It’s hard to get good renters. The last renters we had weren’t in the house a year until they burned it down, being careless with cigarettes.
Prior to that we had mixed results of good and bad renters. I can tell you from our experience, 90% of the prospective renters were folks that you would not want around your property period let alone living on it.
I think definitely the short term rental business may be having an effect, but probably not as big of a loss of rental property as one would think. In our area there are older neighborhoods that are almost exclusively rentals, and most of those would not work for short term rental units unless significant improvements were made.
Most people are not going to invest the time or money to properly run a successful short term rental.
We are doing a short term rental on our property. It is a lot of work, wife does the cleaning and I help with it. It brings in more money than a traditional rent situation, and we don’t have people constantly on the property, which gives us a bit of a break, from having people close by.
Honestly, a whole house short term rental should be worth more than a hotel room, especially if a lot of amenities are offered. So much more room, and ability to cook and wash clothes.
In the case of someone renting out just a room in the house that they live in also, I can see that being less expensive.
In ours we don’t require guests to wash laundry before they leave, but do ask that they clean up any messes, and put their trash in a bag. Sometimes guests will go an extra mile to help out, and on a few occasions we are left with a mess to clean and pick up.