Seattle condo airbnb while traveling

[Luke Mccandless]

I am a remote working thinking of owning a condo in Seattle that I would live in ~6 months out of the year and rent on Airbnb the rest. This seems doable in Seattle with a business permit but I wanted to be sure that was correct? 

[Michael Haas]

For a Seattle Short Term Rental you'll need a business license, Seattle business license, STR operators permit, and RRIO certification. The city of Seattle negotiated with Airbnb and VRBO to have the occupancy taxes taken directly out of your bookings, so at least those are filed automatically for you if you use the big STR platforms. Its a pretty big chunk of paperwork (and of course all those applications and permits have fees) but nothing you can't handle.

Condo's can be tricky- as Airbnb/VRBO have grown, many HOA's have banned short term (less than 6 month) rentals. The ones that haven't banned them usually have a extremely large number of investor owned units and short term rental units- I've shown quite a few with 50%+ of the units primarily being used as Airbnb's. Although an Airbnb here and there doesn't make much difference, the impact of those 50%+ Airbnb buildings is definitely negative- lockboxes on every railing, suitcases and confused travelers in the lobby, late night parties, cleaners constantly in and out, unauthorized persons entering and exiting the building...

You've got a great idea - we own short term rentals in Seattle, Stevens Pass, and Alaska, and our ones in Seattle are EXTREMELY PROFITABLE. My two cents- widen your search to low maintenance properties like townhomes, smaller stand alone homes, newer construction with hardscape, etc, as you'll have more flexibility for that arrangement if you don't have to answer to a HOA board- even if you find a HOA that allows STR's, it may only be a matter of time before the bylaws are changed and their banned, extinguishing your income stream.

Feel free to message me if you'd like to grab a coffee talk more about STR's - they took some practice to get started, but now they're a huge part of our portfolio and we're always happy to share what we've learned.