Who Rents Their Place Out?

[highpeaksdrifter]

The buying a ski house/condo thread got me thinking. So many people here own a 2nd house/condo in ski country that I thought I might pick their brains. My wife and I are thinking of renting our place 5 minutes from Whiteface, but we’re nervous about people we don’t know using it. If you rent yours what do you feel the pros and cons are, how do you advertise, how often do you rent and anything else you think pertinent to the topic?

 

[DJC]

The buying a ski house/condo thread got me thinking. So many people here own a 2nd house/condo in ski country that I thought I might pick their brains. My wife and I are thinking of renting our place 5 minutes from Whiteface, but we’re nervous about people we don’t know using it. If you rent yours what do you feel the pros and cons are, how do you advertise, how often do you rent and anything else you think pertinent to the topic?

I own but do not rent mine to strangers. I made my purchase after doing enough analysis to ensure that I would not have to rely on rental income. I'm just not comfortable with strangers I don't know using a place that I love. I think that if you have a ski home that you've always treated as just an investment, and not the place you go to escape the 'real world', then renting is a viable option. For me, I would be devastated to get to my place and find it abused, furniture broken, etc. Obviously all of those things can be dealt with via security deposits, insurance, etc, but my point is that you should really think about what the place means to you and whether or not you can handle it being abused. One thing is for sure - no matter how conscientious renters are, they don't really care about the place and will treat it the same way they treat a hotel room. The question is...can you accept that?

 

[drjeff]

No renting for us. We use it too much My place actually had a very successfull full summer rental history prior to us buying it(full summer - 3 month - 1 renter) for the previous 5 years to us owning it. Also, per the rental agency in my complex, it would ususally rent for 3 to 4 long weekends/ski weeks during the ski season too.

My wife and I look at it now like it would be too much of a P.I.T.A for us to put everything into the "owners closet" and cart a bunch of stuff home for the couple of prime ski weekends/weeks that we don't use it now, and as for the summer, we really enjoy warm weather weekends in the greater Mount Snow area too much to give that up for the income we'd generate. Based on current rental rates for comparable units in my complex and historical average amount of time per year that it rented, we'd cover between 3 to maybe as much as 5 months of mortgage/association fees from the generated income after the rental fees were paid.

Note, the fact that this ski season alone there have been fire in 2 townhomes at Mount Snow where I am (1 in Seasons, and 1 in Greenspring developments) makes would make me even more worried about renting out my unit.

If you were renting out your property, I'd almost price it a bit above the going rate, just to prevent what sometimes can be the undsireable rental situation of having ALOT of especially younger, party seeking folks in your property, since as many of can remember/maybe even still partake in, it can get a bit out of control when a bunch of party seeking folks get together with a bunch of booze! (of course I'm not speaking about this from first hand knowledge of the party folk )

 

[Geoff]

My wife and I look at it now like it would be too much of a P.I.T.A for us to put everything into the "owners closet" and cart a bunch of stuff home for the couple of prime ski weekends/weeks that we don't use it now,

+1

I use my place every weekend from foliage season until the lifts stop spinning. It's set up as a home rather than as a rental. I have so much stuff I'd have to lock in the basement that it would take me quite a few hours to make it "rental-ready" for that occasional time when I'm on a ski trip rather than in Vermont. I've owned my townhouse for 15 years without needing to paint it or swap out the carpet. As a rental, I'd start seeing big wear and tear and I doubt I'd make back the limited rental income I'd receive from a few midwinter weekends plus midweek and summer rentals.

 

[Hawkshot99]

My family does not have a ski house, but we do have a beach place. We do not "rent" it out. First of all we are not aloud to do that in the area that we are. We do however let friends and family stay there and they pay us a bit for using it. By knowing all the people that use it very well, it insures that the place survives.
Plus my family has always liked the fact that if they wake up in the morning up north and decide they want to go to the beach they can leave whenever and not worry about if it is being rented out.(They were teachers, and are now retired so they had free all summer.)

 

[izzy]

Rented for ten years...........I'll never do it again. Way to much wear and tear and even when you try to keep things "nice" it gets all torn up.(remember skiers tend to overload spaces)
Now my motto is "Trespassers will be shot, survivers will be shot again"

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

Wow, you guys are giving me alot to think about. I was thinking about renting the week of the Iron Man Comp. in Lake Placid. Demand is extremely high that week and I thought I might pocket a chuck of cash to put toward my taxes. Now I'm not so sure.

 

[drjeff]

Wow, you guys are giving me alot to think about. I was thinking about renting the week of the Iron Man Comp. in Lake Placid. Demand is extremely high that week and I thought I might pocket a chuck of cash to put toward my taxes. Now I'm not so sure.

Think of it this way, what would you "abuse" more, the pair of skis you own, or a rental/demo pair???

 

[SKIQUATTRO]

I'd rent it to IRONMAN competitors,,,they arent partying with that event!!! All the triathelets I know are well established (its a very expensive sport) and when you pay 5K for a tribike, these are people who respect and take care of things!! I've been doing tris for years now and I'd rent my house to anyone of em...good group of people

 

[smootharc]

The three rules of renting....

1) nobody takes as good care of your stuff as you do.
2) see rule 1.
3) see rule 2.

It's been alluded to in the above replies.

Either you set your place up for renting - with everything bombproof. Then cross your fingers and expect every single time you come "home" you'll see something out of place, dented, dinged or broken.

Or you don't rent....and set your place up for YOU.

Possible exception, alluded to, might be renting to good, reliable friends....and hoping they stay that way. But even reliable friends can be surprisingly clueless when it comes to your house and stuff.

I don't like the idea of someone else's head on my pillows. We've been asked, but we don't rent. One particularly persistent friend had to be told "Our insurance liability prevents renters or guests when we aren't there". They seemed to buy that white lie.

 

[mlctvt]

One particularly persistent friend had to be told "Our insurance liability prevents renters or guests when we aren't there". They seemed to buy that white lie.

This is absolutely true in my case. My homeowners insurance company would not even insure my condo if I rent it out. I did rent the first year as a 1/2 share but the insurance company would have dropped coverage if I continued to rent it, or so they said. I also had zero claims, ever. I guess they didn't want the risk.
Even though we had perfect tenants in our 1/2 share rental, we decided against renting again not just because of the insurance problem. It was just a real pain to have to clean every week and lock away our stuff and food. Also it seemed whenever we got a real good storm it wasn't our week. Nothing sucks worse than not being able to use your own place on the best weekends! I imagine if we were still renting it, our tenants would have had it this weekend.