Like the title says, we are thinking of doing this to help subsidize the cost of owning an RV. Does anyone do this and that would be willing to pass along any advice?

CanyonAg77 said:

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I don't rent my RV, but my observation from owning one is:

RVs are not built very well, and even a new one will have things broken or mis-installed

Every trip, we manage to break something, sometimes minor, sometimes major. A tree limb to the roof was one of the major ones, as was the blowout that took out a big hunk of sheet metal on the side.

People treat rental cars like crap, I expect rental RVs are no different

I can't imagine how expensive the property and liability insurance is for a rental RV

If you aren't handy and willing to fix the minor repairs yourself, don't even consider it.

I might consider renting an RV, if I lived near a state park, and I took the RV out, set it up, and retrieved it myself

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I've got a friend with a class-A motorhome that's always trying to convince me to buy one.

He has the same experience as you: every time he takes it out something breaks and there are almost no off-the-shelf parts so everything requires a custom repair or a custom made replacement part.

Sounds like a nightmare.

I've rented an RV through air BNB down in Corpus. The owner asked which beach and came and did all the setup, so for us it was essentially a hotel room on a beach. I would do that over owning one.

My experience is listening to my older brother. Back window wasn't latched properly and came out somewhere along the road. Cut a corner short and had some wheel damage. Some sort of pump issue. Windshield damage is almost certain during a trip. The list goes on like others have said. He still loves it, but it seems like he is always dropping it off for repair before storing it for the next trip.

I'd think that unless you are using your RV multiple times a month it would probably be a lot cheaper and less stressful to just rent one when you need it.

Overwhelming lean on the advice. Appreciate you guys.

I have rented twice through Outdoorsy & RVshare and both times something broke/went wrong. If I do it again it would be a sprinter van or having one delivered to the camp site.

Worst experience was a propane warning in the middle of nowhere on the way to Palo Duro Canyon. Had to get the family out of the RV on the side of the road until we could diagnose.

Unless it was a full time operation, I think renting it out and being the one that people call when **** happens would be miserable.

Not trying to rain on your parade, but people will call with the slightest inconvenience or damage and there will be very little you can do to help.

That makes sense. We were thinking more road trip this summer for about 2 weeks mostly to keep the miles off our truck and have a place to sleep for the 4 of us.

I have an RV (bumper pull) and would never rent it out. They chances it comes back broken, torn up or any other bad think happening are not worth the effort.

I rented one thru rvshare. Got it all hooked up and couldn't get power to the outlets. Went around trying different things and testing all the outlets with my phone charger to see if it had juice. Messed with the gfci and breakers and no dice. Called the owner. Owner and I walked thru the same stuff. No dice. Owner called a friend and had him set to come out to us to troubleshoot. Before that guy could leave I figured it out. My phone charger cable was bad and there was no problem with the power. I had already swapped cables once and the second cable was brand new, but evidently it was bad too. So, all that headache from two bad phone charger cords and I am relatively handy. I don't want to imagine the little problems you would get over the phone from folks that aren't.

We rented ours out several times per year pre-covid through Outdoorsy and RVShare....it paid our note for the year.

We did a pretty extensive screening process before we accepted a renter - we were picky. We also verified what they're going to be using as a tow vehicle.

We never had a "bad" rental - there were challenges that came up but overall good experiences....I think our screening helped us with that.

We just have a little 16' Casita so it's pretty simple. If we had a driveable I don't think I would rent it out.

It's a great way to make some extra cash but it certainly has its pain points.

You have to have time to meet the renters for pickup (and to do a quick walkthrough training) and dropoff and be on call for when they run into snags on the road and they call in a panic needing troubleshooting. They dont realize that something is ALWAYS going to go wrong with an RV on a road trip.

Make sure you give them the hitch height so they can attempt to have the right drop hitch - they're welcome to use mine, but it doesnt always work with their vehicle....and make sure they understand what electrical connection they need....just having a "tow package" on the vehicle doesn't mean it has a 7 pin round connection (or for that matter, a brake controller)

On dropoff, don't try to squeeze it into a tight schedule. You will inevitably get a text sometime within 2 hours before the agreed upon time letting you know they're running behind.

