Loanables: Rent Your Personal Possessions

What is Loanables?

Loanables is a peer-to-peer rental service that allows you to rent out all sorts of household goods and sporting equipment.

Loanables Review:

You sprang the big bucks to buy the carpet cleaner, the belt sander or the wood chipper and now they are all just sitting in your garage gathering dust. The same holds true for that camping equipment — and even your old wedding or prom dress?

Loanables, now rebranded as Reventals, will help you advertise your stuff for rent  — and even give you an idea of how much similar items are renting for in your area.

Commissions

For that service, you pay 10% of your rental fee to the site.

Many caveats

You, however, are responsible for collecting the money and arranging pick-up or delivery of your item. And the site has no insurance to cover you if the renter damages or doesn’t return your stuff. Thus, you should collect a deposit if you are renting out something expensive.

And you should buy “voluntary parting” insurance because, otherwise, you’ll have no insurance protection if someone steals your stuff.

You also need to be aware that you could be held liable if someone hurts themselves when using your chain saw or other dangerous equipment, so think twice before renting out anything with sharp edges or blades.

What you earn

Generally speaking, rental rates are modest, so unless you own something fairly expensive and unique — a bounce-house; a cotton candy machine; a photo booth, for example — you may find renting personal items is more trouble than it’s worth.

Finally, be aware that these rent-anything sites (as opposed to those that specialize in a single big-ticket item, such as a room or car) don’t seem to draw tons of traffic.

It’s free to list, so not much downside. But when we checked in January of 2023, Loanables brought in a sum total of 10,000 visitors — worldwide — for the month. What’s the chance that one of those 10,000 people live near you and need what you’re renting? Slim to none.

Recommendations

There’s really nothing wrong with Loanables/Reventals terms. So, we’ve given it a nuetral Husl$core to reflect that. However, unless the site starts a marketing campaign to boost its traffic, we also think there’s little chance this site can help you rent out your possessions.

The better course is likely to be listing your items for rent on neighborhood website, Nextdoor.