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For several reasons, I have a minimum age to rent of 25. I’ve been frustrated in the past because AIRBNB did not offer a way to screen guests for minimum age. Look what just displayed on a rental request today! Airbnb won’t screen on age but at least now, they are giving us a tool to be able to easily recognize if a guest meets the minimum age.
I saw this years ago and then it just went away. It was just a couple of guests that showed the age and never saw it again.
What are the ranges, do you know? I’d like to ban anyone over 35 
(Semi-kidding, and I feel like I can after all the stick millenials get. So bring on the outrage… I can take it)
I’ve had so many bad under 25, but just as many good!
I thought we weren’t allowed to discriminate on the basis of age?
This is very true.
What are your several reasons for this?
Young people can often be good to host, I’ve met some very well-behaved, decent folk. But like @konacoconutz says, there’s an element of carelessness as well. Although, you can find that in all age groups.
In the USA, discrimination on basis of age means that you can’t treat people over age 40 differently than those under. For example: you can’t advertise & rent to “perfect location for young professionals” meaning “we only want 20-30-somethings here; old people not welcome”
In the USA, you cannot discriminate on the basis of age (meaning turn away older adults), sex, religion, ethnicity, creed, disability/medical condition, and sexual orientation. My guests have been a beautiful mix of all of the above.
The minimum age to rent a car is age 25. So the minimum age of 25 for travel rentals is an established acceptable limit.
I have 3 units on Airbnb. 2 in a beach resort area. Another is two doors away from my condo residence (not a resort area).
ONLY the resort area condos have a minimum age to rent of 25. I instituted the minimum age after my first 20 rentals due to the business reasons of:
I am not local and cannot greet the guests personally and inspect the unit after check-out. (My original plan for a local friend assist with the meet & greet did not work smoothly for the guests.)
To help with competitive pricing and to enable my units to have rentals of less than 1-week, my units are “self service cleaning” meaning the guest is responsible for the exit cleaning, cleaning supplies are provided. Of my over 100 guests, only 3 did not clean the unit. All were under age 25. Their lack of responsibility seriously inconvenienced my next guests and tarnished my host relationship.
Of the 2 times, that my unit had serious theft and/or damage, the renters were under age 25.
The majority of the condo community’s full time residents are retired. Many of them have low-tolerance for short term rentals & late night noise and will call the police. I tell guests before their booking is final the condo community recognizes a “quiet zone” from 11. Pm to 5 am. Multiple times my youngest guests did not observe pool closing time (11 pm) and had rowdy outdoor conversations & behavior that disturbed the neighbors. The disruptive behavior occurred after the 2:00 am bar closings. Neighbors called me in the middle of the night. After instituting a minimum age of 25, I’ve not had any incidents.
Without the age limit, I get high-school students trying to rent the units for their graduation trip although the unit is marked as not suitable for parties. It puts me in an awkward position to decline their reservation.
I’m not saying that guests under age 25 cannot be good guests. I am saying that since my resort rentals are 4 hours away from me, I cannot easily interact with the guests. I am using the established travel minimum age precedent of 25 to help minimize repeats of prior negative events.
My local non-resort area rental does not have a minimum age.
I had my first baby guests. They were 21 and 23 year old college students. While they were with us, the room looked like my college dorm- clothes everywhere, bed not made, and magazines open on the floor. When they left the room was tidy, they put all the wet towels in the tub, and they were GREAT people. So nice, polite, appreciative, and we had a great time talking.
That being said, I was shocked at how young they were when they arrived. The pictures on the profile were cute and you couldn’t tell they were youngins. I literally thought- OMG is there a minimum age for Airbnb? Could we get 12 year olds booking??
I wonder if the guest must self select an age bracket. I think I will revisit & check my personal guest profile.
A minimum age of 25 is not considered age discrimination in the USA. Age discrimination occurs when you treat people over age 40 differently than those under age 40. It was originally targeted to protect older employees from being fired for the purpose of replacing them with younger lower paid employees.
Those odds aren’t great! ;o)
I have the same limit for exactly the same reasons.
Isn’t this FHA regulation meant for long term renters?
I don’t have a minimum age to rent, but I oftern feel I should have. I am still wondering if I should make this 21, or better still, 25 years minimum.
I don’t have anything in general against young people, in fact, I have a son aged 17 who is a very decent chap. However, if he does misbehave, I have a feeling that I have a way to correct this, since I am his father and he does usually listen to what I say.
With 21 year old strangers (Airbnb guests), there is no way to stop them from, for example, not being silent at night, making their way to my apartment, thus potentially disturbing all my neighbours. This happened more than once in recent months, and I am in very big trouble indeed with some of my neighbours, because of this.