You could certainly do a delivery/setup if they're camping somewhere local and cut out a portion of the hassle.

We went to a 4 night minimum just because it wasn't worth our time for a 2 night weekend rental.

We pulled from both sites during Covid because we were literally getting overwhelmed with questions and requests once the pandemic started. It was bonkers.

It was good for us to help pay down our note, but it is definitely a side hustle, not just passive income.

We were worried about that but we actually had really good experiences. I think meeting them face to face to do the pickup and walk-through really mitigated that - they had a face in their head and knew that they were going to have to drop it back off to you - it humanized the experience for them, unlike a faceless corporation like a rental car company.

I think our screening process also played into it - no festivals, or college kids. Most of the people renting ours were like us - families looking to get an experience outdoors.

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.it paid our note for the year

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I'm going to channel Dave Ramsey here, and suggest that it is not wise to make payments on a vehicle that has such an insane rate of depreciation from new.

And I realize a Casita is a different type of RV, and not one of the McMansion size, highly complex rigs.

I'll go double Dave Ramsey and say it's freaking insane to rent out an RV you're making payments on.

Glad it worked out for you, but I'd sooner give whisky and car keys to a 16-year-old heterosexual male.

I love my travel trailer, it's like a second home. But ive only had it for a year and it's already needed multiple repairs that ive been able to handle myself. I baby the thing, and things still break. I can't imagine letting anyone else touch it and expect it to come back in drivable/usable condition.

Horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE idea to rent it out. Good god, that's a HELL NO!

My grandfather always had travel trailers. When I got mine he was giving me some general advice about them. He mentioned he never let people borrow his because it felt like loaning someone your toothbrush. I'd imagine renting falls into that same category.

Zut alors! said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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.it paid our note for the year

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I'm going to channel Dave Ramsey here, and suggest that it is not wise to make payments on a vehicle that has such an insane rate of depreciation from new.

And I realize a Casita is a different type of RV, and not one of the McMansion size, highly complex rigs.

I'll go double Dave Ramsey and say it's freaking insane to rent out an RV you're making payments on.

Glad it worked out for you, but I'd sooner give whisky and car keys to a 16-year-old heterosexual male.

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To be fair, my Escape (similar to a casita, but made it Canadia) has appreciated since I bought it since the tariffs have made the new prices go up 10-20%, so I could flip it at a nice profit. But otherwise with most RVs, yes, it's basically a sunk cost and don't expect it to be worth anything more than $0 in 10 years. Lots of fun, and I absolutely love every second it in it, even when things break, but you have to know what you're getting yourself into.

I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

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Yeah, we bought the Casita specifically because we knew it would avoid a big depreciation hit. Prior to it, we had a 1977 Scamp for about a year that we sold for 50% more than we bought it for. We took that money and put it into the Casita and then financed the small balance.

We did our homework and were comfortable with it. We've had the Casita now for 9 years and I'll sell it for what I paid for it new, +/- $1000. MSRP for a new one has gone up over 60% since we bought it so that helped us avoid any depreciation.

I understand that is not normal for most RVs.

That trailer got our kids from Key West to Death Valley, Big Bend to Canada (twice) and darn near every place in between. What it allowed us to do/see/experience as a family during their formative years was priceless. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

When we did the rentals, my wife wasn't working so it was a nice little source of income that funded our travel. She ran it all - like I said, it was definitely more work that just passive income.

The rental companies have insurance, and we were comfortable with their policies.....and again, we were very selective in who we rented to. We turned down requests regularly.

Renting is certainly not for everyone - very evident by the responses and opinions on this thread - but the OP asked for people with experience in renting so I gave my experience.

You have valid advice/views. My tolerance for dealing with people and their abuse would not allow me to do as you did.

It's amazing you were able to maintain value. As you said, the higher price for new helps. Buying used helps. Buying simpler trailers helps.

A Casita is smaller, lighter, and not very fancy, right? As I recall they don't have slide outs. All of that would bode better for leasing it out. I still would not lease out a large, fancy RV with multiple slides and a lot of bells and whistles

be the renter, not the owner!

just turn it back in and never have to deal with about all the storage costs, maintenance, insurance