INTRODUCTION TO
Shared Mid-Term Rentals
Learn tips, and best-practices to help you manage a shared home mid-term rental with ease.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
(click on the topic to skip to that section)
✍🏼 Writing Your Description
🔐 The Best Coded Locks
🛒 Recommended Products & Resources
🌟 Optional Upgrades
🗓️ 30+ Day Mid-Term Rentals
🏠 House Rules
🚫 Cancelation Policy
🧼 Cleaning Fee
⚡️ Deactivating Instant Book
🧑🏻💻 Guest Vetting Process
✍🏼 Writing Your Description
Try to include these general things I've listed below in your description. If you run out of space, don't worry. After you publish, click on "Edit" next to where it says "Listing description" and you will see more places to write longer details.
- What is the bedroom like, do guests have to climb stairs to get to the bedroom & what amenities do you offer?
- Will guests have access to your shared spaces like your kitchen, living room, and bathroom? Will anyone be occupying these areas during the day?
- Who else lives in the house? You and your partner, a family of five with a dog, or three young adult and a cat, etc? How many people will your guests be sharing a kitchen & bathroom with?
- Why would tourists come to visit your area? Are there any touristic attractions nearby or maybe some more practical or work related venues they may want to visit? For example, is there a hospital nearby or a concert theater, or a sports arena, or a convention center? How far are each of the attractions (5min drive, 10min walk, etc)?
🔐 The Best Coded Locks
I recommend swapping your regular front door lock with a digital coded door lock to prevent guests from accidentally losing keys causing you to have to replace your lock over and over.
If you live in a building or closed community complex, you may need to check your building's community rules to see if you're allowed to do this. Alternatively, you can consider using KeyCafe if they have a location in your area if you want the flexibility of allowing guests to check-in even if you're not home.
🛒 Recommended Products
I put together a couple of shopping lists (with direct links to the products I recommend) and other helpful resources, since people ask me all the time what I use for my Airbnb properties,
The Ultimate STR Shopping List include some suggestions for pots and pans, coffee makers, bed sheet sets, soap and shampoo refills, digital door locks, etc since people are always asking me what I use in my own properties.
It's great to look through it to make sure you've covered some things that are easy to miss but reeeally good to have (like hair catchers for the shower drains 😉👍).
The Private Room Essentials list has suggestions that are more specific to shared home mid-term rentals. Over the years of managing a shared home mid-term rental, I’ve learned that staying organized is essential to keep the rental going smoothly and keep everyone who is sharing the home for longer periods of time happy. This list includes organizational tools, numbered and/or color-coded items, items to include in a shared kitchen, shared bathroom, smart privacy locks, and items to include in each bedroom.
🌟 Optional Upgrades
If you live on the property full-time, and want maximum privacy in your shared spaces (like your living room and kitchen), you can consider upgrading the guest bedroom to have its own TV, mini fridge, coffee maker, microwave and/or toaster oven, dedicated desk, and a towel hook, so that your guest won’t feel much need to hang out in the other parts of your home since they have everything they need in their room.
Check out the Private Rooms Essentials list to get direct links to an energy efficient mini-fridge and microwave, a compact coffee maker, and more.
🗓️ 30+ Day Mid-Term Rentals
If you decide to list it on Airbnb for month-long or longer stays, you will have to add a minimum night stay requirement to your listing of the amount of time you want to require as a minimum. Your city may have certain restrictions for hosting short-term stays, so that may be why you are considering hosting longer stays. The tricky part is, that different cities have different definitions for what a short-term rental is. Some will say that bookings that are shorter than 28 days, some will say 30, others will say 31 or 32. The best way to know what the rule is in your city, is to call your City Hall and ask.
Once you’ve established your minimum night requirement, you can start thinking about who your audience will be. For example, you could target students from nearby universities, traveling physicians, travel nurses, individual guests or couples who are looking for a temporary furnished bedrooms while they search for a new apartment or while they visit a family member, corporate travelers, military professionals, the list goes on and on.
