Should you Airbnb or rent for long term?

With the recent rise in popularity of Airbnb it is a great dilemma for many: should they put their flats online or rent it out for the long term? Which will bring in more revenue and which will require less work?

First of all, being on Airbnb won't guarantee that you can rent out your apartment for a few nights. Even if it’s located in the center of a city frequented by tourists, you will have to be on the top of the search results, which is no easy – or cheap – task.

Kiszamolo.hu published the experiences of one landlord, Gábor, who is on for Airbnb for years – and currently wants to pull out from that business.

According to Gábor – who rented out empty flats and maintained them thus paying below-average rental prices – it takes a tremendous amount of work to rent out apartments for a few nights to tourists. You must fix everything, be ready every moment, pay for utilities, pay taxes.

Gábor says it is currently not cost effective to rent apartments and then rent them out to tourists. The picture is prettier is you own the estate, but in Budapest this is hardly possible for anyone.

Gábor also claims that Airbnb is very well regulated, and those who say otherwise don't really know what they are talking about.

Gábor also spoke about the skyrocketing rental prices. He thinks there are too many who want to move to the Hungarian capital and there are not enough flats to accommodate everyone who wants to live there, including those who moved to the suburbs a few years ago and want to move back and those who seek work in Budapest. This combined with high taxes of rented flats ensures that in the coming years prices won’t drop significantly.

(Source: http://kiszamolo.hu/a-dilemma-airbnb-vagy-hosszutavu-lakaskiadas/)