Renting your RV

A buddy of mine is an electrician and he was in hot water after the 2008 downturn and having trouble making payments on his Class A.

The agency he used seemed pretty reputable, kind of the equivalent of the property management companies that people use for real estate rentals.

The agency fielded all of the questions about how to work the inverter or how to fill the water tanks, stuff like that. They also did inspections before and after every trip and had a guy on staff full time to fix things.

His take-away was that the place rented out his RV enough so that he could make his payments. It was pretty impossible for him to use his own rig, because it was usually booked out.

After he got back on his feet and didn't need to rent it out anymore, it took him about a year to replenish all the cookware and stuff that disappeared and to fix all of the wear-and-tear damage.

He says that he'll never ever do this again, and he'd probably just sell it if he were in a bind like that again. It's paid off by now, so that probably won't be an issue.

I think he got lucky.

On the other hand, I had to rent a used Class C years ago when my kid graduated from the University of Wyoming. We were expecting a December graduation, but we got lucky and shaved six months off the date. But Laramie is such a small town that everything was already booked out. We got creative and rented a Class C from a place in Denver and drove it up to WY.

The rental was in pretty good shape, but it was very bare bones. It wasn't equipped for boondocking, so we bought a beefy extension cord at the hardware store and ran it around the back yard through a doggie door so we could plug in and have power to run the furnace. Even though it was the end of May, it was literally freezing and it ended up snowing and burying us in for a few days.

The rental didn't have many blankets or pillows, and luckily we didn't need to cook. We've rented condos in places like Maui before, and they were usually turn-key, but this rental really assumed you were packing ALL your own stuff.

The owner lived in New York and stored it with the rental service year round. When they were ready to travel, they'd fly out and use Denver as their starting/ending point. Who knows what they did with all of their gear, because their RV really wasn't outfitted.

Anyway, my lessons from my friend's experience and our own experience as renters is that the RV rental business isn't suitable for private parties. Leave it to the big boys like El Monte RV. They've got the process figured out and there aren't any emotional ties to the rental units.

It is true that not all renters are slobs and ruin your stuff. But, even if 100% of the renters treated it like you would want them to, regular wear and tear is exponentially accelerated. But in the real world, we know that 100% of the renters won't treat it like you want them to. Frankly it doesn't take a high percentage of "bad" renters to mess up a lot of stuff fast. RV's can be touchy things.

We ran our Rv rental business for 3 years until we finally threw up our hands. We have owned rental properties so we could vet potential clients fairly well. We rented only to families and for vacations only - no music festivals or races. We didn't have a lot of bad renters but when we did, aw man. Despite charging cleaning fees and $1k damage deposit, some of the things we had to deal with:
-A dentist ripped the awing off and smashed in a bin door.
-Another renter ran into a guardrail and ripped a bin door off and damaged the entry door requiring replacement.
-One group smashed in the sky light
-Beer cans stuck in the toilet and black tank drains. Glitter was all over the inside of the rv on that trip.
-The awing was ripped off.
-One guy thought he was doing us a favor by power washing the RV. In turn tore out some caulking and got water in the unit.
-Genny exhaust broken off.
-Switches broken.
-FW fill broken.

I could go on and on. And more often than not, the tanks weren't emptied properly.

The question you have to ask is, would you be ok if any of that happened to your personal RV?

Unobtanium wrote:
Hard to believe the question is even asked lol.

It's been asked here, hundreds of times.
95% of responses say "No Way".

Never..............

If I have to rent it out to make ends meet, I'd sell it.

Rental motorhomes such as Cruise America or El Monte are custom built units just for them. There are no awnings to get ripped off, no retractable steps to jam and get ripped off. Everything is very heavy duty. The curtains (not pull down shades that the strings break on) are very heavy duty too. Everything is made with the thought of what could someone do to destroy this. The Class C units also have (if Ford) a 5.4L V8 rather than the V10 (or the current 7,3L) this is to keep people from running way too fast with them.

Equipment such as dishes and blankets, etc are rented separately, and inventoried when returned. Nothing is left to chance.

Co-worker rented a Sprinter class C for a trip. Griped about how underpowered it was and how he had to drive with it on the floor the whole time to get 75mph out of it. Also griped about having to run the roof A/C continually on the road as they were in Florida, and how many times he had to refill the propane. Very hard on it and typical of the abusers who rent stuff.

Charles

Last year we rented out our airstream for a long weekend, we signed up with Ruckify ( A Canadian company) it was a great experience, the rental company ( Ruckify) took care of all insurances, damage deposits. We removed our personal belongings and left all the pots pans cutlery etc. For an extra fee they rented our generator, .
Th renter came a picked up the rv, I went through the rv with him and off they went, the rv had to be returned at 2 pm on their last rental day and they left the the thing spotless upon their return.
We rented it out for $125.00 a night, and the generator for 30.00 a day. Easy money.
And with this COVID thing a lot of people are either renting their rv out or renting an rv.
This is no different than renting a home through VRBO or Air BNB .

I would never rent mine out. However, reading these replies, which I totally agree with, I have to chuckle. I have also read many many times here how people should rent one to see which RVs might suit them best. I find your options to rent are really pricey and/or barebones. El Monte RV isn't gonna be like one you'd buy going up a grade. The DP on Outdoorsy costs $450 a day and has extreme limits on
mileage and genny use. Peace and love to all who deal with rentals, but it just seems like a huge PIA.

Great responses from everyone, thanks.

I would like to park my RV on my property and Airbnb it. I am considering renting it out since I am getting a new one. We'll have to put some more thought into it.

It's one thing renting out a class c, a whole other to rent out a towable.

blaczero wrote:
Just heard about this, know nothing about it.

Someone told me there are companies that will take your RV, and you'll just get a check every month.

Anyone have good experience with this?

Here's a one word summary of everything you need to know about renting your RV:

** DON'T **

:S

2 different things we're talking about maybe?

One is renting it, someone takes it. Another is I airbnb it and it doesn't move from my property.

eend wrote:
Last year we rented out our airstream for a long weekend, we signed up with Ruckify ( A Canadian company) it was a great experience, the rental company ( Ruckify) took care of all insurances, damage deposits. We removed our personal belongings and left all the pots pans cutlery etc. For an extra fee they rented our generator, .
Th renter came a picked up the rv, I went through the rv with him and off they went, the rv had to be returned at 2 pm on their last rental day and they left the the thing spotless upon their return.
We rented it out for $125.00 a night, and the generator for 30.00 a day. Easy money.
And with this COVID thing a lot of people are either renting their rv out or renting an rv.
This is no different than renting a home through VRBO or Air BNB .

First, it is a bit different than a VRBO. When have you ever seen a VRBO on the side of the road with a flat tire, or stuck in the mud?
Second, A long weekend implies 3 or 4 nights max. If you have to pay the rental company out of the rent what do you actually net? If the $125.00 is your net, that still is $500.00 or less. On top of that, you are in Canada, so I assume that is $500.00Cdn., which equates to about $400.00US. No way I would go thru the trouble and risk for that little return. Just not worth it to me.