Using AirBnB as a Tenant.

[Paul Bryzek]

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to get your viewpoint on the idea of securing a property from an owner on a month to month lease agreement, only I would then turn around and become an AirBnB host on that same property.  This is an innovative way to create significant cashflow using OPP (other peoples properties!).

I know cities are starting to regulate on AirBnB and short term rentals - e.g. SF only allows up to 90 days, but I am not clear on the rules surrounding being an AirBnB host as a sublet to my master lease agreement.

Has anybody tried this and what cities in the bay area would you think is best / worst to try out this creative strategy?

Thanks,

Paul

[J. Martin]

@Paul Bryzek,

Yes, a bunch of people do this, including myself, as @Arlen Chou, @Craig Curelop, and @Chris Mason. It can be a good business at the right scale. Some growing pains and I didn't like being on-call/on-internet 24/7 for things that pop up while scaling. But better now that I have a team. 

Scott Shatford wrote a book on doing this. It's sold on Amazon for $5 I think for the ebook. He runs Airdna.co(m). They sell a lot of Airbnb data also. I only sublet for over 30 days, so the short-term rental regulations don't apply (all laws I've seen so far define short-term rentals as 28-30 days or less). 

I pay market rent. To be honest, the numbers in my biz wouldn't work paying above market. There are a lot of labor costs (implied or explicit, depending on how you run it.) You have depreciating furniture. Fixed overhead, combined with seasonal revenue, typically. Maybe with the right place doing short term, could afford to split revenue. 

But see what's going to make the landlords happy. A lot of them in the Bay are just tired of dealing with that occasional ******/combative tenant, and primarily do not want calls or headaches.