Good on you contactchris, it’s nice to see a resident defending the much maligned holiday rental business. I’m sure there are a few ‘parasites’ around, but please don’t assume that everyone who rents their apartment to holidaymakers rather than long term tenants is irresponsible.
We have no restrictions on the minimum length of tenancies in our building. Having successfully let our house over the summer for some years, when we went looking for an apartment to downsize into (we are ‘expectant’ empty-nesters), the option of using it for holiday lets when we were on holiday ourselves was a key consideration. After we had purchased, we actually designed our renovation of the apartment specifically with that in mind.
We have previously leased our family home on a long term basis while we were overseas. The experience was not pleasant, particularly having to operate under the incredibly one-sided NSW Rental Tenancies Act which makes dodgy tenants virtually untouchable. After the all-too-common experience of having to reclaim possession of our property when the tenants decided they didn’t want to leave at the end of their lease, we resolved never to do that again. In contrast, our experience with having rented our properties to more than fifty holiday groups over the past few years has been almost entirely positive.
If the holiday groups are the correct size for the property, if they are appropriately vetted, (something which is easy to do in these days of Skype and email) and if the conditions of rental are reinforced with a cash bond, holiday rentals are relatively easy to manage and put no undue pressure on permanent residents in the same buildings. Perhaps most importantly, if a holiday group does behave badly (which is unlikely as they usually want their bond back), the landlord can remove them summarily. If a long term tenant behaves the same way, the residents can look forward to a minimum of eight weeks before even the most motivated landlord can get them out.