When the Republican convention comes to Cleveland, Don and Julie Hallum will lock up their valuables, pack their bags and head out.
The Hallums have rented their four-unit building in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood to convention visitors, including the unit they call home.
What’s in it for them?
About $12,500.
The Hallums are among Northeast Ohioans who are renting out their own homes for the week the GOP comes to town, cashing in on the demand for convention housing. Still more homeowners are trying to do just that, some as far away as Akron.
The Republican Party expects about 50,000 visitors for the four-day convention, which starts July 18 in Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland. According to tourism organization Destination Cleveland, the region has 22,000 hotel rooms, but not all of them are available to convention visitors.
And some convention-goers — lobbyists, in particular — want plenty of space to entertain. For them, a hotel room just won’t cut it.
That demand for private housing is fueling rental fever among some homeowners, who envision making enough off of their homes to pay their mortgages for months. The website for Howard Hanna, the party’s approved housing provider, shows listings stretching from Lorain to Painesville and as far south as Medina and the Montrose area. Additional homeowners are listing their residences with other realty agents or on rent-it-yourself websites such as Airbnb or Vacation Rentals By Owner.
Some are asking upwards of $15,000 for the week. A six-bedroom house in Richfield is advertised on Howard Hanna’s convention website for $55,000. Another in Shaker Heights is asking $109,000.
But Bill Fronimo thinks that for most owners, getting that kind of money is a pipe dream.
Fronimo operates Cleveland House Hotels, a business that rents out single homes, duplexes and apartments for short-term stays via website www.clevelandhousehotels.com. He is making his 15 units available for rent during the convention, but so far he’s gotten a contract on only one — a four-bedroom, two-bath home in Ohio City, which he’s renting for $5,500 for the week.
Fronimo said most of his inquiries have come from foreign journalists and people in their 20s who want to be a part of the action. Even at $3,000 to $4,000 a week for some of his units, “people are like, ‘oh, that’s way too much,’” he said.
Lydia Ebert is similarly skeptical.
Ebert, a former Clevelander now living in Italy, owns an eight-room guest house near the Cleveland Clinic that sleeps 15. She is asking $3,000 a day to rent it during the convention, but so far she has had no inquiries from convention visitors.
She believes many homeowners are overly optimistic about their chances of finding renters. The prospect of heavy traffic and insufficient parking in downtown Cleveland makes suburban rentals far less desirable to convention visitors than properties in or near downtown, she said.
And many homeowners, she said, don’t realize the risk they’d be taking.
“By the time you get home, your house is going to be destroyed,” said Ebert, who said she’ll have staff present at all hours and will require a large security deposit if she rents out her guest house. “I don’t know, these private people, what they’re thinking.”
What Ken Ferrato is thinking is that his 8,500-square-foot house in West Akron would make a fine place for large-scale convention entertaining.
Ferrato, a physician who grew up in Silver Lake and now lives in North Carolina, bought the house on West Market Street in 2008 and said he plans on moving there when he retires. In the meantime, he’s renting it to students at Northeast Ohio Medical University, whose lease ends July 1.
The six-bedroom, nine-bath house has space in its carriage house for more than 100 guests, which he hopes will make it desirable to someone who wants to entertain a crowd elegantly during the convention. “And it’s close enough,” he said — 34 miles from Quicken Loans Arena via I-77.
Ferrato is asking $35,000 for the week, although he said the price would depend on what services are included. He’s willing to hire a chef, provide limousine transportation and supply other services the clients desire, such as daily yoga sessions.
He hasn’t found a taker yet, but he doesn’t know what to make of that.
“This is new for this area, and nobody really has any idea” about how late people will still be renting properties or how much they’ll pay, he said.
Howard Hanna Realtor Kim Kramer believes the rental business will pick up as the last of the delegates are elected and the GOP makes a push among the party faithful to fill Quicken Loans Arena for the TV cameras. Those latecomers will discover that hotel rooms are booked or expensive and will turn to private rentals, she predicted.
Kramer said she has heard from homeowners as far away as Columbus who wanted to rent out their homes, but she turned them down because of the distance. Similarly, she said she has had to tactfully decline properties that were cluttered, smelly or otherwise inappropriate for convention guests.
Most of her rentals, Kramer said, are high-end luxury homes that offer incentives such as transportation, restaurant gift cards and fully stocked kitchens and bars. The homeowners have to be prepared to clear out their personal belongings and leave the house as clean and well-appointed as a hotel room, which is no small undertaking.
Nevertheless, Don and Julie Hallum are up to the task.
The Hallums — the couple who are renting out their converted warehouse in Ohio City — are used to the drill because they regularly rent out three of the units for short stays. And because the couple has learned to “live light,” as Don Hallum put it, they’ll be able to store all their valuables in a locked closet during the convention.
Normally the Hallums rent their three units through Airbnb for $149, $140 and $115 a night, which would work out to $2,828 if they rented out all three for an entire week. For the convention week, they’ll get $13,000 for the whole 12,000-square-foot building, which comprises the three units plus a fourth where they live.
After the realty agent’s fee, they’ll net about $12,500, Don Hallum said.
They won’t be blowing that on a luxury getaway, though. The Hallums are planning to go tent camping during the convention and will probably stay close enough that Don Hallum can pop in to make sure things like the cable and Wi-Fi are working.
He figures they’ll head for one of Ohio’s state parks, which offer a 50 percent discount to seniors from Sundays to Thursdays — conveniently, a time frame that overlaps much of the time they’ll be away.
“It’s the perfect time to do it,” he said.
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckABJ and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.