Las Vegas VRBO, AirBnB, Short Term Rental

[Angelo Wong]

Hi,

This is going to be a long post.

Before I ask the vague question "should I buy a property in Las Vegas for the purpose of short term rental?" on BiggerPockets I thought I might ask the owners themselves first.  I did a little experiment by sending this message to hosts on AirBnB:

Hi ___,

My first question is: is there anything I could do to make my copy better?

I've gotten many responses back even though I only sent 30 (30 is apparently the maximum number of messages you can send per day) and here are a few highlights:

"The house is doing very well and rented most of the time. The condo is every weekend for sure. You should know that las vegas limits the Airbnb rentals to no closer than 700 ft and that there is licencing. In my neighborhood for example there are 5 vacation rentals and that's all we can have. Its been a very good investment but it has been an incredible account of work due to volume back to back bookings and the pool is a daily chore in our dirty windy desert. I would do it again for sure."

"Right now there is a threat that Vegas will outlaw short term rentals. There has been a lot of meetings regarding it. The market is ok, as your competing with an abundance of cheap hotels. In most cases it's better to do long term rentals."

So anyway, my initial thought was that Vegas is a global tourism spot and so would be good to have some short-term rentals there.  However, my main worries are legislation and the possibility of high vacancy/low rent needed.  Seems like general opinion is somewhat mixed.

But anyway, has anyone here done short-term rentals in LV?  How has it been for you?

[Ryan Murakami]

@Angelo Wong

Once again, great idea reaching out to Airb&b owners, but I think there are just way too many rooms in Las Vegas. There are also plans for more hotels (Wynns new tower, Lucky Dragon, Echelon) to open adding to the supply. Also, like George P. said, people would rather stay on the strip to avoid spending on transportation (and now parking, thanks to MGM taking the lead in charging for parking)

I would still reach out to these owners, but maybe hold them as long term rentals.