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That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web

d'Kong76 Sep 05 2018 12:31 AM

Does anyone here do this, either as 'landlord or tenant?' Not sure what else best describes this practice. We have a neighbor who has only been around for about three years, very nice, but she lives here part time lately. In the meantime, she has people from all over the country staying at her house for long weekends, a week and sometimes for a night. Freakin' me out a little. We're zoned residential on our quiet dead-end street of about twenty houses, not hotel/motel/flophouse*. *solely for sarcastic effect

Fman99 Sep 05 2018 02:03 AM Re: That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web

We've stayed at AirBnB's and homes/condos found through vacationhomerentals.com on lots of our family trips to Florida. We also did this on our trip this past May to Ottawa when a number of my running friends and I went up to run a marathon. I've had lots of positive experiences and no real complaints. Some were nicer than others, nothing is perfect (we had to make a call because the pool didn't get cleaned and lost one day of pool access over the course of a week, little things like that), but, on the whole, it's cheaper than hotels and you get real living space to occupy.

Lefty Specialist Sep 05 2018 12:02 PM Re: That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web

Never done it, but my brother has a spare detatched room that he rents out on AirB&B and has made a pretty fair piece of change from it over the past 2-3 years. Only had one unruly customer. Me personally, I wouldn't want to stay in someone else's house. And I want somebody coming in and doing housekeeping once a day. But to each his own.

Ceetar Sep 05 2018 01:23 PM Re: That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web

if it'd been a thing pre-kids we probably would've done it. So far we haven't even been traveling much for it to be an option. I think I might be a little two introverted for it and hence a bit picky. Like I don't want to interact with anyone. I dislike even when I run into the hotel maids. If it's just like "Hey, 202 park street. code to get in is 5454. Don't drink the good gin." I'd probably be into it. If I had a dedicated separate entrance/lockable area I might consider it, though I don't think i'm in a particularly desirable area for visitors.

sharpie Sep 05 2018 05:55 PM Re: That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Sep 05 2018 07:58 PM

I don't rent my house but I've done many house exchanges: outside of Venice, Vienna, Paris (twice), Sardinia and Amsterdam. In each case the other people were staying in my house while I was in theirs. In each case I met them either at the end or the beginning. In the case of Paris and Amsterdam, we have become sort of friends The fact that nobody is making money from this, only getting free vacation stays usually in expensive cities, makes me feel good about it. It's a leap of faith but some of my best vacations have been made possible this way as I am cutting out what is usually the single largest expense. As far as AirB&B, I've done it a couple of times. It was okay but I would rather stay in a hotel if the price difference wasn't that great. I have zero interest in renting out part of my place.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Sep 05 2018 07:35 PM Re: That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web

Yeah I sorta like staying in a hotel when we travel. We would consider the house-swap thing as an option but it would seem finding the right match could be a problem. The AB+B in our neighborhood is out of hand now. The fence rail separating our building from the next is loaded with a half-dozen padlock key things.

Benjamin Grimm Sep 05 2018 07:40 PM Re: That Renting-Your-House-Out Thing on the Web

There's no way I would let strangers sleep in my house. And I think I'd feel icky about staying in someone else's place. In the last few years I've used Booking.com a bunch of times. It's been useful to me when finding places to stay outside of North America. We're a family of four and sometimes it can be hard to find one hotel room that will accommodate four people, but Booking.com has just about always allowed me to find a place. I've used it in Europe, Africa, and South America as well as in a few out-of-the-way places in the U.S., like Washington's San Juan Island. Some of the places where we end up are a little weird, but not weird enough to stop me from using the site.