Air BNB - what are your experiences (either as host or renter)? (Dallas: apartment, hotels)

[Brookside]

Air BNB is soaring in popularity. I have some friends who used it while in San Francisco and I may use it to visit relatives in Los Angeles.

Started wondering if anyone on the Dallas forum had used it and what there experiences have been.

Has anyone rented out a room in their home or apartment? Is there a demand in DFW for this kind of thing?

[nissan]

We used it twice, once for a week-long stay at a penthouse apartment in Chicago and another for a 1 night stay in midtown NY w family. Hosts were great, everything was as pictured/advertised. It's all about the reviews though, if you go to highly rated/reviewed properties, it's likely you'll have a good experience. I wouldn't use it as an alternative to a hotel for a 1-2 night stay, unless the price difference makes it worthwhile. For longer stays, with more people, it makes sense.

I would assume being a host is not a huge issue if (a) you price to exclude riff raff and to cover cleaning costs and (b) the apartment is vacant.

[Big-Bucks]

Originally Posted by nissan

We used it twice, once for a week-long stay at a penthouse apartment in Chicago and another for a 1 night stay in midtown NY w family. Hosts were great, everything was as pictured/advertised. It's all about the reviews though, if you go to highly rated/reviewed properties, it's likely you'll have a good experience. I wouldn't use it as an alternative to a hotel for a 1-2 night stay, unless the price difference makes it worthwhile. For longer stays, with more people, it makes sense.

I would assume being a host is not a huge issue if (a) you price to exclude riff raff and to cover cleaning costs and (b) the apartment is vacant.

Did the hosts live there while you were there?

I am considering renting my entire house minus one storage room. I would probably rent while I stayed at a cheap hotel. I need to make sure that renting my place out is the right thing to do before I make the investment to furnish a bedroom with everything.

[bencronin04]

I've used a similar service for other citys. Most of the houses we rented utilized a separate maintenance company for upkeep while their house was being rented for issues that came up. We will continue to use this service whenever we travel as we're not big fans of hotels.

[imranb]

I've used Air BNB multiple times as a guests. There were few times, the place was clean but so noisy that I wish I would have cancelled and moved to a different place but with AirBnB, you pay in advance and cancelling is very difficult.

[New_to_DFW]

I don't like the thought of having no privacy with the owner there looking over my shoulder with airbnb rental so I use homeaway.com or vrbo.com when i want to rent a villa or house with friends/family. On those sites you rent the whole house/apartment/villa and the owner is not present. I've done it 15 times and it is really great with groups, better than hotels, because you have shared common areas and kitchens.

[nissan]

When I used Air BNB I only rented where it was the entire home/apartment, so the owner wasn't around. I wouldn't be comfortable w an owner around.

[New_to_DFW]

Also, as a renter you have to pay a booking fee to use airbnb whereas on homeaway.com and vrbo.com the owners pay a subscription fee to list so they are also cheaper to reserve for renters, even for the exact same rental property.

[Big-Bucks]

What sort of amenities were provided when you stayed at homes? For example in the kitchen they probably had pots and skillets, plates and silverware. What about food? Just salt and pepper? Maybe some butter in the fridge?

[mami2emily]

This summer we spent 2 weeks in Puerto Rico in an apartment we rented through Air BNB. We had the entire apartment to ourselves, no owner around. We chose a property with very high ratings, and everything was as pictured and reviewed. It was a great experience and something very different to staying at our usual hotel.

The owner provided everything one could possibly need on a beach vacation. The kitchen was well stocked with everything except the food we would consume (pots, pans, spices, oil, he even had a few beers and sodas in the fridge to get us started, plates, silverware, cups, etc.). Bathrooms had everything except personal toiletries. Well-written instructions in a variety of places in order to operate the individual air conditioner units, the TV remotes, the remote-control ceiling fans, even the gas grill. A comprehensive binder with information on top places to visit, maps of the area to get to grocery stores, pharmacies, late night food options, restaurants. They even provided beach towels along with regular towels. The only thing we missed was laundry detergent, which we did not think to ask about. But we just bought some when we got there. Other than that, we had everything we needed. Didn't even have to rent chairs/umbrellas at the beach because the owner had provided 4 chairs and 4 umbrellas for our family to use. And even had coolers in several sizes that we took advantage of (ice cold beers beachside...yes please!)

If you are interested in a property on Air BNB I would suggest going with a property that has a LOT of reviews, reading all the reviews, asking the owner a lot of questions over e-mail before you commit. I also liked the fact that this owner had several properties on Air BNB, and the reviews for all the properties were pretty consistent in terms of what it was like to rent from this particular owner. Of all the properties we looked at on Air BNB, none of them had the owner living there during the stay.