A lot of people get in over their heads by buying fancy toys like RVs, boats, jet skis and even cars. Once you’re stuck with those monthly payments, you can’t do much else except keep paying your bills. Sometimes you don’t even have enough money leftover each month to put gas in them to enjoy what you’re spending all of that money on.
Luckily there is a solution to this problem that doesn’t require you to sell. You can actually make money monthly by leasing or renting your motorized toys to others. It’s very feasible to be able to pay for the entire monthly payment by simply letting others use your things when you’re not able to use them, such as while you’re working during the week.
There are websites that make starting this type of side hustle easy since the sites connect you with people in your local area that are willing to pay to use your RV, boat or car. Four of these sites are covered in this article to help point you in the right direction to start your own rental business.
RVShare
Anyone that owns an RV or camper can rent it out to others to make money on a site called RVShare. This can be done as a part-time or full-time side hustle to earn a living or simply to offset the cost of owning a camper.
Most people that own a camper will only get to use it for a couple of weeks per year. The rest of that time, it just sits around draining money since it requires regular maintenance and expensive costs for storage too. By renting out your camper to others when you’re not using it, you can potentially generate an extra $22,000 – $60,000 per year just from renting out a single camper. The higher end of that scale is for a Class A Motor Home. On the lower end, you’ll have things like Travel Trailers, Fifth Wheels, Toy Haulers and Pop Up Campers.
It’s possible to turn this into a full-time business by owning multiple campers, trailers and motor homes to rent out. This can require large up-front costs and/or a lot of financing. If this is appealing to you as a full-time business, don’t just dive in all at once. Start with a single RV and see how it performs for an entire year before you decide to spend more money to expand. This will give you a much clearer picture of the demand in your area year-round. Starting in the summer, you could easily get a false sense of revenue by assuming all months will earn the same amount, but the off-season can hit earnings hard in some areas.
Rent Your Boats & Other Watercraft
It can be downright expensive to own a boat, but it ends up just sitting around most days. You can now make money, potentially even enough to pay for the entire boat, by renting it to others. You can also rent out other types of watercraft like yachts and jet skis.
This type of business can be started on three different websites. BoatSetter and GetMyBoat seem to be the original players in this industry, while Sailo is a more recent addition but still worthy of attention.
Besides renting boats, there’s a second type of side hustle on these websites: being a boat captain. Experienced and licensed operators can sign up to get hired to captain boats that are being rented. There are also special experiences that can be bought on these sites, so you could offer services like a fishing charter boat rental.
A big plus for boat owners is that you get to decide who is allowed to operate your boat. If you’re okay with renters operating it, renters will have to be 25 years old. However, you can also allow or even force captains to be used, which can allow renters as young as 18. The exact type of watercraft you own will drastically affect your earnings, but average boats can earn $22,000 per year as a rental.
Lease Your Vehicles
A final option to build a side hustle or business leasing out things you already own is to rent your car, truck, van or other type of vehicle when you’re not using it. This particular topic has already been covered in more detail on another page of this website, so I highly recommend you take a look at that if you are interested in this business opportunity.
Learn how to rent your vehicles to make money here.