Building resident consent needed?

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Hi all, I am based in Sofia Bulgaria and I am planning on hosting. I found an apartment to rent, landlord is good with the plan but says i need to get the residents of the building to agree to hosting guests before he can proceed with contract. Does anyone have any idea how to go around this? Thanks

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Yep. Start at the top of the building and work your way down. Getting the relevant permissions as you go.

JF

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I think unless the residents aren’t actually residents but use the properties for holiday lets you will have a hard time making this happen. Having an airbnb in your block can be disruptive however diligent the host. @MrBIG

When I lived in an apartment I was regularly contacted by guests for another host, who would just ring any bell if they couldn’t get hold of the resident host when they arrived. I even had to call this host on two or three ocassions to let him know his guests had arrived.

How does the landlord expect you to get this agreement? Has he provided you with contact details. Do you need to secure a written agreement with each of them?

I think it sounds like you would be better finding a single property to rent where the agreement can just be between you and the landlord.

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Or save yourself the energy expense (unless it has an elevator) and just start at the one closest to the entrance. :wink:

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Decide right now if you’re willing to do work for this business. You don’t “go around” things, you deal with them straight on. If you’re not willing to do the work, hosting isn’t for you.

Before getting a STR permit in my city, they send out a notice to neighbors within a 1-2 block radius for public comment. To get ahead of it, I went to every neighbor’s house, told them what I was doing, and left a letter that answered questions and gave them a way to contact me. Here’s that letter, if you’d like to do the same:

Hi Neighbor!

I’m your neighbor Allison, at ADDRESS. I wanted to let you know that I’ve put in an application to get a tourist home permit from the city. These permits are usually for a Bed & Breakfast type place. What I’d like to do is a little different than a traditional B&B - I’d like to rent out the upstairs of my house through AirBnB, and the permit I’ve applied for allows short term visitors to stay with me.

If you haven’t heard of AirBnB, it’s a place that people can let out spare rooms in their home to travelers in the spirit of “shared economy”, like the Uber car service. The traveler gets a room that feels more personal than a hotel at a reasonable price, and the host gets to make a little money from their extra space. There are listings all over the world – they include everything from an air mattress in somebody’s living room to entire luxury villas.

The City will be contacting you soon to get your input on my plan. I wanted to let you know a couple of specifics and invite you to stop by or call if you have any questions or concerns.

  1. How many rooms are you renting? I’m renting out the upstairs, which consists of a bathroom, 2 bedrooms (one with a queen sized bed, the other with two twins) and a third room that has a little lounge sitting area.
  2. How many people will be coming and going? I will be renting to one group at a time of no more than 4 people. Even at maximum occupancy of 4, plus myself downstairs, the number of people on my lot wouldn’t be much different than other houses on the block.
  3. Will it be noisy? Part of my guest rules would include a provision for quiet hours between 10pm and 8am and no events or parties. AirBnB’s review system helps me screen out disruptive people and I’ll also be on site (most party-oriented people go for full house rentals where the owner isn’t present).
  4. Will this impact my parking? I have paved alley parking for two cars, plus my space in the garage. My listing would stipulate that we can’t accommodate more than 2 vehicles. I don’t expect that this should impact street or alley parking for our area.
  5. Is there any benefit to me? Yeah! If you have friends or family visiting from out of town, but don’t have enough space in your home, they could stay within walking distance. I’ll have to figure out a “neighbor discount”! :slight_smile:

I hope this answers any questions you might have, but if you have any others, please let me know! You can reach me by phone at XXX or e-mail (XXXX). It’s still a work in progress, as I’m painting and setting things up, but I’d be happy to show you the upstairs and the description that would be listed on AirBnB.

Best wishes,

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So nice of you to share this @Allison_H and a great proactive approach.

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Second the offer of a “good buddy” rate to the neighbors. I had a housewarming at my little vacay house, invited the neighbors, gave them advert postcards, and assured them they would get a super low rate if they had friends and family visiting and wanted to book.

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@Allison_H has exactly the right idea. I didn’t send my neighbours a letter but spoke to them directly. This is because we’re a small complex of a dozen apartments. (As we have the two rentals and I live in another one, that meant only a handful of neighbours.

It’s important too to get the HOA, condo association, property manager or whoever on board too.

At one time, our HOA was very against the idea, especially when I started advertising on Airbnb. They seemed to think that it was something new-fangled and disruption (thank you media) - it was just an unfounded prejudice against the very word ‘Airbnb’. I insisted on using the term ‘short term rentals’ every time we were in a ‘discussion’ - they’d say ‘Airbnb’ and I’d correct them.

I had to work long and hard (and still do) to prove to them that it’s a benefit to the community and not a disruption.

Side note: Who will be seeing to the insurance? You or the landlord? How quickly will any issues within the apartment be resolved and who will pay for them? Is the landlord okay with the wear and tear on the apartment? It all sounds like a recipe for trouble but maybe that’s just me.

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Awesome. What kind of response did you get. Did anyone care to come around for a peek (I know I would :wink: )

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Nothing! Not a peep! I’d have though some nosy neighbor would like to peek!

Nobody seemed concerned in person. If anyone took an issue to the city, I didn’t hear of it. This was 5 years ago, before Air was super common.

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Thank you @Allison_H Very kind of you to share, This will surely help me.

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A few thoughts that you may wish to consider:

Your market is very competitive and mature.

  • There are OVER 300+ “ENTIRE PLACE” LISTINGS that handle 1-6 guests.
  • 146 of these are SUPERHOSTS.
  • Many of these places look really nice.

Would you actually be able to compete? How many days per month would it take to break even?

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