It’s hard to be impressed considering the owners are worth 4.2 billion.
Not anymore. Reduce that by at least 16%. Still billions…just saying.
Actually, I think this might be how they will determine the reliance on Airbnb income. It’s not difficult to accurately determine it. During the application process, you have the applicant host upload a tax return showing their AGI (adjusted gross income in the US). They know how much they paid out to you and so can easily figure out what percentage of your income is from Airbnb.
My husband is in the service industry and so was laid off Mar 16 when the governor shut down all of the restaurants and bars. There are a ton of grants for people in this field (liquor companies have a lot of money) and we’ve applied for 18 grants in the last couple of weeks. Most of them had us upload tax returns to prove the decline in income.
As long as the host makes most of their money on Airbnb, I don’t think it will matter.
But we don’t know what percentage of income that they are going to consider as being a reliance on Airbnb. I doubt they know yet either.
I use Turbotax and I’m pretty sure I could fake a 1040 in under an hour. Are they actually going to verify with the IRS that the returns are valid? Also, only about 15% of hosts are in the USA. I doubt it’s even legal for Airbnb to ask for that kind of tax information in many countries, let alone verify it with the tax authority.
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No, surely they can’t do that. I wasnt suggesting they would verify it with any governments. Besides, it would be a bit over the top, don’t you think? 
I doubt there’s anything illegal about asking for tax information from individuals in any country. Especially individuals you have a business relationship with. Especially when it’s voluntary, e.g. you don’t have to apply for the grant. They actually file tax forms on hosts (1099k,etc). And they might ask for some other proof of earnings or information too. Are you concerned about privacy? They already have our social security numbers, you know.
It’s not uncommon to share income tax information when applying for a grant. And it’s not obligatory to apply either. It’s just a grant. As I said, we recently applied for a whole lot of grants. We provided everthing from tax returns to paystubs and even direct deposit information, depending on what they asked for.
Yeah, well, there will always be people who game the system and there’s always karma. I don’t think it’s worth worrying about personally.
Ten million dollars is not going to go very far. I think it was just to get some attention. Why wait until the end of April to “invite” specific hosts to apply? Perhaps if we have received other grants we are eliminated? Perhaps if we are housing medical workers we go to the top of the list? Who knows. But bottom line is it is not much money divided by so many hosts.
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I received the initial email saying that they would be giving the 25% to hosts with strict policies but I haven’t heard anything about it since. If it’s based on superhost status, I will not be eligible. I was not a superhost until this quarter. I don’t see how it’s fair to only include superhosts… Other hosts depend on their income too obviously. I didn’t have a property to Airbnb until 2019, it doesn’t mean I don’t need the money as much, or more, than another host.
https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/250m-to-support-hosts-impacted-by-cancellations-165
It’s a grant and like any grant, it’s not “fair.” Imagine you had 10 million to give away. You are going to have conditions for the award so how do you decide. What are the criteria you would set? For example: someone has 2 properties with 60% equity in them and those properties are valued at $1.4 million after the real estate crash. But they qualify for the program because they have lost their jobs and have no other income at this time. Another host has a net worth of $320,000 and a small pension but doesn’t need the airbnb income to live. Is it “fair” that the folks with a lot more money qualify?
This example is based on me and a friend of mine. My friend has two properties that are completely paid for worth about $900,000 potentially more as one property is undeveloped and depending on laws/zoning etc could be worth much more. But she and her husband are unemployed and their saving account will probably be drained during the current recession. I’m having a hard time feeling bad since they could sell their property in New Zealand, move to an affordable part of the US, problem solved.
I’m sure Airbnb needs until the end of April to figure out how to award the money in the way that will result in the least amount of complaining. I wouldn’t want to do it.
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I would sell the properties and take the money if I were starving too. I definitely need money more than people who own 900k in property outright! You’re right, that is exactly the problem. No one can really determine who is “more needy” so there will be some arbitrary determination 
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In the case of my friends they don’t want to leave NZ and they are trying to preserve the land as penguin and gecko habitat. But NZ has very few jobs, and especially not for folks with PhDs. Plus these friends are super picky about who they work for. Soooo… the eternal conundrum of wanting to have cake and eat it.
I hope things stabilize so they can get to work and not have to think about massively changing their lifestyle. It would be a bummer to have to sell and move because of this, but a lot of people are going through worse. There are people dying, people who can’t afford to eat, people who can’t make rents/mortgages. Their problems seem pretty minimal… they might have to move to stay afloat. boohoo for them
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Exactly! And now they can’t even get out of the country to take a job elsewhere. They are willing to move, or at least one of them. But the timing is horrible.
