"Horizontal hotels" in Airbnb disguise should pay fat commissions

IMHO fat cats should pay fat money - commissions, taxes ,
no covid19 refunds etc. , and not me and you , the sardines.
And I must bow to Airbnb again - looks like they doing exactly that.
What , for a business to pay small commissions, not take any risk whatsoever
and constantly whine on Airbnb that practically invent your business ?! wtf
I’ve Supported Airbnb not giving covid19 refunds to businesses - but
than again how does Airbnb tell a business that latch on it’s platform
from mom & pop’s side operation? is the threshold having 3 listings or more?
hope not as I have 3 listings , all same house, 2 of which are same suite
with either 1 or 2 bedrooms. hope they find better way to tell.
Airbnb will have a much easier legal case in Amsterdam , Barcelona or NYC
making big operations pay up , also back to the community and standing up
for the small fry rights.

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I’m not really certain what you are referring to, but Airbnb did say that one of the criteria for the Superhost relief fund was having not more than 2 listings. If I remember correctly, they later clarified that it could be more than 2 listings if they were linked, but the listings must not be at more than 2 addresses and if there was more than one address, then one must be the host’s primary residence.

What ARE you referring to?

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I thought that bucket of money was emptied months ago…?

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I suspect English is not Abe’s first language, at least I hope so…

JF

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I always welcome corrections, English , spelling or ideas , but usually have more
of an explanation to what the error was.
What I’m talking about are operations that might have dozens of listings , sometime at same neighbourhood, I’ve been to one myself , and I’ve got nothing against a host using
a middle man - sometimes it’s a must to get help - but these are commercial enterprises.
All I’m saying is I wish Airbnb comes with a way to bill / use other measures so big operations will pay accordingly .

I’m trying to see the big picture , not the one issue that was
once but rather the next issue , what is the direction

I just had one listing, but I don’t see why “big operations” should pay more (percentage-wise) than the the “mom & pop operations”.

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I see one good reason why - because they can and they will pay more since
they dont own the property, did not invest or risk anything, so there is lots of fat to
pinch there.

Sorry, that makes no sense at all!
I own / run 4 entire properties.
I do most of the cleaning myself.
With the bigger operators, I see management costs, cleaning team costs etc etc… I see their profits being less, where as I am the dearest cleaner in town because it is all for me and the tax man!

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I’m sure you do very high quality cleaning job because it’s yours and it’s your reputation ,
and so do I. But if I was cleaning just barely enough and listing/ place is not mine to worry about reputation neighbours etc. , I could run 30 pre-rented apartments in same area with 2 cleaning ladies , easy pezzy . You and me put lots more time & effort because we are owners / operators and love what we do.

@Abe I don’t care one way or the other whether they pay more, but it would be really nice if Airbnb separated the platform into “real” hosts and those that are run by property management companies, because those listings with real hosts tend to give their guests a more personal experience, have higher cleaning standards, and are much more hands-on.

Also “real” hosts tend to leave real reviews. Property management companies leave generic good reviews that tell you nothing and can’t be trusted. “Nice guests” repeated endlessly.

Guests report having some pretty bad stays at places run by management companies. It would be good if they could easily filter for listings run by hosts who really care and take a personal interest in the spaces they list and their guests.

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Sorry I have no clue what you are talking about @Abe in your opening post.

Can you rephrase? :slight_smile:

@muddy - I couldn’t agree more!

Sorry @Abe but I’ve not really understood your point either. All I can gather is that you’re against hotels or bed & breakfast operations? I don’t understand why they should pay more than anyone else in the hospitality business.

What exactly would be the dividing line? Ten rentals? Five? Twenty?

I used to have a B & B. It accommodated five people. Does that make me a ‘fat cat’? Should I have paid more taxes & commission?

Also, can you explain why I should really care? If I make more money, I pay more in taxes so isn’t that okay?

Lets try again: in very flourishing tourist area, you might think you rent from a host
but its an operation that pre-rent and than rent out 30-100 unites . When it’s same neighbourhood it is a “horizontal hotel”. I don’t think Airbnb have any beef with
this- you can list hotels on Airbnb -but I think it does degrade the market for the small
operators, for all of us , but nothing much we can do about it , except exposing it and hope they are charged accordingly and pay back- at least to the community they are overusing.

Hotel and b&b are very different - and one of the obvious differences is the sheer size
of it. I dont care if a b&b pops up next door - I would freak out if a hotel does.

I’m sure Airbnb could make a precise algorithm , but yes , 10 is a good number,
if you ran 10 units in one building this is a hotel , or it is a horizontal hotel if units
are spread all over the block.

I think we should care , all local /political revolt against big tourism/Airbnb in big cities is because of big operators , while Airbnb is fighting a loosing legal battle on behalf of these commercial enterprises which have no obligations to anyone.

So, I’m reading this as your issue is that a typical guest can’t distinguish between a listing that is hosted by a real individual that may (or may not) put a lot more personal time and attention into the listing and the guests than a host that is really a property manager with no personal interaction with listings or guests at all.

I definitely understand this. We, as hosts, can usually make the distinction with a few clicks, but an average guest or a new guest could not. I’m pretty sure that Airbnb doesn’t really want that distinction to be known, either.

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If you’re talking about rentals that are illegal in some way (no permission from the landlords, no STR insurance, not complying with fire regulations, not registered with the local authorities etc.) then of course we all want them out of the way.

But to say that they should be paying more in commission seems to be unworkable. They are already paying more in other ways, after all.

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