how you protect your house in short term rental?

[Itay Heled]

Hi ,

I just list my house for short term

four  young people rent my furnished apartment via Airbnb for two weeks.  the person who rent it has one review . I know nothing about the rest.  few days in they asked to add 4 more people. 

hearing all the horror stories about parties and trashing the house, what are the tricks and ways to minimize the risk?

is it practical and acceptable to do some sort of background checks on the new people?  send someone to visit the house? 

also, Airbnb has some sort of protection but what are you doing with reservations coming from other platforms such as  booking.com VRBO etc?

thanks !

Itay 

[James Carlson]

Hey @Itay Heled

Trashed Airbnb homes makes for good click bait news, but it's not the norm. 

In twelve years with investment properties in Colorado -- including LTRs, MTRs, and STRs -- we've had exactly one "trashed" home ... and that was from a long-term tenant, not a short-term rental guest. Similar story for all our vacation rental investor clients.

Set strong rules and expectations, vet guests as best you can, have robust insurance and carry on.