Why You Should Love Short Term Rentals Too
A lot of people have been interested lately [meaning our phones have been blowing up with questions from people] in how to do short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO. We love all this excitement and passion; there are so many things to love about this type of investment! Here are a few additional reasons that investors should love short-term rentals:
Low barrier to entry.
In our opinion, this is one of the easiest forms of investing you can give a “test drive.” If you own your own home you literally have everything that you need to try this out and see if this is for you. No raising money for a down payment, nothing to flip, and at a minimum you can just clean everything up and next time you’re out of town see how things go. Just think of how often you are out of your home anyway and next time you have a trip or a weekend away planned, open that weekend up and see how it goes.
Like I said, you’re gone anyway.
This is one of the things that people overlook. Most people think that they have to displace their family or disrupt their schedule as a burden to rent as a short-term rental but in most cases people are out of their homes more than they think. I love making money when I’m going to be gone anyway. Heck, pay us to leave our house, why not! I’ll get to taxes, but if you rent your home out for less than 14 days a year, all of the income is tax-free. Jackpot!
Household items are tax deductions.
I hate taxes. Whenever most business people talk about deductions it can sound like this genie’s lamp of free stuff and free vacations. In reality documenting legitimate business expenses is a tedious pain in the neck but it does in fact allow you to write off necessary expenses that you require to run your short-term rental. For example, we have all separate bedding and towels for our guests so all of those extra items were paid for by the business. Extra soaps and cleaning supplies can be split with our rental as a consumable expense. We had to purchase an extra bed for one of the rooms so the furniture that is used exclusively by our renters was also paid for by the business. These are not free, but they do help to reduce the taxes that you would have paid on any income gained on your rental.
You actually meet some cool people.
One of the greatest memories that stands out to me is a gentleman who wrote us a handwritten letter last year over Thanksgiving. He thanked us for sharing our home with him and his family as his age and ailing health did not allow his kids and grand kids to get together at this home anymore over the holidays. He wrote how some of the pictures of our kids up in the home reminded him of himself as a child and that he could not thank us enough for providing a place for his family over the holidays. The overwhelming majority of travelers are good and respectful people. Everyone fears the partiers but with consistent vetting and communication you will run into an opportunity to create a memory for someone else who will enjoy your home as much as you do.
We could go on and on about how we love short-term rentals, but we’ll save all our tips and tricks for our class. Get the scoop, sign-up today.