I’m all for pins in a rental property, I’ve done it myself. But, in this situation I don’t think it’s a great idea unless you can rearrange the room in a way that’s there no chance an errant ball hits it. Even then doesn’t sounds like a great fit.

I wouldnt recommend T2 in a rental that has young kids going through, there is the potential for kids to be scared of the thing. A family with a 2 year old might not come back if their little one is scared of the furniture. I would put Walking Dead in the same category. May seem silly, but little kids are not logical.

If it’s going in regardless, def the first floor. Keep all the games together. The parents will enjoy the separation of space.

Why does it HAVE to go into the rental? It’s gonna get beat on for sure, even if it only is a T2, and do you put up a sign saying what to do if a ball gets stuck? Or is the game out of commission for the rest of their stay?

Yeah, I don’t recall a stuck ball often when owned several T2s. But lots of other dumb stuff can happen and I wouldn’t ask anyone to take the glass off a game if they’ve never done it before. Nor would I want any calls from renters. I just don’t see any positive outcome of adding a pinball machine. They’re already having a great time in what sounds like an awesome house and have other games to keep busy with if the weather is bad.

Salt water or fresh water beach house?

......and the volume will not be adjustable if you don’t have the keys handy. I just can picture a 4 player game started by kids, who then walk away after ball one. Now all you hear in that room is that annoying sound of the skill shot targets moving until someone turns the game off.

I don’t think it’s a total mistake. Perhaps a vid would be a more fool proof bet. If I were putting in a pin, I’d have a framed picture on the wall, bright yellow or orange background, with the rules for use. Any other damage comes out of security deposit.

There are some owners in threads like this:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/airbnb-listings-with-pinball

Check with them as to their experiences...

Anyone have experience with keeping pins at the beach? Maintenance tips? You always see those Craig's List horror shows, but I suppose if it was that bad, Silverball Museum wouldn't locate on the Asbury Park boardwalk.

I own a few beach rental properties. No way I'd put a pin in them. Too much can go wrong.

I put a 60 n 1 in one that people seem to love, even a driver would be cool but too much can go wrong with a pin.

Then to top it off, something you included as a cool bonus becomes a negative review point when it inevitably breaks down

I like the idea but can see the concerns most people would have. Do you know of anyone down there that can service or at least go and take care of little issues like stuck balls, etc? If you were closer I think it would make more sense since you could go over there when needed.

People don’t care about your stuff. Don’t do it.

Hey, a pin is commercial grade coin-op so should be ok. The only issue would be if it's collector quality and you want to keep it that way.
P.S. Wish the house we're renting at the shore had a pin!!

I wouldn’t put any of those fun toys ina rental.

Put the pin in the gameroom 1st floor. Not sure why the large majority says not to.

Yes, there’s a risk, but people would love it and I assume most of your other stuff doesn’t get trashed either?

Isn't there a security deposit? Leave it on coin drop!!

I was thinking of going to OBX this summer whats the schedule like? PM me with info if there are any openings.

I have beach rental properties and put a Megatouch in for the kids and adults to freeplay. People seem to like it and it takes up very little space. As far as a pinball near a hot tub, I wouldn't. A kid gets a shock from touching the game while soaking wet and your homeowners insurance is going to be tested big time! If you do, make SURE the ground plug is in place and post signs reminding people that pinball must not be played when wet. The pool ball/backglass/kid situation is a sure recipe for disaster also!

Here's my two cents. I've got a rental lodge in Hocking hills Ohio.
It has a virtual pinball machine, revenge from Mars, a multicade, and APB (an older police driving arcade game).
The place is a family magnet because of all those machines there. if one thing breaks down, it's not really an issue since there's other things to play. Also, I only live an hour away, so if things ever break down I can just go and take care of stuff. I also put notes that say the approximate value of the arcade machines and let people know if you break it you buy it.
The rental itself is about 500 to 600 a night, so it keeps the riff raff out. Usually people with that amount of money treat things nicely. I haven't had any problems yet. My dad also has two cabins, one with getaway and the other with game of thrones and they are a big attraction.
Here's my place:
https://www.luxuryloghomelodginghockinghills.com/Rosewood-Lodge-Hocking-Hills.html

IMG_20200103_114939 (resized).jpg

I'm a dealer, and I'm a couple hours away from Myrtle Beach (and the east coast beaches down to Savannah).

I frequently get asked about pinballs for beach houses, airbnb, etc.

I recommend that you don't put a pinball in these rental properties.

