The Complete Guide to Renting Your RV

By Mike Wendland

An entire side industry has developed over the past few years: Rental companies that facilitate private RV owners who want to earn extra cash with their RVs.

Those companies – new ones are forming every day – list the RV, usually help in providing insurance, and offer marketing to promote them. 

 

RVers get to use their RVs when they want but, when the RV is usually in storage or sitting in the driveway, they then get to earn cash by renting it out. Some RVers, as you'll see in this book, even get to buy their RV with little out-of-pocket expenses because the rental fees more than cover their payments. 

 

Private RV owners are sometimes making five-figure incomes a year just by renting out their RVs. Some have actually started their own businesses doing so, buying multiple RVs and renting them all out.

 

It sounds too good to be true. But it is true! In this book, you'll learn how to do this yourself.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike and Jennifer Wendland
• Release date: Mar 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393632238

Mike Wendland

Mike Wendland is a veteran journalist who, with his wife, Jennifer, travels North America in a small motorhome, blogging about the people, places, joys, and adventure of RV life on the road at RVLifestyle.com. He and Jennifer also host the weekly RV Podcast and do twice-weekly videos on the YouTube RV Lifestyle Channel. They have written 11 books on RV travel.

Book preview

Personal Note from Mike and Jennifer Wendland

It was inevitable that with RVs in such huge demand for road trips and camping vacations, the same peer-to-peer businesses would arise that came in the vacation home rental industry.

That demand has increased exponentially because of the COVID restrictions of 2020 and 2021. For no other way to vacation or getaway is as safe as RVing. RVers, as we used to say, were socially distant before it was cool.

An entire side industry has developed over the past few years: Rental companies that facilitate private RV owners who want to earn extra cash with their RVs.

Those companies – new ones are forming every day – list the RV, usually help in providing insurance, and offer marketing to promote them.

RVers get to use their RVs when they want but, when the RV is usually in storage or sitting in the driveway, they then get to earn cash by renting it out.

Some RVers, as you’ll see in this book, even get to buy their RV with little out-of-pocket expenses because the rental fees more than cover their payments.

Private RV owners are sometimes making five-figure incomes a year just by renting out their RVs. Some have actually started their own businesses doing so, buying multiple RVs and renting them all out.

It sounds too good to be true. But it is true! In this book, you’ll learn how to do this yourself.

You’ll learn all the ins and outs of choosing which firms to list with (you can sign up with multiple rental companies!) We’ll help you navigate the confusing world of RV insurance and we’ll help you learn how to equip your RV, vet potential renters, handle emergencies and easily earn extra income with surprisingly little work.

I don’t think we have to sell you on renting out your RV. You already are interested. What we can do is help you quickly, easily, and profitably start doing so.

We hope you enjoy this book as we get down to business ... and we hope to see you on the road.

Happy Trails!

Mike and Jennifer Wendland – https://RVLifestyle.com

Welcome to The Complete Guide to Renting Your RV

With this eBook, we'll be guiding you through the RV Rental process so that you have everything you need to know to start renting out your rig.

The guide is structured into fifteen chapters.

We will cover everything you should consider before you begin renting your RV. It includes some of the pros and cons of renting, talking about the risks and rewards involved. Then it dives into the specifics of how much money you can expect to make renting out your RV, how to pick the best RV for you (if you don't already own one), and how to find/navigate RV Rental insurance.

We will discuss the specifics of dummy-proofing and stocking your RV for renters, best practices for listing your RV, vetting potential renters, how you should conduct your rental communication, and what your standard operating procedure should be for each rental.

We'll also discuss if it's in your best interest to register your RV for an LLC and the accounting/tax ramifications that you'll run into when renting.

Then, we talk about how to optimize the renting process and best practices if you want to turn the process into a real business rather than just something you do on the side. 

There is a significant amount of information here and we've broken it down by chapter so that you have time to digest and think about each topic before you dive into the next one. 

As experienced RV owners ourselves, we hope you will find this guide informative, and get you thinking seriously about whether or not renting out an RV is right for you!

Chapter 1: What to Consider Before Renting Your RV

The path to renting out your RV can be a perilous one for many people.  Whatever your motivation is for renting out your RV, there are some risks. There’s the additional wear and tear, extra maintenance, time spent dealing with customers, cleaning, and so on.

There are many different reasons and ways to approach renting so that it best suits your needs. We want to provide a few different ways to navigate those options.

Of course, there are also numerous advantages to renting out your RV.  Chief among them: You’ll receive extra money to cover the RV’s payments, which might help you afford a better unit.

Renting out your RV might allow you to buy one sooner for less cost vs. waiting until retirement. Plus, you can start using an RV without it sitting around 90% of the year unused.

How to know if you are ready to rent an RV?

You’ll want to ask yourself some of these questions to make sure you are truly ready for renting out your RV. The simple truth is that things can and do go wrong. For example, there will be additional wear and tear, and the unit will likely need maintenance much sooner and more frequently.

However, you’ll also be making additional income. Done properly, you can even have the RV pay for itself, or even generate revenue above/beyond the costs of owning and maintaining the unit.

Here’s the unfortunate truth, for most people renting an RV is like renting a car.

Can you remember the last time you rented a car? You probably treated it fine, but you definitely didn’t take care of it with the same gentleness that you would treat your own car. 

Even with the best intentions, you are less familiar with the vehicle so you might not have understood its limitations, size, and features like you would your own vehicle.

The same goes for those renting your RV.

Here are a few basic questions you’ll want to ask yourself to know if you are ready to rent out your unit.

Would I trust my 19-year-old son and his friends with it for the weekend?

This is a good litmus on the skill sets and attention to details that most 1st time or inexperienced RVers will have. It’s not that they truly want to do anything wrong while operating your unit. It’s just that they don’t have the intimate knowledge of how things work.

Am I OK with the additional wear and tear?

You have to remember that if you are using your RV on average 2 weekends each month during the summer, the additional rental time is going to increase the overall usage of the unit.

So now, instead of being used 24 days (2 weekends each month, 4 months out of the year) through the peak summer months, it’ll now be used 2 or 3 times more than that.

That is 2-3x more that each drawer is opened/closed, the fridge loaded/unloaded, doors opened/closed, awning extended, miles driven... you get the idea.

That is going to lead to more things naturally breaking, getting scuffed, wearing out, quicker maintenance schedule, tires replaced, etc, etc...

Am I able to fix things on my RV by myself?

We’re not talking about major mechanical issues here. But are you able to replace light bulbs, screw things back together, add some plumbers tape to a leaky faucet, swap out a water pump, change the oil?

The more you are comfortable with being able to fix and repair little issues, the better off you are. You’ll be able to handle the little wear and tear things that happen while saving the big mechanical issues/fixes to the repair shop.

Not only will this save you time and money but keep your unit rentable and presentable.

an RV getting washed

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Am I OK with cleaning, washing, and ‘dumping’ other people’s messes?

The reality is that most people want things done for them, especially if they are on vacation, in a time crunch, or unfamiliar with how to do things. This includes cleaning, dumping, and washing your RV.

While