Grants inherently have to eliminate people and draw lines as grants have a funding and it’s not normally limitless. They could just say “everyone is eligible for this grant” and maybe everyone would feel better about it, but they would still be eliminating people and drawing lines behind the scenes. The result would be no different.
I think Airbnb got everyone too excited about this grant. One of the issues is that they mention “$5000” and, sure, that amount of money is worth getting excited about. That amount of money could make a big difference for a lot of hosts. However, what is being ignored is the part that says, “relief grants of UP TO $5000”. That means you may just get $50 or $100. And that’s how most grants work and especially these relief grants right now because there is so much need at all at once.
We’ve applied for 18 different grants for my husband. Many say “up to $3000”, etc. But the ones we have received so far are $45, $25 and $75. It surely adds up, especially if we get others but the Airbnb grant is only one grant so the payment that may be $45 isn’t worth getting upset about.
I feel like if everyone would realize that they are probably only missing out on $50 and not $5000 that it wouldn’t be such a big deal.
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You are confusing 2 different programs. The $250 million that is going to be used to reimburse hosts who would have gotten 50% of reservation under normal cancellation policy, which is for all hosts, and the $10 million, which will be used for a $5000 grant, which is only for Superhosts.
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Oh, I didn’t realize there were two things. It’s confusing.
I am trying to get the 25%, which could be a few 1000 for my cancelations. I hope I get it, and from the sounds of it, I don’t see why I wouldn’t, but who knows. It seems like nothing ever works out so I’d imagine I won’t get it for whatever reason.
You do realize that the 25% is 25% of what you normally would have received for cancellation, right? So if you should have received 50%, it’s 25% of 50%- 12.5% of the total reservation cost.
Yes, not counting on receiving anything is a smart attitude- then if you do get anything, it’ll be a pleasant surprise.
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I just came across this. There’s been a bit of discussion on here about the superhost fund and the eligibility for it so I thought some might be interested in it. It did not say this yesterday, so I find it interesting. (But I also still think that the grants will be pretty small and not the max of $5000.)
What does it mean to have no more than two active listings?
For this fund, we’re focusing on hosts who list only their homes or second homes, or private rooms in those residences. You’re not eligible if you have more than two active listings at different addresses. If you have more than two listings at the same address—for example, if you rent out three rooms in your house—you’re still considered eligible.
The difference is that now they are saying you can have more than 2 listings if they are at the same address. I do hope it doesn’t include someone with 16 condos in the same building though.
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Good find.
Hopefully this is the kind of program with eyes on listings, not a bot doing the work. It sounds like they are really targeting the mom and pop type operators to benefit from this. Maybe someone figured out they they owed it to the folks that helped them get going to begin with.
The idea that you have to be invited to apply makes it clear they have some parameters they aren’t disclosing.
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Yes, because they have also clarified the invitation process here:
How does the invitation process work?
Starting on April 10, 2020, a specialized team at Airbnb will be inviting eligible Superhosts and hosts of experiences to apply for a relief grant via email. We’ll start with inviting our most long-standing Superhosts who are in greatest financial need by looking at the earnings decline from this year to last. This same team will evaluate applications and get in touch with hosts to let them know whether their applications are approved. All invitations will be sent out by May 15, 2020.
The fact that they are going to, start with inviting our most long-standing Superhosts who are in greatest financial need by looking at the earnings decline from this year to last. is a new clarification. Not only are they looking first at the long-timers (like you 
) but they are revealing a bit about how they are determining the decrease in income, which there were so many questions around. I didn’t think of it before when @Brian_R170 and I were discussing it but it totally makes sense. They know what everyone has been making on Airbnb and they know if that’s gone down since last year. And that also makes sense that people only doing it for a year or two probably won’t qualify because of both of these things.
And they also reinforce all of this later in the discussion here too:
https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/answers-to-your-questions-about-the-superhost-relief-fund-170
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Very interesting. I’d love to know how many superhosts there are. They always tried to make it sound like such a small exclusive subset of the total. And then it’s current superhost. Honestly with all these qualifications and the increase in the fund to 17 mill there could be some real money in these grants. I’m going to stop now before I say something so nice about them that I’ll regret it later. LOL.
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