Upstate South Carolina and am considering renting my home on game weekends in the fall and on graduation weekends. Those weekends everything in town is booked up and there is high demand for places for people to stay near the university. My family has a place to go out of town and we hear about people renting their homes on those weekends and doing well so we think we may try it. I'm looking for some advice, experience / thoughts from people that may rent their primary residence periodically like this to get an insights on things to know, be aware of, pitfalls to avoid, etc. I haven't done STRs before, but have done a lot of other real estate (long term, flips, notes, etc). A couple things we are considering related to this are:

- This is our primary, so we don't HAVE to rent it. We are just looking to capitalize on some high demand, so from a pricing standpoint I'm trying to 'price it to be worth it', but still be reasonable enough to get some bookings

- We are planning to leave our stuff in the house and just put things away that we care about and lock up stuff we don't want people into. Any advice on what to leave vs. put away (i.e. family photos, clothes in closets, kids toys, etc)

- We have a large house and could sleep 15-20 people. Thoughts on larger groups like this? I would be charging a pretty high price (since it could be 3 or so families splitting) and I'm heard this generally will keep the riff-raff away. True? False? (I know there are always cases where people cause problems, but generally speaking a high price rental is going to help avoid that I think??) I obviously don't want to have a party house, so I want to avoid that, but would like to use the full potential for the house to get the best rate I can. I plan to list through Airbnb since they have insurance and screen people

- I plan to have professional photos taken for the listing to have it present really well. Anything specific/out of the ordinary to have photos of beyond the usual?

- What's the best way to establish 'house rules'? In the listing and posted around the house? Any house rules examples that anyone already uses that they'd be willing to share?

And I'm open to any other info those of you with experience have to offer!

Thank you!

Greenville, South Carolina

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