Renting furnished apartments

[rob in cal]

In a few years time we might be FIRE, and one thing that intrigues me (my wife is open to the idea right now) would be to live in one spot for a few months and then move somewhere else, like Europe for the summer, east coast for the fall, back out west were we have family for winter and spring, etc. But how easy is it to find furnished apartments? And what kind of price premiums would one be looking at?

 

[omni550]

You might take a look at VRBO.com (Vacation Rental by Owner) for the locations that are of interest to you. These are all places that are fully-furnished down to linens, tableware, and glassware.

For a longer-term renter (few months), I'd be surprised of the owner would not offer you a better deal than to someone who only plans to stay a few days or a week. And as you're dealing directly with the owner you can easily have that conversation.

omni

 

[savory]

We had a room on Air B&B and a person rented the room from us for several months. So, we ended up with a roomate and she had a place to stay. While Air B&B is often rooms, there are also condos. If you do not mind sharing a house, that could provide an opportunity. We're considering it as an option for this winter. But then, we are a little more flexible than most.

 

[Dreamer]

If I did not have any grandchildren, I would love to do this for a few years. It would be so nice to explore places to your heart's content and then to move on.

My DD and her family stayed short-term in a rented place in San Diego, while they were buying their house. The rental unit was fully furnished. They were selling the apartments, but had some for rent. Their apartment was a 2 bedroom and was small, but definitely big enough for the 2 of us. I don't remember the cost now. It was much higher than we are used to, but it was in CA and we are in WV. So glad that they have moved back home to WV now.

 

[donheff]

I agree that VRBO is a good place to start. There are furnished condos and houses available all over the world. The price will vary with the location. Beach front in season or high end city center will cost you but often a convenient location a mile away will be very affordable. It helps to know the area.

 

[utrecht]

We have plans to do the very same thing. We've found quite a few places just by googling "furnished apartments" or "corporate apartments" in whatever city we are interested in. We haven't actually gone any deeper than google searches yet since we wont be retiring for another 7 months, but it looks do-able.

 

[rob in cal]

Well, I've done some research on Craigslist for Vienna and Munich and there do seem to be some nice places at good prices, around 1100 to 1300 per month. I think the big challenge would be to find a one month only rental in the cities, not so much a problem in a vacation area.

 

[KiraC]

You may want to read the book Home Sweet Anywhere. The couple who wrote the book share their experiences doing just this.

 

[Alan]

We've done this a lot since retiring and enjoy the "stability" of staying someplace for a month or more. As well as VRBO.com we also use Rightmove for properties in the UK and Europe.

Property to rent - UK houses and flats to rent - Rent a property

In October we have booked a condo in Hobart, Tasmania for 4 weeks. Can't remember which website we used to find it, we just started following links until we found one through this website

Ashwood Apartments, Bellerive, TAS - Book with Rent-A-Home.com.au

 

[chris2008]

We did several rentals through HomeAway: Vacation Rentals, Beach Houses, Cabins & More . VRBO belongs to this group, too.
We were happy with what we got.

 

[hs2inparadise]

I am looking into a VRBO for a trip this fall and was shocked by the HORRIBLE cancellation policy. Each rental varies, but the one I was looking at seemed standard. It costs $160 to cancel any time prior to 60 days before arrival and is non-refundable at any point later than at. So basically you have no free option to cancel even months in advance. That just seems ridiculous to me.

 

[BrianB]

Coincidentally this was in our local newspaper today, regarding Airbnb:

Travel Troubleshooter: Airbnb refund is hard to land for Paris rental | Star Tribune

I guess its easier getting your refund if you can threaten bad publicity!

 

[Huston55]

We plan to do something similar and have found furnished places on: VRBO, Air B&B, HomeAway, PadMapper, and CraigsList. We're looking in the SF Bay Area, and the short term rentals don't seem to be a ton more expensive than long term rentals; probably because they're ALL very expensive. The other thing we've noticed is that many temp rentals have 30 day minimums, and many seem to encourage longer term (1-3 mos) renters. Good luck.

If there are not already previous threads on this subject, we should keep our experiences updated here. I'd like to learn what works and what doesn't as folks take this path.

 

[outdoorgirl02]

We have a condo that we rent out on vrbo and often rent to people who want to stay more than a week or two. We have a two retired couples who contact us a few times year about staying for 2-3 weeks. We always give them a great price since they are return customers and they take great care of the condo.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Burnsie]

I am also looking at traveling to different countries and staying for several months at each place. From what I have read (4 hour work week), the author suggests traveling to the city and country first. That way you can go to the city and walk around and see what areas of the city you want to live in. So you don't rent in a bad neighborhood. Then after a few days start to look for an apartment. He says you shouldn't have a problem finding a good place and suggests looking around the area, talking with people, going to apartment buildings managers, looking for notes posted on bulletin boards, etc.

 

[ivinsfan]

I'll chime in and second VRBO and HomeAway. For us the key to monthly rentals is not going to a place in peak season, i.e. Europe in Summer. Owners will usually do some serious price cuts. I don't think we have ever paid listed price.

Cancel policy do vary widely so we factor that in. Also if renting in Europe or Mexico, I mentally add the cost of the damage deposit to the rental as a sunk cost. If I get it back fine, if not,oh well.

Homeaway and VRBO do offer insurance on various things when you rent thru their site and I'm sure you can buy it from other companies too. We have never insured until our next rental, the cancellation policy wasn't exactly what I wanted so I spent 49 dollars for 1500 dollars of protection.. the total cost of the rental. I hope I don't have to claim on it I talked to the owner several times by phone and I'm sure he's on the up and up.