We have a second home that's a weekly summer beach rental. It's available for 3- and 4-night stays in the preseason and postseason (i.e. April/May, October). It's in a quiet, non-commercial residential community and the management company, which manages hundreds of these properties, makes it abundantly clear in the rental agreement that rentals are for family groups only.
That said, the management co. will relay interest from non-family groups if someone is interested in your property. This beach community is popular for weddings and today we learned there's a group of four mid-20s people that want to rent our place for three nights in late April while attending a wedding.
I immediately cringed and wanted no part of it, but my wife says I'm overreacting. There are security deposits and post-stay inspections and, besides, families with a couple of toddlers figure to be tougher on a place than four hard-drinking twentysomethings (or however many they really bring to the house, which sleeps 10). My wife also pointed out that our home is booked solid weekly from early June to late September, so there are weekly groups of 8 to 10 rolling through and this shouldn't be any different. (This is our first full year renting the place after buying it in July, though my family owned a home there when I was growing up in the '70s and '80s and also rented it out.)
What do you think?