With work from home more common & more people traveling while working from home, Airbnb is looking for a bigger piece of the pie
My Fall/winter/spring 2020-2021 have almost all been work from home nomads.
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Yeah right, Chesky. And how many hosts whoâve taken these long term bookings are now in Airbnb CS purgatory, trying to get compensated for the damage caused by the long-term guest, dealing with their local landlord/tenant dept to try to evict the âguestâ for whom Airbnb only guaranteed the first monthâs payment of a 4 month booking and who is now squatting, or turned out to be a criminal âknown to the policeâ?
What a shameless millennial sense of entitlement he embodies and promotes-Hey guests, why should you be burdened with having to come up with a damage deposit, first and last monthâs rent, a criminal record check, references and employment history, when you can book an Airbnb where we provide none of these safeguards to our hosts.
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Iâm feeling an acquisition or partnership coming.
Airbnb could mimic or partner with a Zillow rental-like provider of lease support services (background check, lease provision) and make it valid for 12 months and with the refundable/unused deposit amount portable from one rental to next.
Chesney isnât advocating this change in the article but he wouldnât. Heâs planting the seed for the next evolution of Airbnb.
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Airbnb certainly could do something like that, but honestly, everything about the platform seems designed to put zero responsibilities or barriers to booking on the guests and itâs moving more so in that direction all the time.
There is an ingrained arrogance to this company that precludes them listening to hosts or understanding that itâs a symbiotic relationship between hosts and guests, and that if one partyâs needs are ignored, that doesnât bode well for continued success.
Chesky knows perfectly well he has long-time, successful hosts leaving in disgust. His solution to that is not to look to the reasons why and address them effectively, itâs to launch an initiative to attract new hosts. He makes it perfectly clear what his attitude and direction is- all you have to do is look at the actions and ignore his BS PR videos.
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Please⌠can we one thing really well please?
Glitchy platform, useless staff who donât t know policies, unavailable security deposits⌠I could go onâŚ
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First line:
But isnât that because of how the laws make it so difficult/costly to rent for less than a month?
The only part I agree with is the one-year leases. Otherwise @muddy is spot on. Mitigating risk with deposits background checks, etc., is even much more important than with a traditional 12-month lease because listings are fully furnished.
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Iâm with @Debthecat here. Sort out your core business first, before branching out into something thatâs simply not practical for, in my opinion, the majority of hosts. Local housing laws (i.e. conversion to tenant), calendars blocked for months with no guarantee of payment etc, so many areas where a host can get their backside bitten by allowing essentially LTR via Airbnb.
JF
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Agreed- Airbnb needs to work on their core business
Furnished Finders for $99/year (no fees to renter) letâs the host get a lease & security deposit. Iâm following on their Facebook group.
FF isnât perfect either. Same stories as STR-renter left home damaged & dirty & renter didnât follow best practices sent deposit without having signed lease, assignment cancelled so landlord refusing refund.
There must be a better wayâŚ
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There is, and Iâm sure there are plenty of local companies, as opposed to web giants, doing it.
Our managing agents in Glasgow will do three month rentals, if the landlord is amenable. Lease, credit check etc, and in Scotland deposits (by law) are held by a licenced third party company, not the agents or landlords.
For many hosts I reckon it comes down to a serious lack of trust as far as Airbnbâs concerned. Our first time round with Airbnb was back in 2014, and things felt different then.
Weâve been fortunate in comparison to many Airbnb hosts in recent times, no major issues with either them or guests, so have had minimal contact. We havenât been screwed by arbitrary refunds against our cancellation policy or had any spurious guest complaints.
While I know that the vast majority of stays go off without a hitch, itâs when one doesnât that it appears that Airbnb will almost always side with the guest, irrespective of how many sterling reviews the host has had over umpteen years.
The problem here is that a stay of two, three or more months is a sizeable of chunk of most hosts calendars, and for many, if a pseudo LTR stay goes wrong, they may find it very difficult to fill those dates at short notice; and thatâs before we wander into the legal minefield of âtenanciesâ!
As I said previously, the young Master Chesky may find it more worthwhile sorting out the core business, building bridges with hosts and regaining the trust that has been eroded over the past few years.
JF
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Iâve taken the advice of hosts here and have listed on another platform which, of course, doesnât get the attention of Air. But, in the event a shutdown happens, I want to be a little more prepared.
On a very positive note, I just got a booking from a guest that has five great reviews, that is a first, others had one. A seasoned guest, yay!
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The word is out about this company, guests and hosts know things are heading south. Truly hoping some other sane organization would start another platform with reasonable policies that donât try to gotcha the host.
Maybe theyâre ramping things up to try to sell out. Amazon anyone?
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I donât think thatâs entirely accurate, in fact I think youâre wrong. On the basis of a few negative press articles nothing is going to change. Remember, there is some heavy money involved with Airbnb now, institutional investors and such like.
For many hosts, including a good number on here, Airbnb is the right fit. Vrbo and BDC are not an option and the other homeshare style sites simply donât have the exposure of Airbnb.
Worst case scenario for Airbnb I reckon is that they may have to return to their roots, lose the experiences etc and be forced to concentrate on what made them this big. Curiously, for many thatâd be the best case scenario.
JF
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At the very least, it would be nice to have real competition then they couldnât get away with what they do.
I know itâs big money, itâs just sad to see them go the way they are. My first go round with them, there werenât nearly the horror stories you read now.
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of course weâd all want to do LTR through Airbnb pay a huge fee, not be able to take a deposit , not be able to credit check guests and not be protected by a tenancy contract
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âChesky says that Airbnb has dealt with evictions and squatters in the past and hasnât found any âintractable issueâ that canât be handled.â
Anybody here got examples of Airbnb dealing with squatters for them?
Thought not.
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Airbnb advocates getting a separate lease in addition to their platform and I do
I am lucky. Iâve not had large damages or squatters. However there is always the potential to have an expensive first time.
Before doing LTR, factor in the remote possibility of having to spend $10,000 (in U.S.) on legal action to remove squatters.
Low probability but high impact outcome. Risk can be mitigated by all the things Airbnb doesnât provide â deposit, background check, lease agreement.
Speaking of squatters.
On VRB0, if you have instant booking on there isnât a way to limit the maximum amount of nights, skies the limit. The only way I see to get around this per a discussion I saw, is you have to turn off IB and guests have to request to book.
I looked at others in my area and 2/3âs of them have it on ârequest to bookâ.
He seems to have an illusion that thereâs an inexhaustible supply of new hosts out there.
Just like the minimum wage employers that couldnât find anyone wanting to work at those wages thought that there was an endless supply of desperate workers.
Itâs a free market.
Right now maybe there is⌠this evening with friends at beach at dinner. Woman A talking to Woman B at bar. âI need to get in on real estate investments. Maybe do Airbnb for a while & make some money. It canât be that hard.â
Sigh. Good luck with that. My nice but not ocean front area has 3x the Airbnb & VRBO rentals as last year. That does not include those with professional property managers.
People are desperate to get out. Rentals for 10+ People are going gang busters.
2021 may provide many new hosts. I think the combination of tight real estate market (over priced) so the owner must have significant revenue to break even cash flow-wise & people finding out this is WORK (Maynard G Krebs) will provide an abundance of hosts short term.