Preparing to Rent Our Apartment
Can we get it ALL done in time?
As I write this, Carolyn and I are entering out last week in France for this visit. We return to the US in mid-June and plan to be back in France sometime in September, following our current three-months-here, three-months-there pattern.
From the beginning, our plan has been to rent out our French apartment while we are away. Our building’s HOA rules allow us to rent the apartment for up to three months of the year for short-term visitors. Summer is peak season in the south of France, so we’ve been hustling to get the place ready before we return to Texas.
Of course, we’re both worried about bad guests—it seems everyone has a horror story along the lines of “My cousin’s friend had an AirBNB and everything was fine for two years until <insert urban-legend-like story of ripped out appliances and sofas sliced up with box cutters>”.
I’m definitely more stressed than Carolyn about people breaking things or deciding to squat in our apartment and never leave. Maybe it was my work as an architect for super high-end hotels where the owners wanted everything to be customer-proof (even at $1,200/night they assumed the guests would behave like horny neanderthals), or maybe it’s just my obsession with taking exceedingly good care of my belongings.
After two weeks of me working ten hour days and running to the bricolage store four times a day, we had the sudden realization that earning rental income might violate the terms of our VLS-TS visas! We’re not allowed to work or earn money in France and we don’t want to jeopardize our long term plans (we’ve mentioned before, we are rule followers). A question posted on the FB expat forum yielded contradictory answers - very frustrating. Then we found this article, the information in the article has since been confirmed by a rental/real estate professional: short-term rental income is considered passive investment income up to a certain financial cap and is nothing to worry about as long as we stay under the cap (no problem), pay our taxes (of course), and register the apartment as required (registration is done through the AirBNB portal as part of the account setup process, it turns out).
One of the biggest decisions we have made so far is to reduce the size of the rental. I installed a sturdy, keyed lock that separates the back two bedrooms and one of the showers from the rest of the apartment. That gives us a secure place to store our personal belongings and also allows us to dip our toe into short-term rental on a smaller scale. We don’t want six people cramming themselves into our home and we fear a larger group would result in more wear and tear and excessive noise for our neighbors. The reduced rental size (about 650 ft²/61 M² ) makes it perfect for a couple or a maybe couple with a tween/teen child who doesn’t mind a comfy sleeper sofa. We’re also going to have a longish minimum stay in the hopes of reducing the turnover.
The apartment really is great! Carolyn’s and my mindset has moved from “terrified of the possible problems” to “excited to share our space” as we have finished decorating tasks and setting up for visitors. We both enjoy being good hosts for parties and house guests, and it turns out that this feels much the same. We like being facilitators for people to enjoy themselves.
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of painting and maintenance, installing locks on doors and privacy film on windows, setting up an AirBNB account, writing a welcome manual, and purchasing the additional towels, bedding, and other items that our guests will need. The prep work has eased our worries because it has forced us to finally take on the myriad little repairs that were fine day to day for us, but would be really annoying to a guest. That curtain rod that gets bumped every time you open the window? Fix that.
We’re still figuring out who will manage the guest check-in/check-out in our absence and we need to adjust our insurance coverage, but that should be easy to accomplish before we leave. We have a good candidate for the manager job.
We expect our AirBNB listing to be live this by this weekend and we’ll send out an update when it is. In all honesty, we are hopeful that some of you, gentle readers, will be able to take advantage of our place, we’d love that!
PET UPDATE: Two posts back, I wrote about trying to get European Passports for our dogs and register them with ICAD, the organization that tracks pet ownership and microchips in France. I’m happy to report that Woody and Rudy are both French citizens now. They both have French passports! And Woody now understands French at A2 level! Qui est un bon toutou?
Jusqù’a la prochaine fois! (Until next time)
Carolyn & Roberto
Courage
Really looks fantastic!