Wealthy friends spamming their beachfront vacation home rentals on Facebook - beyond tacky, right?

[Anonymous]

The rich person version of LuLaRoe. Just don’t.

[Anonymous]

If it’s a nice area and a nice house, renters would be lucky to find a place this late. I wish you could share the link.

[Anonymous]

No offense, but they aren't THAT wealthy if they rent out their homes.

FWIW I agree with you however, I myself own AirBNBs. Usually the people spamming everyone has a business that is failing. They are over-leveraged in a town that has too many AirBNBs too. I know someone with 7 luxury properties that sit vacant. That's got to be scary.

[Anonymous]

You sound jelly, OP. Also, why are you still on Facebook? How old are you, 60?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound jelly, OP. Also, why are you still on Facebook? How old are you, 60?

I hate facebook and use it for a max of 1 hour per month. With that said, during that 1 hour, I am totally blown away by how actively all of my friends and acquaintances use it. Lots of photos, hundreds of likes, etc. I am upper 30s. Even after all the controversies, I don't think people have migrated away from it at all.

[Anonymous]

Asking for a friend rate is tacky. Sharing you have vacancies if someone is looking for a rental is not.

[Anonymous]

More importantly, why do people buy beach houses if they have to go through all of this nonsense? They’re just buying themselves a part-time job. I wouldn’t buy a second house unless I could pay for it in cash (without it impacting my savings in any meaningful way) and leave it vacant whenever I’m not using it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, why do people buy beach houses if they have to go through all of this nonsense? They’re just buying themselves a part-time job. I wouldn’t buy a second house unless I could pay for it in cash (without it impacting my savings in any meaningful way) and leave it vacant whenever I’m not using it.

Exactly this!
And quit Facebook - you won't regret it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, why do people buy beach houses if they have to go through all of this nonsense? They’re just buying themselves a part-time job. I wouldn’t buy a second house unless I could pay for it in cash (without it impacting my savings in any meaningful way) and leave it vacant whenever I’m not using it.

And it better be somewhere nice like Nantucket, the right parts of Maine or Martha’s Vineyard where the staff drives your stuff up and you fly. OBX, Del, many others don’t qualify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More importantly, why do people buy beach houses if they have to go through all of this nonsense? They’re just buying themselves a part-time job. I wouldn’t buy a second house unless I could pay for it in cash (without it impacting my savings in any meaningful way) and leave it vacant whenever I’m not using it.

because we enjoy the beach and when we sold my wife’s house we wanted to avoid paying capital gains tax. If we rolled it into a new invested we avoided the tax. And gives us a place to go with our dogs, which can be hard to do.

[Anonymous]

I have a number of Facebook friends who are real estate agents. I learned to not necessarily "unfriend" the person, but simply to select "See fewer posts like this."

It cuts way down on the Realtors' "updates" of "So excited to have been able to help my clients get into this absolutely stunning four bedroom colonial..."

and it's like some generic 3,000 sf house. Totally fine, of course, and people need a place to live. But it's not exciting. And you're just promoting that you're a real estate agent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you are just envious.

This is 100% normal and not weird

+1

[Anonymous]

I’ve had a vacation home for 15 years and just let friends use it without payment. I could not imagine charging someone for its use.

[Anonymous]

What’s the big deal? Does this really make you angry? Do their posts take away from the quality of your life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We post ours now and again. It’s an investment so we rent it out, if we get last min cancellations we will offer a deal to friends/family. Not sure what your issue is OP?

We've always done the bolded -- sometimes at no charge to who's staying there.

We prefer that the property is used consistently, as friends of ours have had the biggest nightmares happened to them when the property had a vacancy of no more than 2 to 3 weeks in a row.

There have been everything from robberies to a stranger forging a one year rental agreement on the home, moving their stuff in & refusing to leave... and the police wouldn't get involved because it was a "civil" manner.

If you all don't think that this can't happen to you, in the home you own & live in right now (not just a vacation homes) you're sadly naive & mistaken.
All these con artists would have to do, is wait for you to leave for an extended period of time, like an 8 hour work day or a weekend, and you'll come home the find the locks changed and the "tenant" refuses to speak with you or open the door, and then THEY threaten to call the police on YOU.

So, the police show up & won't do a damn thing to help, because the "tenant" will produce a (forged) lease & (forged) receipt of payment for a year's rent that looks legit. The police won't know who to believe, so they'll tell you all to take it up in court... and courts are still so backed up due to covid, cases are being scheduled 6 - 12 months out. In the meantime, you have to hire a lawyer AND find someplace else for you and your family to stay until the court date comes -- meanwhile, they're living in your home, using your furniture, going through your private property & valuables, and you cannot do a thing about it, because they never leave the home so that you can claim it back.

It took those friends almost 13 months and over $20,000 in attorney's fees just to get their home back - on top of that, they lost all of the revenue for the entire summer season & had to keep paying the mortgage in the property.

Other friends had their beach house robbed when the home was vacant for two full weeks due to cancelations.
In that time, the thieves were able to get in and out a few times without detection, and by the time the homeowners were notified of the break in (by the next family who were there to rent it) it was weeks later and there was no hope of catching who did it.
Plus, they had to reimburse the people who had come to the home that weekend, because the basement door had been jimmied open, and they would have no way of securing the property (our friends had the cleaning people come right after the previous renters left, assuming the house would be rented again by the very next people (who were scheduled to arrive in a few hours) but those people cancelled, so the house sat empty & clean for two full weeks -- that's why the new renters were the ones who found it broken into).

Yes, they had a RING, for their front door & patio door, but the basement door is neither viewable nor accessible to someone who just walks up to the house from off the street and decides to randomly rob it (you'd have to be aware of the finer details of the property & the property's intricate layout to find that door) so they didn't think to put a RING on it, because literally nobody outside of the family could used that door... like ever. Not even the renters.
The renters could see the door, but didn't have a key to open it.
The police assumed it was a previous VRBO renter, because no body else could know where to break in to avoid the cameras and also not be detected by neighbors.

I'd much rather have a friend or family member stay at my place for free, because after hearing so many stories (I just told you two, but we know of dozens more).
IMO, someone physically staying at my house is actually doing me a favor, so I'm happy not to charge them.