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So many posters here only discover us because they had a problem. But if you had magically discovered us first we would have warned you of this. Airbnb is selling AirCover as an improvement over the old guarantee but you certainly didn’t have a good result.
While you become a landlord for awhile, Airbnb will abandon you. When you start up again, if you do, you may be far down the search results. SF is light years away from what I do so YRMV. You might even consider shutting down the listing and when your tenant leaves, making a new listing accounting for all the things you’ve learned you need to run an str “unhosted” including knowing not to start with a 4 week booking. Then you can get the boost for new listings and hopefully get several reviews in a short time to get going again.
The terminology you’re looking for is that this is not a ‘homeshare’ situation.
In my opinion your major risk is liability.
Trips and falls comprise more than 80% of lawsuits.
A trip or fall might be less likely in a multi-residential building, but who knows?
But think also of this: The guest turns on the bathtub or shower and forgets to turn it off and it (or the toilet) leaks and creates water damage in all the units below yours (‘it’s turtles all the way down’). Or they create a fire, or do something else. You’re liable. Does your beefed up insurance policy cover that liability? [Many policies cover damage to your unit, but not to others’ units, and might not cover bodily injury.].
Look into OwnerRez. There you can easily get a signed agreement.
My maximum stay is 28 days… if a guest stays longer than 5 days I go in & change the sheets and towels etc. This gives me the ability to make sure that they’re not breaking my most important “rules”
smoking or damaging the listing. If they are I can contact AIRBNB to get them to intercede (cancel/end) the reservation.
Wait - It’s been a long time since I checked on this (I’ve had my house - where I live - on airbnb for 10 years.) Airbnb encouraged a security /damage deposit but I didn’t add for the first few years and then decided to and learned that airbnb had set a $300 one already on my behalf. Fine with me, but now I’m wondering if I’m not up to speed on this feature. Maybe it was replaced with air cover?
