I would love to hear from someone who have experience in renting their house or condo out in Aruba on short term.
Tomorrow we will go to the notary to sign and take over our new house in Westpunt. (Amazingly, the notary finished everything in just over 2 weeks).
We are now in the middle of buying all new furniture, electronics, BBQ, hammocks, pool furniture etc.
When deciding on that, we are having trouble on how exclusive interior we should buy as we have not decided completely on whether we will rent out or not. But in most cases we end up buying something to our own taste which is more expensive and delicate than what you would buy if you just think of furnishing a house to rent it out.
(FYI: Villa 5BR 4 Bath, Pool, very good area, 2 years old)
So now to my question: What are your experiences with short time rentals in Aruba?
How much care do weekly renters take to expensive stuff in the house?
Is the wear and tear reasonable or very high?
Can you put small valuables to the disposal for renters, like Playstation3, Ipod, Cell phone, Boombox, laptop, wireless lan, Skype phones etc or will they mysteriously vanish over time?
Would it be a stupid idea to rent out a house with i.e. 4 huge fullHD plasma screens etc. ?
Should we just forget combining expensive interior with renting all together, or am I overly worried?
Any other comments that you think would help our decision would be greatly appreciated.
I hope this doesn't come across in the wrong way. Don't think that I don't trust other people, we have just never rented a house out before, but since we will only use it ourselves a month or two out of the year at this moment, we are considering renting it out.
Also I know that this is a privileged problem, by no means does it overshadow the joy of getting our own place in Paradise, I just know that there are a lot of smart and experienced people in here that could help us make the decision.

Thanks

Carsten