CasaSugar

10 Tips For Short-Term Rental and Sublet Agreements

CasaSugar — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:00:23 -0800

Did you know that Washington DC residents are renting out their homes for the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration? Residents can stand to earn a pretty penny: the pictured home is renting for $550 a day! The practice is becoming so popular that there's even a website dedicated to the cause. Whether you're a DC resident looking to rent out your house for inauguration weekend, or a homeowner or renter who'd like to do a short-term sublet for an upcoming vacation, it's better to be safe than sorry when offering your home to a stranger. Douglas Culkin, president of the National Apartment Association, notes that, "By taking some basic precautions, people can leave their homes feeling like they have done their due diligence to ensure a smooth renting experience.”

To see tips from the National Apartment Association, read more.

Draw up a basic, legally binding agreement to secure payment that includes a damaged property clause. Get 50 percent deposit in advance.
Give strong consideration to doing a background check of the resident. It costs about $30 to $40 and can be done in minutes. Search for “resident screening” to find a vendor. Incorporate the cost of the screening into what you are charging for “rent.”
Make sure you're protected with insurance - if someone injures themselves in your home you may be liable. Check your policy.
If you currently rent your home and are thinking of sub-letting it for the week, check with your landlord to make sure you are legally allowed to do so before you post your advertisement.
Make a duplicate set of keys. Send them via an insured carrier service but do not include your home address anywhere in the package, in case it gets lost or stolen before reaching its intended recipient.
Change the locks after they leave. Incorporate this cost into what you charge for rent.
What about pets? If your lease agreement allows them, you'll have to decide if you want to let a renter bring their pet for the week, but be clear if no pets are allowed so there are no surprises upon your return.
As a courtesy, alert your neighbors, who will see strangers entering and exiting your home during their stay, so they don't call the police.
You'll exchange emergency numbers with your renters, but in case you are not immediately reachable, leave a second local emergency contact number, especially if you plan to leave the area.
Clean out the fridge, make some closet space, etc. Schedule to have a cleaning company come before the renters arrive and after they leave. No one wants to see the other's leftovers.

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How-To: Find an Apartment on Craiglist

CasaSugar — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:00:07 -0800

Apartment hunting is a necessary evil. It's not fun, but you can't fake it either - unless you actually like crashing with your parents. Short of throwing money at a broker, there aren't too many secrets to apartment hunting; you've just got to search the local papers, classifieds, and online agency listings, cruise the neighborhoods you like for signs, and of course, scour Craigslist in depth. I'm sure you can handle most of this, but there is a method to the madness of Craigslist that you may not all be aware of. It doesn't guarantee you a dream pad for the price of a shanty, but it'll at least get you in front of what you're looking for. If you're looking for tips on how to up your credit score for a prospective landlord, you'd better check out SavvySugar. To hear my tips, read more.

First of all, if you're looking for an apartment from long distance, you should be extra cautious, demand to see many photographs and references, and don't sign a lease until you or someone you know has visited it.
Moving on - no pun intended: You should begin looking for a place two months in advance of when you want to move. Most places are listed about a month ahead, and in big cities, apartments will go in a day. But, if you give yourself two months, you'll get a better idea of what's available, what you can afford, what neighborhoods you like, and how quickly things are going.
You should already have an idea of what you're looking for. So write it all down in front of you, and don't be too picky; a penthouse apartment with maid, pool, gym, and ocean and mountain views for $700/month is never gonna happen.
The wonder of Craigslist is that it allows you to add your search terms to your RSS reader. To do so, go to your city's site on Craigslist, click "Housing," then fill in specifics like keywords, rent, number of bedrooms, neighborhood, and whether you need a pet-friendly place. Then, choose "apt/housing for rent" from the drop down menu, and check off "has image." Then, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the yellow "RSS" button. This will bring up the feed and allow you to add it to your RSS reader. Try Google Reader or Bloglines, if you don't have one already. Just so you know, you can use this same method for looking for furniture, cars, or anything else on Craigslist. And, you can download an app to your Blackberry or iPhone for your reader so you can read listings on the go.
If you're open to a range of living situations, neighborhoods, rents, etc., then your chances of finding a place are greater, but that also means you'll need to subscribe to more feeds. So go through the last step again until you've entered all the possible search terms and combinations.
I have 118 blogs in my RSS reader (a lot!), so if I were apartment hunting, I'd want to compound them all. You can combine a bunch of feeds into one with FeedBlendr.
If you're afraid to get dirty with an RSS feed, you can do it the old-fashioned way, by making methodical searches. Peruse Craigslist's various categories (apartments, rooms, sublets) the same way you entered a range of search terms. You never know: a temporary rental could last three years, or a shared apartment could be with someone who travels nine months of the year.
Whichever way you'll be reading the listings, you need to do so routinely. Get up first thing and the morning and then look again every few hours. Set an alarm if you have to remind yourself.
When you see something that you might like, click on the map link at the bottom of the CL page to verify its address (people lie about neighborhoods sometimes). Or better yet, use a Google Maps/Craigslist mashup like MapsKrieg, which allows you to see all the listings for your location on a map.

Stay tuned for tips on actually snagging the apartment you want once you've found it!

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Home Away From Home: Hotel Alternatives For Wedding Guests

CasaSugar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:30:04 -0700

If you're having a destination wedding or you have invited out-of-towner guests to your wedding, it's proper etiquette to offer suggestions on places where they can stay while in town. Of course, hotels are the first thing that come to mind. Some guests may prefer lodging that feels more "home-y," and others simply can't afford the costs of hotels (especially in high-traffic tourist spots). So, it would be a nice courtesy to send your friends and family a list of hotel alternatives for your big day. If you're like most brides, you've probably got a lot on your mind (and to-do list), so I've compiled a list to help you out:

Craigslist is an online classifieds website that lists vacation rentals and temporary sublets by owners around the world.
Stay4Free is a network that helps you find addresses of people offering free accommodation to travelers all over the world.
Digsville lists home exchanges in more than 55 countries.
Home Base Holidays is a major international home-exchange agency, with access to listings from several home-exchange agencies.

There are plenty more where these came from, so read more.

Hospitality Exchange is a traveler's directory of travelers who offer each other hospitality in their homes.
Home Exchange is the vacation alternative "where you stay in my house and I stay in yours."
Home-Exchange International is a home-exchange membership with thousands of home listings in over 60 countries.
HomeLink International is the world's leading home-exchange organization with over 13,000 home swappers drawn from 72 countries around the world.
ChristianHomeExchange.com is a nonprofit service promoting home exchanges for Christians.
VRBO is a directory listing for vacation rentals by owner.
International Home Exchange Network arranges home exchanges, rents members' second or vacation homes and locate unique privately-owned vacation rentals worldwide.
InterVac offers members a multilanguage, real-time database of over 20,000 home-exchange listings.
Seniors Home Exchange is a home exchange membership for anyone over the age of 50.
Hosteling International is a hostel operator of more than 90 Youth Hostel Associations in over 80 countries, operating over 4,000 hostels.
Hostels.com is a comprehensive resource and search engine for almost 23,228 hostels worldwide.
EuroTrip.com is a travel website and community with thousands of ratings and reviews of hostels, guesthouses, apartments, and cheap hotels across Europe.
Vacation Rentals Directory is a human-edited directory of vacation rentals website indexing 1,152 vacation rentals websites covering 386 destinations.
Vacation Rentals 411 offers a diverse selection of private vacation rental homes, condominiums, cabins, and villas around the world for rent by property owners.
The Hospitality Club focuses on bringing people together from different cultures, and can help you find free accommodation around the world.

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