Apartment owners and property managers continue to respond to a variety of strategies and situations related to Airbnb guests in their communiites.
Airbnb for the first time in November publicly revealed the details of how it plans to make its home-sharing business available to multifamily housing owners. Speaking at the NMHC OpTech Conference in November, Airbnbs Vice President of Landlord Relationships JaJa Jackson says the flexible plan that is still being formalized would potentially include a 10 percent to 15 percent revenue share for apartment owners and would emphasize greater transparency for owners, hosts (those residents who home-share) and guests (those who use Airbnb to book short-term stays).
The news was met by industry professionals in attendance with a mixture of anger, skepticism and enthusiasm regarding the programs potential.
Jackson insisted that Airbnb is not facilitating sublets. He says its in the business of home-sharing, which carries different roles and responsibilities for the resident and the guest compared to sub-letting. Homesharing is a lighter transaction, he says.
Airbnb estimates that 50 percent of its guests live in the home while the current resident is there, too. Jackson described the typical Airbnb host as someone who is not a young, partying type. He says the average host or guest is ages 35 to 45 and there are slightly more women than men using the service.
Details, including a timeline for the programs rollout this year, are at http://bit.ly/1lsRVCA.
Owners liability. Published reports are that Madalina Iacob has allegedly been renting out her one-bedroom New York City apartment on Airbnbbut now her actual landlord is suing her for $300,000 after being repeatedly fined by the city for her illegal rental. Attorney Lawrence Silberman tells The New York Post: We were unaware of the rental scheme. We did not participate or profit from it. But this is now a policy of the city. The tenant does not get named or fined. The landlords strictly liable.
Talking the talk. The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 15 that Equity Residential, AvalonBay and Camden Property Trust have had discussions with Airbnb in recent weeks about joining forces. Following up with each, Kristy Simonette, CIO at Camden, described the discussions as earliest stages of preliminary. AvalonBay and Equity did not respond.
In-unit construction. In Queens, a resident is suing his owner because the owner asked him to leave and plans to evict him after it was discovered that the resident used a construction crew to convert a three-bedroom apartment into a 10-bedroom apartment that he would rent to multiple guests through Airbnb, reported the Fox TV affiliate in that area and Tribune Media. Paul R. Bergeron III, NAA