Longer term guests can be great, but please be aware that there are a lot of nuances to the mid-term rental model, since longer-stay guests will have some particular requirements and questions (you will need to come up with systems and rules for parking, for storing food in the fridge and pantry, for washing and drying clothes, for receiving packages, keeping communal spaces clean, sharing kitchen bathroom and living room spaces, having visits from family / friends / romantic partners, etc). You will also benefit from advertising your link in certain groups and platforms of people searching for this kind of accommodation.
Here’s the link to a guide I created that goes into detail on this topic, and includes specific suggestions for what to include in your house rules for mid-term private bedrooms in shared home rentals:
🏠 House Rules
Having clear House Rules can help you set adequate expectations with your guests, and help you communicate what is required of them during their stay at your property.
Click here to read a blog post I wrote that offers some ideas for what to include in your House Rules for a short-term rental:
🚫 Cancelation Policy
Once you publish, be sure to double check and make sure your Cancelation Policy is set to your preference. I always choose either the Firm or Strict option, but it’s up to you to decide whatever you like.
🧼 Cleaning Fee
Don't forget to add a cleaning fee! Airbnb will include the amount you set in your payout, and then you can use that amount to pay your cleaning service or just to compensate you for your time if you will be the one cleaning the room.
⚡️ Deactivating Instant Book
After you publish, you will probably want to make sure your Instant Book feature is deactivated.
Eventually, Instant Book can be a great tool to use to help you streamline your management processes, but when you’re starting out (and especially if you’re sharing the home with your guests) it’s a good idea to keep more manual control over the process of accepting booking requests.
🧑🏻💻 Guest Vetting Process
I cannot emphasize enough that all these steps are fully optional, but I’m sharing them in case you are interested in implementing these processes. If you’d like to require your guests to submit a copy of their photo ID, sign a rental agreement, order a tenant screening report, and / or schedule a phone call or video interview with you before they arrive, you will need to add each of those requirements to your House Rules before they make a booking.
PLEASE NOTE: the Airbnb chat is monitored by bots to help provide more safety for you and your prospective guests. In order to ensure the safety of all users and to prevent scams, the Airbnb bots will flag any messages that include links, phone numbers, emails, or addresses (basically any personal information or private details). So, if you want to schedule an interview with your guests, here’s what I recommend doing:
1. Add that an interview is required for each booking to your House Rules (as well as any other requirements you have such as requiring a photo ID, signed rental agreement, tenant screening, gender* etc). I am not an attorney nor do I have any ability to offer legal advice, however I do believe it’s not legal in most states to refuse a booking due to age, race, or profession. If you share certain spaces in the home with your guests (a kitchen, living room, bathroom, etc) then you can be eligible for an exception to Airbnb’s Nondiscrimination policy and only allow guests of your same gender to book a stay at your property (as in, only allowing guests with the same gender as the host to book a stay). If you want this exception to apply to you, you must share spaces with the guest and you must include that requirement in your House Rules.
2. Make sure that your selected Cancellation Policy allows for full refunds for cancellations that happen within 48 hours of booking.
3. If you get a booking request, first check that the guest has an Airbnb account that was created over a year ago and that they have positive reviews. If either of these is not true, ask them to explain why (example: I see that your account is brand new, al have you used Airbnb before? I see that you have a negative review, can you please explain what happened?). This is the time to ask any questions you have on the Airbnb chat. Ask why they are looking to travel to your area, if they have friends and family who live nearby, if they have a work contract nearby, ask them to tell you a bit about themselves, what they do for a living and what does their day-to-day schedule look like, etc to see if they would be a good fit to live at your property. Inform yourself on the Airbnb Nondiscrimination policy and the shared home exceptions: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2867
4. If you think the individual you are messaging with could be an excellent guest, you can do the following: Message your prospective guest and tell them that due to the security measures Airbnb has in place, the best way to schedule an interview is for them to complete the booking first, and then they will have 48 hours after they complete the booking to schedule a call or Zoom interview with you, and then they will have 48 hours to cancel the booking and get a full refund if they decide they don’t want to move forward with it.
5. If all goes well, you can then continue to order the tenant screening, send them a rental agreement, and ask for the copy of their photo ID.
I usually only order tenant screenings for guests who stay for a month or longer, and usually I use a service like RentSpree. The cost per screening is about $40 per guest and it’s important to be clear about who will be paying for it (you as the host or your guest).