[speakeasy]

I'm doing a bit more investigating into this. I think PWAP is right. Unless you own the property, it may not fly as a money-generating operation, and even then, you probably won't be making much.

As I'm finding out, most cities make it illegal for a tenant to rent out a property. You are going to be hard-pressed to find a landlord who will let you do it. Many landlords would be okay with it if it's just an every now and then sort of thing, like hosting on couchsurfing. But if every week there's a new stream of people coming in, they WILL find out. And there WILL be complaints from other tenants.

Read this article about a person who was doing exactly what you are planning. He ended up getting evicted and a cease and desist notice from the court.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1839465/how-a...y-landlord

http://www.fastcompany.com/1840715/my-ai...-i-learned

Read the comments as well as it sheds some light on some of the red tape you'd be facing:

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What Rod said and then some. I'm also a landlord in addition to being an Airbnb user. I like the service when I travel. I've even acted as a guest host for a friend who owns and rents out her guest house in New Orleans on Airbnb. Landlord's insurance and homeowners insurance exist to keep tenants safe, to compensate tenants and guests in case of accidents and injury (like if the roof caves in or something), and to protect a property owner from things like personal injury lawsuits as well as financial damage to a property caused by accidents, tenant or visitor damages, etc. (oops, sorry I burned your kitchen down making coffee for my Aibnb Guests!) Insurance companies are VERY clear on what constitutes a tenant (and even a "guest" or "visitor"), and what is and is not covered, and what activities a tenant can and can not conduct on a property in order for the landlord and property to be covered by insurance. Many commercial activities a tenant does on a property are not covererd and most leases have a section on this.

According to my own insurance company (I had thought about renting my own places out for Airbnb) neither landlord's nor homeowner's insurance covers bed and breakfasts (which is basically what Airbnb is), or a tenant subleasing out a property (why so many landlord's require any roommates of lease holder to also be on the lease).

As a user of Airbnb I also had concerns last year about my personal property. I was staying in a great place in SF, but there were no locks on the bedroom doors. I didn't even think about it, but my traveling companion did. His thoughts? Say another guest walks off with my Ipad, Laptop, and jewelry or something. Is the Air b n B Host responsible for negligence? How would I even make an insurance claim and police report?

I brought up this question to Airbnb last year after there was a big hooey in one of their rentals when an Airbnber totally trashed an apartment in SF and it made news headlines. I also raised the question if a "guest" is injured on an Airbnb property, who is responsible? Is a landlord vulnerable to lawsuits because of a tenant renting the property on Airbnb? What sorts of insurance do home owners and renters who are renting out for Airbnb need to cover their butts? My answer, sadly, from Airbnb, was what I can only describe as "Thank you for your concern" corporate PR spin - they completely avoided the question.

Like I said, I do like airbnb, and realize everything in life has risks, but as a landlord, no way in heck I'd be happy if a tenant was renting my property out on Airbnb. It's just too risky. I'd evict them asap. As for Airbnb, It will probably take a lawsuit for them to get their heads out of the sand and deal with this matter with their hosts and guests. It's a great service, but right now is pretty much just an underground B & B service that in many cases and cities is illegal due to lack of property business licenses, permits, and yes, insurance. And, as we see in this article, renters acting as Airbnb hosts are also taking a big risk with their landlords. I expect we'll see more Airbnb hosts get called out on this.

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Landlord here: By making AirBnb a full-time business out of your appartment, you crossed the line.

For a landlord, there are insurance considerations, cost considerations (water/power/etc.), and the fact that a continuous stream of guests coming and going can be disruptive to other tenants.

If it were an occasional thing, you could let it slide. If it were a condo that you owned, you could work it out with the condo board.

But re-purposing your rented apartment as a full time hotel is abuse, just the same as it would be if you opened a cafe or concert venue in the same space.

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A landlord insures the building that they own for specific kinds of usage - i.e.: tenants renting & living there, doing normal tenant things. Insurance is underwritten based on a common understanding of what that implies in terms of risk.

The risk profile for insuring a hotel is going to be considerably different than that of insuring a place that someone lives.

Its like car insurance: you have different insurance and different costs depending on what you're doing with your car - whether its driving too and from work every day, using it commercially to make deliveries, or keeping it for "pleasure" - evening and weekend use. Each has different coverage and different rates. Here, you can drive your "pleasure" insured vehicle to work 4 times a month (or something). If you get in an accident on your way to work, the insurance co will investigate and find out how often you've been driving to work. If you've been doing so every day, in a "pleasure" insured vehicle that doesn't cover work commuting, they will reject your claim, and you're screwed.

What that means for real estate is that if an apartment used as a full time AirBnB suite caught on fire and burnt down the building, sorting out the insurance would be a mess - i.e.: the landlord would make the initial claim, the insurance co would find out that the unit in question was being used for a purpose not covered by the policy (commercial hotel), and deny it. The landlord would then probably appeal with the insurance co and simultaneously sue the tenant. The insurance co would probably defensively sue the tenant as well, in case the courts stuck them with the tab. Everyone would be trying to land the liability on some one else, and the courts would sort it out over a very long time.

Same story if someone started a bakery in their apartment, or a cafe, or basically anything other than normal living.

I thought the idea sounded interesting at first, but I see that from a landlord's perspective, this isn't going to fly for insurance purposes. Maybe the alternative is to buy a condo. But even then, many home owners associations are going to be against it. I imagine a constant stream of foreigners coming in and out is going to depress housing values. It might help if it's sort of a detached condo, like a townhouse. If you can find one in a city where real estate is cheap with low property taxes but demand for vacation rentals is high + have an excellent local and attractive pad. And then if you did that, would you still make much of a profit when factoring in mortgage, insurance, property taxes?