Recently I have had a local contact who has requested we go through most of their AirBnB/short term rental locations and photograph and create walk thru videos for them to use in their listings. What's interesting is their transition from AirBnB to alternative listing opportunities.
AirBnB has long been known as a great way to list your property for short term rentals. Tapping that market allows people to have an entire home for a short period of time as opposed to having to rent multiple hotel rooms, etc for a family that might want more bedroom space. In addition, there is the opportunity to use the kitchen for meals, have a couple of bathrooms, and just generally more square footage available as opposed to stacking into a high rise style apartment location. Don't get me wrong, there are many of those types of AirBnB's also that are located in apartment or condo units, but in our area, the small houses and homes are much more popular. That being said, there is a bit of a revolt from local property owners against the AirBnB system.
Local property owners in neighborhoods don't like the short term rental market with multiple people coming and going all the time. At times it has been known to bring the weekend college sport party family into town with multiple vehicles, noise, trash, and general concern for those who live in the neighborhood. As a result, many local cities are now enacting regulation about short term rentals here. Things like yearly limits on how many times you can rent to different people, fees, and stipulations that are making it harder for those that were using the AirBnB system to generate rental income. In this specific instance, the owner is transitioning to mid term rentals to medical and professional travel employees.
An example would be a travel nurse that comes into the area on a contract to work at the local hospitals and needs a rental for 3-6 months. They enjoy the fully furnished unit, the kitchen, and something that feels a bit more like home. In addition, many of their contracts include the payment for the rental so for them, it doesn't cost any differently. Also, the owners of these rentals know that these professionals are very often working long hours, so many of them never really end up using the kitchens and it becomes just a place to sleep and shower before they turn around and go back to work. The availability of specialty websites that are geared around travel nurses and professionals makes it easy for them to market to that niche and as a result there are less fees and cleaning needed to the units. It also, of course, gets them around the local regulations that cities are putting into place :)
An innovative and smart way to solve the problem and choose an option that doesn't have to be AirBnB. Enjoy more of the photos we have taken of a few of their units.
