Has anyone had success with Airbnb in the DC area?

[Erik Pierson]

Hello BP community!

My wife and I recently moved to the DC area. I have been interested/learning about REI for a few months now and want to get started here in and around DC. I was listening to Brandon Turner's podcast with Zeona McIntyre who is a very successful vacation rental investor. It gave me the idea of looking into short term rentals here in DC since it is such a popular tourist destination as well as travel destination for business and government people. I was wondering if anyone out there has had success doing short term rentals such as Airbnb in the DC area. If so, what has your experience been like as far as profitability, acquiring properties, working with property management firms, DC vacation rental laws etc. Any insight is much appreciated!

[Adrienne Green]

@Erik Pierson Fairfax County has restrictions on STRs that make it pretty tough to profit from there:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/code/short-term-property-rental

Loudoun County currently is STR friendly (https://www.loudoun.gov/shorttermrentals) BUT the Board of Supervisors made an abrupt change of how they were handling STRs last year, and decided to look in to further regulation (https://loudounnow.com/2019/08/02/more-airbnb-regulations-coming/). I've seen no updates on what that regulation would look like.

The other major factor is the HOA or condo association regulations, since many Northern Virginia communities full under one of those umbrellas. Most require a minimum of a 6 month lease. Countryside HOA in Sterling is a notable exception: as of the last time I checked (2019), it had nothing forbidding STRs.