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Update - I’ve been reading up on this program and honestly they still don’t have their act together nor do banks know the rules yet but what I am finding out is that you should contact the bank that you do business with and ask them if they are participating.
Luckily my bank does and they are just taking down your info and I will get a call back from the business loan department.
I will update when I have more info.
So I’ve been searching online and found this. I’m more interested in unemployment than loans personally.
Airbnb hosts can get small business loans through federal relief bill
Airbnb hosts will be eligible to receive small business loans and unemployment insurance through the coronavirus relief bill.
"We are deeply appreciative of bipartisan Senate and House leadership for recognizing there is a new sector of the workforce who depend on Airbnb for their monthly economic needs,” said Chris Lehane, Airbnb’s vice president of policy and communications.
The bill, as it is currently written, requires eligible borrowers to show that they need the loan because of the uncertainty of the economic crisis caused by the virus. The loan can only be used to maintain payroll, leases and utility payments.
It could be a while before you can actually apply. Most state UI agencies use online application systems and it may be a few weeks before they can get the new rules programmed into their systems. My state (Alaska) says it will be at least a week.
22 years ago I was doing maintenance programming on the system. Unless things have changed in their IT section, it will definitely take at least a week to modify programs and test the changes, and that’s because different folks that those that supervised me are in charge. If it was the folks that were in charge when I worked there, they would be spending 2 weeks in meaningless meetings of folks who don’t have a clue about the in-house software they use every day.
In New Zealand a friend lost his job in Dec and applied for unemployment. By the time I left at the end of Feb he hadn’t gotten his first payment yet. (just saying because many people think NZ is some sort of dream world and it’s not).
You can qualify for unemployment under the bill if you filed your taxes as self-employed for your airnb (or for something else for that matter).
I’m grateful that ours is expected to be up by Monday. It seems overly hopeful to me but they have handled everything else so well - they closed restaurants on a Monday and my husband had his first unemployment in the bank 7 days later by the next Monday, so crossing fingers.
We are trying to get $ to offset no-guest losses and are confused about whether to do UI (and how to do it) and requesting a “loan,” which, if you qualify, doesn’t need to be paid back. Has anyone actually done either of these things? And we can estimate how much we lost so far, but what about the next two months? Can you ask for $$ you haven’t actually lost yet because you know you are going to lose it? Help.
They just opened up the loan process today but I heard that you should contact the bank you normally work with but the banks have no idea how to work with this and there has been no guidance. There is no real guidance right now.
The additional UI qualifications cover self-employed/indep contractors. If you’ve been paying self-employment taxes for your airbnb earnings, then you can qualify for UI. I would think this is the best bet if you qualify, however that very much depends on how much you’d qualify for weekly at the state level - e.g. that would make the difference in the total you receive. The caveat here is that you’d lose your benefits if you get re-self-employed, e.g. get bookings, even for a covid-responder (if that’s relevant to you).
I haven’t looked closely at the details on the loans and grants available as a business yet. I am also interested in hearing from anyone who is navigating through them and has any insight.
I am a partner in another business where I do pay employment taxes along with the Airbnb so I’m trying to get qualified for both. Sadly, the government hasn’t sent the guidelines yet to my state’s unemployment office so I’m in limbo on that.
The grants and loans just opened up today and the banks don’t really understand the guidelines yet. I did find out that you need to work with your own bank and hopefully they do SBA loans (mine does) and I have a business account for my other business. I am on the list and now I have to wait for a call back. I will update when I get more info.
