Do any of you guys rent your RV/Camper through one of the third party sites like RVRental, Outdoorsy, etc?

Have a buddy at work who does and makes pretty good profits off of it, just checking to see if that was the norm or he was just getting lucky with it.

We don’t currently have a camper but have considered getting one as my mom goes quite often and the kids enjoy going with her, we’ve been 2 or 3 times and had fun but don’t think it’s worth buying one yet.  If we could have it work for us and essentially pay for itself or make some extra, that’d be the ticket though.

Only thing treated worse than a rented car is a rented camper.

Yeah there is that to consider

I was looking at about a 22’ with no slide outs to at least limit maintenance issues or they damaging it.

If you can split the purchase cost among several family members, that makes the economics a lot more attractive.

I went halfsies with one of my relatives on mine - So each of us got co-ownership of a $26K RV for around $13K apiece.

We also split the ongoing expenses - which are almost nothing.

The problem with attempting to get strangers to pay for your RV is that they don't care how they treat it.

A guy I work with rents his out & does well.  People pay big bucks during 500 race & he will take it to campgrounds & set it up for people who can't tow it.  He bought a repo that had things missing so he got a deal on it & doesn't care if it gets trashed like he would if it was new.  Last time I talked to him he was thinking of selling it due to the crazy prices people were paying thanks to the "rona" camper supply issue.

Fuck no.

Bit of a long story.

Maybe ten years ago my brother's boss said, "Take my RV and your family to VA and WA to look at some projects.  Make it a family/business trip" so my brother said okay

A month before said trip the boss called to say he made a mistake, already promised the RV to another person so my brother said no problem, I will just rent one.  Well this was high season and everyone he called said they were already booked and this got my brother's mind spinning.  

He approached me and our other brother and said let's buy an RV.  We can use it and also rent it out so we did.  Found a 2001 Damon Intruder 369 that had been parked for ten years and mice had moved in.  He made a lowball offer which was accepted.  Then came the fun part:  Cleaning out the mice and damage.  

Most of the people we rented to were decent, some were complete assholes.  One renter broke a window screen, said it was already like that.  

One guy called to say he hit a tire carcass which damaged the septic system.  When he got back he forgot to mention the side compartment storage door that was damaged.  "Oh yeah, kinda' bumped into a fire hydrant but I should have to pay for the rental because a tail light was burned out so I couldn't drive at night"  I asked about the juice stains on the curtains, he had no idea how that could have happened...

Huh?  Luckily he had gotten a temporary RV insurance rider on his state farm insurance policy so the entire claim went against him.  The bad part is we lost three rentals after him because the RV was in the shop.

Two younger guys rented it and took it to some dirtbike competition in the desert.  They brought it back cleaner than it went out.

Four guys rented it for a bachelor party but they were kinda geeky IT guys so I wasn't worried.  There was a reason we told every renter to sit down to use the toilet if the RV was in motion.  Well, one guy ignored it and paid the penalty.  He was standing in front of the toilet so his back was to the front of the RV and behind him is the shower stall.  The driver decides to brake check the guy in the bathroom which caused said guy to fly backwards into the shower stall doors and break them.  That was expensive for them.  I had to find a guy, which was incredibly difficult, to come out and install a new shower frame and doors.

We made the mistake of renting it out to a group in February who drove to CO to go skiing.  They brought it back absolutely filthy.

One guy dropped it off with every window open which I thought odd.  Two garbage cans were missing, mattress protector pad was missing, he didn't top off the gas tank (we send it out full), didn't add propane.  I told him he would be charged for all of this and he basically said whatever...

So we charged his Visa, he contested it, we sent it copies of the rental agreement, pics of the gas and propane gauges taken before the RV left and when it came back, a list of included equipment such as garbage cans which shows it went out with three and came back with one.  The worst part was the next day when I opened the RV and the smell of cigarette smoke hit me.  That's why he had every window open, trying to air it out.  We have a rule that smoking in the RV will cost you 500.00 dollars so we hit his Visa for that as well.  He contested the charge but the genius left cigarette ashes in the one remaining garbage can.  

One guy showed up and we tell the renters we need a CC to secure a 1K security deposit.  I just knew this guy was going to be a problem and sure enough when I tried to run his CC it came back declined.  When I told him he whipped out a checkbook and said I'll just give you a check.  Nope, checks have to be sent in two weeks before a rental goes out.  He tried to convince me but I said no way.  Had a bad vibe about the guy.

We did make money when we rented it out but the aggravation was finally too much.  Plus the wife wasn't really comfortable sleeping in a bed that people were probably having sex on.

Seems to me when comparing RVs to houses or apartments that the RV will not hold up to abuse or hard use as well as traditional house/apartment use.

A RV will likely be more expensive to repair . Take some schmuck who has little experience towing or driving a RV and turn him loose when he is on vacation and busting loose and bad expensive stuff is likely to happen.

Managing the details of house/apartment renting is a pain in the ass , doing same with a RV could be a horror show .


On the other hand if you shop hard and buy the thing right , spend lots of time checking out renters and getting hefty damage deposits and doing cleaning , repairs and maintenance yourself it could be a decent deal. As with many other things , the devil is in the details

Probably shouldn't tell her about hotel rooms

Never would I do that. Too much of a Lia risk and people tear them up.

I have a boat and would never rent it out, camper the same.  People just dont respect other peoples property

We just got back from a week at the outer the outer banks.  The person we rented from actually sent us an email thanking us for leaving the place clean when we left.  She invited us back with a discount.  She said that people just leave dirty dishes, trash, etc... and it is almost not worth it anymore

I have been very curious about this as well. We have a 2021 NoBo which is in high demand. Figured we could make it pay for itself.

But, as another posted before, my wife had different ideas about this. “No fucking way I am sleeping in that bed after some asshole we don’t know sleeps in it!”

I may need to buy another one to test my theory.

^You could always buy a second mattress, and reserve it for just yourself and your wife.

Is your insurance going to cover damages when a renter rips the roof off on a tree or
falls down the steps and breaks a leg?

All good questions.  The two companies I was looking at running it through include insurance for the owner outside of your regular policy.

I’ve got 2 friends who have been making really good money doing the rentals which is what got me thinking about it.  They’ve had a few minor troubles but nothing too crazy.  

I get it though, certainly a risk on something that’s not cheap and the renter isn’t familiar with.

Brother rented out his on RV share or something. One group drove it running hot until they seized the motor. Cost him $17k to get it repaired, attorney involved, and headaches. Took 2.5 years for them to finally pay. Camper was a few years old and low mileage.