We have a 60-in-one that we ridiculously overbuild, that survives what your clients will do to a machine. (Tempered glass over the LCD screen, overbuilt internals with double brackets to support 250lb people climbing on the game, etc...)

That's a suitable piece for a rental property. It survives what your clients will do to the game.

I currently am working with a guy who put five pinballs in properties at the beach. All five are in extremely poor repair, and he can't find someone to 'shop' the machines locally, so he's in conversation about bringing me machines, and having me 'shop' them, even though I'm 3 hours away.

On unlimited free play, with a set of customers new to the game every few days or week or so, you'll get a ridiculous amount of wear and tear.

Now, pinballs are designed for commercial operation, to be in taverns and bars and soda shops and arcades, and to be in service 24/7. But in practice they don't get more than a hundred plays a week, rarely, extremely rarely two hundred plays a week, even at top earnings places. Certainly it's rare to get more than that level of play once a machine isn't the newest game in the room. (I'm willing to be corrected on this if it isn't true...)

Your pinballs on free play could easily get twice that wear and tear.

Pinballs break. They break a lot. Usually they break in simple, easy to fix ways. Frequently they need specialty or hard to obtain parts. Rarely, but often enough that you should take note, they require an experienced pinball technician to fix.

In your situation, every time you have a pinball problem your clients will have a less-than-perfect experience. They'll downgrade your online ratings, they'll ask for money off of what you charge them because they didn't get the full experience promised... Every time the game is broken it's a customer relations problem.

So, if you are convinced you need to do this, find an operator of pinballs. Someone who has the staff who fixes the games in bars and taverns at 11:00 at night on a Friday night. Someone who has technicians on call seven days a week.

Getting your customer's pinball service problems fixed promptly is a distant second to not having problems, but it might save you a couple of poor reviews.

Have a technician on-call.

You don't want your customers mentioning in their reviews that your pinball was broken.

Back to 'shopping' your pinballs. You can patch things on the route for quite a while, but eventually you'll need the whole machine overhauled. This will happen much quicker than you'd think when your pinballs are in extremely heavy play environments.

Make sure you have a plan to get your pinball out of the rental property and delivered to a pinball 'shop' where the machine can periodically be refurbished to like-new status... or at least 'not going to immediately break again and again' status.

In St. Louis where we had a very large pinball route, machines would rarely be 'on the route' more than 3 years before they were pulled in and gone through. 'Shopped'. Since you are likely looking at double the wear and tear, consider that you might need to 'shop' the game every 2 years.

I've done 'shopping' a pinball at location. It requires an extremely good technician, with a ton of parts to get it done in a single trip. You could do this yourself, but don't underestimate how much stuff can get broken and worn out in a year of extremely high usage. It's a lot of work.

You have better results if you 'shop' a pinball at a pinball 'shop'. Where you have time, parts, and tools to fix things right instead of fixing things 'for now'.

Finally, yes, near the beach you have mold problems. You have corrosion problems. You have salt air that causes the machines to pretty quickly lose that 'new machine' luster as the metals react to the salt.

But in general, the machines hold up pretty well.

So, to sum up.

Ask yourself 'how am I going to get 100% uptime on my pinballs'?

They'll need to work for every customer, every time.

You'll need to spot check the machines after every guest... or deal with poor reviews of your property.

I tell people all the time:

"People LOVE Pinballs. The reason you don't see them everywhere is not because people don't want to play pinballs, it's because they are broken all the time. Pinball isn't much fun when it's not working."

I mean, do what you like... but the juice isn't worth the squeeze on this one.

I'm pretty pessimistic about this topic in general (see above post).

IMO, additional places for experienced pinball players to complain about their pinball experience would just be even more disadvantage to the rental property owners.

No, I don't think that listing rental properties with pinballs is helpful.

Thanks, curban for starting this thread and updating today. We have a property in a lake community of VA (Lake of the Woods, one of the best kept secrets on the east coast, IMO). Our house is on a park but not lake front and the community isn't well-known for vacationers because it's very residential and most homes (over 80%) are owner occupied. But when our full-time tenants moved out in 2022 we took possession and I bought pins for the place with the intention of switching it from a tenant-rental property we can't use to a vacation-rental property we can.

But then we liked being there so much we haven't yet listed it for vacation renters. Spend most of our weekends and a lot of time the past two summers there. But I'm posting here because if any pinsiders (with feedback) wanted to rent it, I'd trust them to take care of the four terrific pins we have there. As such, I think it would be very cool to have a pinsider rental listing. And when we rent vacation homes (which we do each year) in different areas of the country, it would be awesome to rent from pinsiders who let us use their machines.