Short-term or long-term
Should you short-term rent your Austin house?
Not automatically. You have a house, with a tenant in it, or empty, or about to be yours, and two ways to make it pay. They are different businesses with different money, work and risk, and one of them will suit your house and your life better than the other. This page sets them side by side so you can tell which.
A long-term tenant
A short-term rental
A long-term tenantRent arrives twelve times a year at a figure agreed once. Predictable, and capped at that figure no matter how the market moves.
The money
A short-term rentalGross is considerably higher, and so are the costs: cleaning, supplies, platform fees, tax, furnishing, and management. After everything is paid, most houses still come out ahead of what they'd earn on a lease.
A long-term tenantFinding and screening tenants, the lease, repairs, and a vacancy to fill when they go. It comes in bursts rather than weekly, and how well you do it barely moves the rent.
The work
A short-term rentalTurnovers between every stay, guests who message at eleven at night, supplies to restock, small repairs before the next arrival. Constant, and it's a hospitality business rather than a landlord one. The upside is that effort actually changes the result. Owners either take it on themselves or
hand it to a manager, which is where we come in.
A long-term tenantOne tenant is one point of failure. A good one is invisible for years; a bad one is late rent, damage, and an eviction that takes months.
The risk
A short-term rentalRisk is spread across dozens of guests a year rather than concentrated in one tenant. In its place: seasonality, since August is not March, and vacancy that shows up as empty nights rather than empty months.
A long-term tenantA lease, state landlord and tenant law, and a fair-housing obligation. No city license.
Regulation
A short-term rentalA city STR license, renewed every two years, hotel occupancy tax to the city and state, and operating restrictions on where and how you can operate. All of it manageable, and most of it handled for you if someone else runs the house.
The rules, in full.
A long-term tenantThe house is the tenant's for the term of the lease. You cannot use it, sell it easily, or move back in without ending the tenancy.
Flexibility
A short-term rentalBlock the calendar and it's yours: a week in May, the holidays, a month if you're between houses. Sell when you like. The house stays furnished and ready.