Are you the type of person who jumps into things without thinking? Or do you do your research, make a plan, discuss with others, find support, think you are about to pull the trigger, only to put off starting what could be something great? Ever thought about renting your RV? Here’s a story about our experience with starting a new adventure renting out our RV.
First RV Rental - Owner’s Experience
While there are times when we just jump into things, most of the time we are planners and try our best to make sure we fully understand what our options are. All of our planning led up to what we would say was a successful first RV rental with some amazing renters.
In early 2020, we purchased our first RV with aspirations and plans to explore our great nation and give our kids experiences which they had not had before. For the first three camping seasons, that’s exactly what we did but then obligations with the kids schools shortened our camping season. We still were able to camp a decent amount in season 4 but the camping season ended very early.
Decisions... Decisions... Decisions...
We (Jen and Brian) sat down and discussed the possibilities of renting our RV. We have heard of many having great success with listing their RV on RV Rental platforms like RVShare and Outdoorsy. This was a scary thought for us as there’s a lot of risk that goes into letting someone else use your home away from home who isn’t an experienced camper.
Most of us who would say we are experienced know that there’s a lot that you have to pay attention to for a successful camping weekend. We still today consider ourselves beginners as we learn new things every time we camp and through experiences.
Fear aside, we spent time joining many facebook groups like
- RV Rental Owners Group (RVShare, Outdoorsy, Good Sams, RVezy)
- RV Rental Business Owners (Outdoorsy, RVShare, RVezy, RVnGO, Good Sam, etc)
- Outdoorsy RV Host Community
These groups have some great information posted by very helpful owners (hosts). However, even with all the information in these groups, we still weren’t sure how we were going to start this adventure and what things we needed to do. What we did know is there’s still a lot of risk that you have to weigh when you do eventually rent your camper.
What did we think we knew and what did we not know?
For starters, we knew that we could supplement our investment in our RV by renting it out for others to enjoy. But what we didn’t know is what exactly did this look like. How do we know that not only our monetary investment is supplemented but how about our time and commitment?
We wanted to make sure if we did this that we followed recommended practices and offered a great product to our renters. What exactly did this really mean though?
Well, we still are figuring it out but through the help of RVShare and Outdoorsy, starting was a bit easier than we thought. Both platforms and with the help from the facebook groups, made the process fairly straight forward. When you start, the platforms will guide you through the process and their support is amazingly helpful.
Without going into all the detail of how exactly we got set up, it was a couple of months before we officially made our RV available to rent. The challenge was making sure we knew what items we were going to provide with the rental, what our price was going to be, were we going to allow people to tow the RV or only offer delivery and how for how much, what add-ons do we offer, do we need an SRA (Supplemental Rental Agreement)?
The biggest advice we have received is to always have a SRA to make sure you cover any additional risk there may be. You also need to consider how much you will charge for the refundable security deposit.
If you don’t know where to start with a lot of this, we recommend spending time researching other rentals in your area and see what they are doing. We do set our security deposit a bit higher than others but that’s to make sure at the end of the day, our renters have realistic expectations on being able to cover when those unfortunate accidents happen.
Ready or not, you just have to start.
And when it started, we booked up way faster than anyone could have expected. Managing calendars across platforms and all the inquiries can certainly be time consuming. We pride ourselves in being able to respond to inquiries within an hour to two but not everyone will be able to do this. You have to be realistic with yourself as well about how much time it will take in the beginning.
The first rental was booked and we were super excited but nervous at the same time. Trying to be professional and act as if you had already been there before was a big challenge. We are not business people so a lot of learning as we go and relying on the advice of those who have been there before.
Our first rental was an amazing family of 5 that was coming in from out of town for a weekend birthday celebration with their extended family. All of our preparation leading up to this rental was about to be tested. You truly don’t know if what you planned for would be enough but that’s the greatest thing about having your first rental be such an amazing experience.
