Airbnb Alternative: 3 easy steps for finding a rental w/o Airbnb

Airbnb is a traveling staple these days. I used Airbnb faithfully for many years, but pretty much every benefit from the site has been ruined by their awful customer service, massive fees, and rampant scams. I’m done paying for nothing and only getting 1/10th of my money back, or showing up in a foreign country just to find out that my gorgeous Airbnb is actually just a blow-up mattress in some alcoholic’s living room or the other hellish experiences I’ve dealt with. We developed this Airbnb alternative out of necessity and frustration, so I hope you find it as useful as we have!

The Airbnb problem

Airbnb is getting ridiculous with the fees. More often than not I’m paying 3-4x what I used to, and walking out the minute I get there for whatever silly reason. So now my husband and I take a different approach and I’m happy to share our Airbnb alternative approach.

I’ve learned in the last year that the way we handle rentals in the United States is not the norm for the rest of the world. We have very strict, legal rental processes that are fairly streamlined throughout the US, and tend to lock the renter into a long lease with high upfront costs. This has not been my experience throughout Asia, Africa, and even some parts of Europe.

The rental system is a lot more fluid, and more open to shorter-term rentals, like one month, three months, six months, etc. This will not be true everywhere, but finding a monthly rental in the United States that isn’t just a trap house is very difficult, but it is not that difficult outside of the United States.

The other great thing is, furnished rentals are a lot more common outside of the United States, and don’t carry the premium cost of United States rentals. I was renting for over 10 years in the United States, and I never actually had a furnished place. They seem to be more of a luxury, where is there a lot more standardized in other countries.

So here’s how we do it.

Airbnb alternative step 1: Look up expat groups on Facebook

Most cities these days will either have an expat group within the actual city itself, or a nearby hub. For example, I am in Kénitra, Morocco right now, the closest expat group is in Rabat, which is about 45 minutes away. But it’s big enough of a hub that I’ve been able to find resources within my city in that group.

Often these groups are a mixture of locals who speak English and other expats from various countries. I’ve noticed that the standard tends to be English, but this isn’t always the case. Start asking around, or searching the group for rental listings. Asking, “does anyone know of a place for rent?” will likely get you some responses.

I find that this is my first go-to because I tend to trust the credibility of other expats. They are often friendly, helpful, and can vouch for someone trustworthy. They may know somebody who knows somebody, have seen “for rent” signs, or know of a good jumping-off point.

An alternative that I haven’t done as much is checking out the local subreddit for whatever country you’re going to. This is a little bit sketchier as it’s anonymous, but it could be a good way to get info or to be pointed in the right direction for rentals.

Airbnb alternative step 2: Check Facebook Marketplace

A ton of rentals around the world are just chilling on Facebook Marketplace. In my experience, it’s become a pretty ubiquitous resource for a lot of things. I’ve found external monitors, adapters I needed to replace, and other miscellaneous things on there, including housing.

Often the listing will have the price right on there and you can ask if they do month-to-month rentals. I like this because sometimes the cost will be inflated if they know you’re a foreigner (I don’t blame them, but I’m also not trying to spend more if I don’t have to). Google Translate is a little bit awkward, but I found it works just fine for short business conversations, and my husband and I are fortunate that we speak about 5 languages between us which helps. If you find somebody that happens to speak whatever language you speak, even better, but I don’t think this is necessary with the technology that we have.

Some places may want a contract to be signed or a deposit, but this tends to be pretty low-key. For example, the apartment we’re in right now, we did sign a contract but it’s month to month, and our deposit was 3000 MAD (or about $330 USD) and it’s a really nice place in the center of the city. We’ve had rentals with no deposit nor contract whatsoever, with no problems at all.

Airbnb alternative step 3: Search for the regional equivalent of craigslist

Most areas will have some version of craigslist, if not actually craigslist itself. Some places outside of the United States use craigslist, but I found it to be pretty rare. However, each country or region will have its own variation of it. For example, here in Morocco they use avito.ma which has an app and a website.

Often a quick Google search will help you find this or the expat groups. Search “houses for rent [insert your city/country]” or some variation.

Things to keep in mind

• The first thing we tend to do when we get the keys is change the locks. It’s a small upfront cost, but my husband is pretty handy and we like to be the only ones with access to the property. We change the locks back after we finish our rental, but we’ve never had any complaints and we always leave it in as good a condition as we found it. Depending on the quality of your rental, this may not be necessary and we’ve always let the owner know we were doing this (it’s pretty common out of the states).
• Yes, you may be missing out on the security of Airbnb, but is it really that secure anymore? I know dozens and dozens of people who have been left absolutely screwed by whatever rental they had put up money for, only to be screwed over by the owner of the property and then completely stonewalled by Airbnb. This happened to us, thus our Airbnb alternative method. I’d rather take a risk on a recommendation from a fellow expat for a cheaper place than trust Airbnb anymore.
• Remember, people want money for their property. Every minute that they aren’t renting, they’re losing money on their investment. They may prefer a longer-term rental, but knowing they’ll have a couple of months of secure rent for somebody who doesn’t have a ton of stuff or children is pretty ideal. You may be even able to negotiate the price down like we’ve done at every rental we’ve found. The apartment we’re in now was listed at 3400 MAD but we talked them down to 2800 MAD for a secure 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom secured building with a garage and roof access, as well as other cool features.
• For whatever reason, a lot of rental listings are still not online, both in the United States and outside of it. When we struggled to find a listing online, we have occasionally booked short-term rentals through hotels and hostels in the place we wanted to go, and then once we got there we walked around looking for “for rent” signs, asking around, looking more “on the ground”.
• This method of renting apartments and houses has been great for us in terms of quality of life. When you are at an Airbnb, you’re sort of stuck with “whatever they have”, meaning questionable Internet and other amenities. When you’re renting a place, you can get fiber-optic installed (with permission), you can hire a housekeeper, you can stock the fridge with whatever you want. I find it saves a lot more money over indefinitely living in someone else’s space.
• I’ve heard of people contacting Airbnb hosts and offering to go off-site with their listings and paying them directly. The guest pays less in fees, the host doesn’t lose a bunch in fees, etc. I have never done this, it’s probably against the TOS, but if you do it I won’t tell anyone.

I’d love to hear how y’all manage and to hear different perspectives on housing, and what you do as an Airbnb alternative 🙂