No law against an apartment swap for a week (no monetary compensation) or renting out part of one’s own apartment for under a month, if one is staying there.
Also, I can’t speak to AirBnB/VRBO, but there are plenty of short-term situations on Craigslist (search sublets for “week”, “weekly”, or the name of a month, as in “March” 9-15). Technically illegal, but unless one is an idiot about it and rents to a bunch of annoying party kids or an axe murderer, no one will say anything about it.
The good thing about NYC is that if it doesn’t annoy anyone, it’s generally tolerated with the exception of occasional well-publicized crackdowns that go away after a while. Witness every new mayor since Lindsay trying to fine jaywalkers, and the campaigns mercifully going away after a few weeks of unpleasantness.[/quote]
Yep. I totally agree with you spdrun. There are all kinds of people that are renting out their properties in New York. I know they have laws against it (same as in Paris) but it’s almost impossible to enforce if you structure things the right way and set the right expectations on the front end.
I have friends that do in both cities even in building where it’s supposedly not allowed and they do a good job screening their potential guests as well as setting the right expectation BEFORE taking the booking.
I’ve done home exchanges with people in NYC almost every single year and never had issues. They typically fed ex me the key ahead of time and set the guidelines for the building/doorman, etc. There is a right and a wrong way to do them.
[quote=FlyerInHi]As Downtowner mentioned, I’m thinking about taking over a timeshare on the resale market. I definitely would not buy from the developer.
I have heard of people loving their timeshares; and of course, horror stories are all over the Net. Generally people don’t talk about their bad investments in a social setting because they don’t want to burden the listener.
I’m thinking timeshare in Hawaii or Las Vegas, if I can get a deal. I suppose I need to do more research on the costs.
ER, I have a condo on VRBO. It’s working out well.. but it’s work… I need to find a better cleaning crew.
I would like to do VRBO or airbnb on a condo in NYC, but I hear that the city is cracking down on that.[/quote]
I’m sure you can probably find a deal that works for you. Still, lots of horror stories out there for me to ever get involved in timeshares but I’m sure there are some good opportunities out there.
FlyerinHI, VRBO is really good. I’ve been advertising mine on there for many many years and always get quality tenants. Check out Homeaway and even AirBnb.com I’m getting a larger and larger percentage of my bookings each year. They have really done a great job of building their business.
No doubt there are LOTS of hassles of the short-term or vacation rental property. The key is having a good manager. Absolutely what you mentioned with good cleaning crew is one of the toughest things I had to deal with in all my years of property management.
At one time, I was managing over 250+ vacation short-term rental properties and the absolute toughest problem I had to deal with was finding good, qualified and HONEST cleaning people. I didn’t have a problem finding office staff, check-in/out staff, professionals. It was always the cleaning staff that was the real pain.