We had created a welcome manual about how to use a lot of the aspects of the RV along with where things we provided were at. This was provided to the renters prior to their trip as it also had suggested items to bring. We worked hard to make sure we stayed in constant contact with the renters before, during, and even after the rental.
Now that our RV was out being enjoyed by our first renters, we had some relief from our fear of if we are doing the right thing. The thoughts of if we were ready are now being tested but now it’s more of what do you do while the RV is out for rent. Do you contact the renters just to check in and make sure things are going well? Or do you lay low and use the no news is good news type of moto.
For us we made sure after the first night / next morning we reached out to them just to thank them again for renting from us. We think this little bit of contact is good to engage with the renters to let them know that we are always accessible for them. When we rented on VRBO / Airbnb, there wasn’t much contact from the hosts and we were fine with it. However, I do think that sending a quick message is a neat little personal touch.
This particular weekend was very hot. Our area was seeing close to record high temps which were in the 90s and very sunny. The specific site that was being rented was in full sun with the only potential shade coming from the awning. You could only imagine how much this tested the A/C in the RV. Our renters had told us when they arrived that there was potential they would leave a day early if the weather was going to be this hot.
We were originally set to pick up the RV on Monday but on Saturday, our renters messaged us that there was a good chance we could come Sunday and get the RV. Being new to this, we weren’t sure if we should even offer to refund a day. Our SRA states that there’s no refunds and RVShare states that as well. However, this was a good challenge for us to navigate as we are also kind people who know things happen and want to do everything within our powers to help.
In RVShare we had the ability to change the rental period even while the rental is going on. Basically change it to reflect an early return date. On Sunday when the renters contacted us that we could come get the RV, we did offer them a refund for the day. The renters politely declined and said there is no reason to refund as this was their decision to return early and nothing we did caused that. We totally get this thought as this would be how we would have handled it if we were the renters.
We arrived to pick up the RV, everything we had listed in the return instructions were completed and the RV looked even better than we had hoped. This was as perfect of a first rental as we could have had.
So what now?
Well it’s on to cleaning the RV for the next renter. When we got the RV back home, we did inventory everything we had provided to make sure there wasn’t anything we needed to replace / restock. Cleaning took a bit of time but we’ll get better at it so we don’t have to spend as much time between rentals.
We are now 3 rentals in and every single one has been with amazing renters. We are still learning and the Facebook groups are so helpful. We are even renting direct now which we weren’t expecting to do until year 2. There’s so much to learn and know about this business and we hope that we continue to have success and build out something we can provide amazing RV rentals throughout our community and beyond.
Some things we have now learned through 3 rentals.
- 1 PAGER (Info sheet): Not everyone reads thoroughly what you send. We are working on a quick 1 pager of important information. Like what is recommended to bring. Seems like there’s a bit of confusion on what we supply.
- CHECK LISTS: Make sure you have a thorough check list of what you need to stock so you don’t forget items. We supply a 2 burner blackstone griddle and usually include some oil for them to use with the griddle. Well the second rental, we forgot to put it in there. Luckily we delivered this the day before we met the renters for the walkthrough so we brought it with us.
- TIMING: You have to be good with coordinating all that’s involved with rentals. Leave enough time to be able to clean the RV between rentals and enough time for delivery and setup.
- ALWAYS DO YOUR HOMEWORK: Making sure you know your site you are delivering to. While the rentals were successful, 1 rental was a bit difficult to get good placement on the site as it was very unlevel and had tree’s that weren’t in the best spot for RV. We ended up angling the RV to get it in a good spot. Another rental, we went by the site prior to make sure we could get into it as it was on someone’s personal property. We are glad we did as we ended up having to use a neighbor’s driveway / yard to access the property instead of the street access they had.
Are you planning on renting your RV? Or do you have any advice for us who are new to this? Leave a comment below.
Kudos, very nice read, your the best Delios!!
Thank you Stacey. Been a fun little adventure for us and we are still learning.