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Easy money?

Well a lot of people said AirBnB would never work but a lot of people have made a lot of money out of it. So I'd say it's a maybe.
 
Camptoo is a dutch initiative originally, and they have been around for some time now. Seems to work pretty well.
 
Camptoo: easy money or a nightmare?

I suspect it would be a nightmare.


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Just imagine, inexperience coupled with a potential "don't care" attitude..

I agree Tom, nightmare!
 
depends how much you love your van.- or need the money, I do and I do not
 
It would be like wearing someone else’s underpants!
 
I can’t imagine getting ‘suitable insurance’ is going to be easy? I found UK insurers pernickety enough just for personal use.


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We had a 6 berth Motorhome in 2008 and a 1971 westfalia t2. We hired out the motorhome in the summer (and used the Westy) and used the motorhome in the winter.

Hiring can be time consuming, cleaning, switch overs etc but less cleaning in a Cali as no bathroom, permanent beds etc.

It worked well for us generally as MOST people were respectful. I would say that there are fundamental rules of human nature which apply to anyone considering this.
1. If your van is perfect and gleaming on collection, hirers are more likely to return it that way.
2 if the van is hired dirty, scratched etc, hirers will not give a stuff.

Furthermore, if you have official t&c’s that the hirer has to agree to and ensuring that you take a deposit to cover 100% of the insurance excess (I used PayPal on credit card to hold a deposit like car hire company) you should be ok financially.

NEVER, hire to someone who is hiring on someone else’s behalf (because the end user doesn’t give a stuff and they have no risk as one step removed from any responsibility).

Insurance is easy, many daily hire companies do it, purely for the period of hire, completely separate from your own insurance. It’s pricey but you don’t pay it and if hired has points etc then they should expect to pay more.

We had mostly brilliant hirers, but a couple of horrendous ones. One of which was an events company who needed it for a film shoot and it came back looking like Ozzy Ozbourne’s hotel room! They had no problem in paying for damage but it wasn’t nice to have to sort that out and the smell of weed in a non smoking van took ages to get rid of!!

California’s are expensive vehicles, therefore hire price should reflect this. Our motorhome was brand new and cost £30k. Cali is double that. We used to charge £1,000 for Glastonbury weekend (10 years ago) and it was always fine but always had that nervous feeling.

Now we have the Cali, I would not consider hiring it out. If it is you pride and joy, don’t put yourself through it. If you have any element of emotional attachment to your Cali, do not hire it to others. It may be fine but in my opinion it’s not worth the risk. In my opinion, people are mostly good but it’s the few bad apples that cause the problems.

I hope my experience is useful to anyone considering it.
 
Given that I seem to struggle to let my kids even breathe on our new pride and joy, there's no way I'd hire it to a complete stranger :eek:
 
We had a 6 berth Motorhome in 2008 and a 1971 westfalia t2. We hired out the motorhome in the summer (and used the Westy) and used the motorhome in the winter.

Hiring can be time consuming, cleaning, switch overs etc but less cleaning in a Cali as no bathroom, permanent beds etc.

It worked well for us generally as MOST people were respectful. I would say that there are fundamental rules of human nature which apply to anyone considering this.
1. If your van is perfect and gleaming on collection, hirers are more likely to return it that way.
2 if the van is hired dirty, scratched etc, hirers will not give a stuff.

Furthermore, if you have official t&c’s that the hirer has to agree to and ensuring that you take a deposit to cover 100% of the insurance excess (I used PayPal on credit card to hold a deposit like car hire company) you should be ok financially.

NEVER, hire to someone who is hiring on someone else’s behalf (because the end user doesn’t give a stuff and they have no risk as one step removed from any responsibility).

Insurance is easy, many daily hire companies do it, purely for the period of hire, completely separate from your own insurance. It’s pricey but you don’t pay it and if hired has points etc then they should expect to pay more.

We had mostly brilliant hirers, but a couple of horrendous ones. One of which was an events company who needed it for a film shoot and it came back looking like Ozzy Ozbourne’s hotel room! They had no problem in paying for damage but it wasn’t nice to have to sort that out and the smell of weed in a non smoking van took ages to get rid of!!

California’s are expensive vehicles, therefore hire price should reflect this. Our motorhome was brand new and cost £30k. Cali is double that. We used to charge £1,000 for Glastonbury weekend (10 years ago) and it was always fine but always had that nervous feeling.

Now we have the Cali, I would not consider hiring it out. If it is you pride and joy, don’t put yourself through it. If you have any element of emotional attachment to your Cali, do not hire it to others. It may be fine but in my opinion it’s not worth the risk. In my opinion, people are mostly good but it’s the few bad apples that cause the problems.

I hope my experience is useful to anyone considering it.

Hey Philly. My girlfriend and I have wanted to get a Cali for a number of years now. We're at a point were monthly finance repayments are a viable option, but have also considered renting it out to help. Your post is really useful, many thanks. Our current problem is finding ways to finance with the lenders T&C's allowing us to private hire the vehicle. Do you by chance have any expertise in this area. We're really struggling. Many thanks in advance for you time. Tristan & Katie.
 
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