Peer-to-peer RV rental companies seem to be popping up everywhere. The biggest ones, Outdoorsy, RVshare, and RVezy offer thousands of RVs of every kind for rent. Before these Airbnb-type businesses came along, Cruise America and El Monte RV were the two major players. But their selections were limited.
Now we have Outdoorsy, RVshare and few smaller companies that provide a much wider range of RVs and locations where they are available for rent. They offer everything from small pop-up trailers to large Class A motorhomes. There’s an RV for every need and budget. Heck, rent a trailer to tow behind your Harley.
But besides renters, the peer-to-peer companies allow RV owners to rent out their RVs for extra income, in some cases covering their monthly payment, or even providing a profit. Some owners buy more than one RV to rent, even a dozen or more, and earn even six-figure incomes.
If you only use your RV for weekend trips or seasonally, renting it could be a great way to earn some extra income. That is… if you trust someone using your RV.
So, our poll question: Would you ever consider renting your RV through a peer-to-peer company?
After you respond, please leave an answer and tell us why or why not. We’re curious to hear your thoughts. Thank you.
MORE POLLS YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
- Have you ever loaned your RV to a close friend or family member?
- Have you ever rented an RV?
- Did you pay to have your current RV professionally inspected before buying it?
- Should someone who rents an RV every summer for a week vacation be considered an RVer?
RVT1222b
I wonder what the insurance would be. Or if it is even legal to rental or sub rent.
The insurance is covered by the rental agency.
We rented several RVs through outdoorsy when we were deciding which one to buy. Ugh. They all had things broken, not working, or missing. We decided right then never to rent ours out!
The old joke was “Only your hairdresser knows”. The truth is “Only your Plumber knows your personal habits.” Take as gospel from a Plumber of 60 years.
Never in my wildest dreams.
We have enough to worry about without adding strangers using our RV. And, who wants to clean up after strangers using their RV? The wife would have the heebie-jeebies even thinking about it. Not for us…..
My wife and I are full time. So with that it would not work for us. But I really don’t think I’d rent it out anyway.
If I was to do it, I would purchase an RV for the sole purpose of renting it to others. I would do it purely as a business. I would never rent my personal RV.
I won’t let any of my family members use our RV, because they wouldn’t take the time to learn how to operate any of the systems or be able to problem solve if something goes wrong – and something always goes wrong. This is the same reason I’m not letting strangers rent my RV.
The only way I would rent my motorhome out would be if I could no longer drive it.
If you could swap time with owners of similar equipment, that would give you easy access to areas all over the country. That might be attractive to folks who don’t want to drag a camper thousands of miles to see something. CruiseAmerica is pretty good, except that, if you go by air, you have to go buy Walmart before you can go camping!
To begin with, our travel trailers are highly pre-packed to make our travel more enjoyable. Our pre-post trip checklists are shorter, we don’t have to store things specific to that TT outside the TT.
Second, RV’ers have widely different ideas about maintenance. I am proactive and catch issues early. I don’t want to spend my time on needless wear & repairs caused by others.
NO WAY!!! The “It’s a rental” attitude people have with rental cars scares me too much. RVs are too delicate and can’t handle rough treatment.
In the past I have loaned camping gear, tools and vehicles and was always disappointed in how my stuff was treated and the poor condition items were returned. These were family members and close friends, I’ve seen how people treat their own stuff and don’t want strangers using anything I own.
NEVER EVER!
People tend to be much less careful about things they only rent or borrow. Back in the 1970s I saw what can happen. My dad rented his small RV and it came back from Alaska beat up and the jack was gone.
No we would not!! While we did use it as our guest house for friends and family before we left for full-timing…most folks don’t realize how fragile RVs are!! We still had guests use our bathrooms/showers in our stix/brix but after a kerfuffle with opening and closing blinds we said no more. It’s our sanctuary!!
We’ve had friends try it with a local camping park, but they stopped due to problems/repairs.
I would never rent my fifth wheel out. I have too much invested to allow someone to potentially destroy it.
Never. We want to be able to keep personal items in our coach so we don’t have to move into it every time we want to go somewhere. Also, even lending and setting up our coach for friends to use still resulted in expensive damage, even though they thought they were being careful. We prefer the damage to be our own fault!
Simple reason why we would NEVER rent or loan our RV…nobody would take care of it like we would.
Thank you for the question, RV Travel! Renting our RV to anyone we don’t know seems too big a risk for us to accept. I have never considered the insurance or tax implications of renting, but perhaps the intermediary company can help with those concerns. Frankly, there are few people I know to whom I would lend our RV. If push came to shove, I doubt I would ever lend our RV. Have a great weekend and safe travels!
I won’t even let Friends or family borrow it so definitely not strangers.
My MH is 48 years old. Everything in it still works and is manual, meaning you have to light the fridge and water heater yourself, not just push a button. The younger generation would be frustrated trying to figure those things out. I just love the simplicity and reliability of older units.
Never. I see enough people who own their own RVs driving down the highway at 75+ MPH and drive down mountain roads burning up their brakes. I don’t need or want the repair cost or the liability.
Let Cruise America deal with those people .
We would not rent our RV out. We have used it to house friends or family overnight in our
yard. Also used it in the early days of covid if 1 of us tested positive.
We have used our motorhomes as guest rooms, but after a few mildly irritating incidents we decided that when we had guests we would move to the motorhome and let them have our master suite in the sticks and bricks. Much less for them to mess up through not being familiar with RV systems, and less embarrassment when the inevitable problem arises, which Murphey’s Law dictates will always happen at the least convenient time.
After a career of maintaining dormitories at a university and putting them back together at the end of every semester, I won’t rent nothin’ to nobody. I retired from the maintenance business.
Just think of the Movie,(RV) with Robin Williams. Yep, no way my RV leaves without me on board.
Never, after every trip, there seems to be something that has to be looked after. And as one commenter stated, they are too delicate.
Never, I’m way too particular about my TT to ever rent it out.