I'm wondering where some of you find these short term leases. Someone mentioned 6mo or 3mo stays in some places. Do you all just use AirBNB for that? Were about to end our lease and hit the road for a while and its honestly exhausting looking up Airbnbs for the month as the selection is quite poor if you don't plan far enough in advance.
Our eventual dream is to become homeowners but its hard to give up the freedom of renting.
When I moved to San Francisco I first was not sure if I would come down for a 6-week gig and then leave, or if I'd stay longer term, so I got an AirBnB for the length of the gig. When I got some other work offers, I talked to the AirBnB host and paid directly for an extra month to avoid the AirBnB fees. She didn't have me sign anything.
I found my next place (3 more months) on the "sublets/temporary" section of Craigslist.
Then I left for Auckland, where it seemed short-term rentals were less of a normal thing for some reason. I had a hell of a time contacting all the apartment listings I possibly could and asking if they were open to a short-term rental. I finally found one, but only by going up to the upper limit of my price range. In retrospect, I perhaps should have just booked a long-term AirBnB for my stay, though I remember the AirBnB prices there were also kind of nasty. Maybe I still came out ahead by finding a place on the traditional rental market, but of course it also varies with how far ahead you book, and I don't remember what the AirBnB prices looked like when I had first checked and deemed them too expensive.
So yes to all of the above. As you note, traditional rentals/subleases are the better answer on short notice since long-term AirBnB availability for anything good will be spotty. But with enough advanced notice, AirBnB works great.