Left alone during COVID19

[Rana17]

I am a super host. My only income is from hosting one home via airbnb. I love hosting.
Due to COVID19 outbreak and guest cancellations I have lost my income from March 13th and after until around end of June.
As guests have all rights to cancel and not being worried about penalty during this hard time, I am unhappy about Airbnb management team in helping Hosts.

My cancellation policy has been Flexible. All my guests have cancelled way before 24 hours to their bookings. So according to airbnb costumer service I won't be eligible for 25% of cancellation fee that airbnb CEO offered to hosts.It helps mainly hosts with SRTICT Cancellation policy.

Also, to get help from airbnb, the CEO mentioned that they help those who are mostly affected by COVID19. How they decide who is eligible? How they know that hosting one property is my source of income?

They mentioned we can apply for unemployment benefit, Payroll payment protection and SBA. I applied for all of them with uncertainty about the "industry type, business type code ,..." and many other questions that I required to put in those applications. Airbnb customer service was unable to help me with on what should a host put for these questions.
I am already being notified of being ineligible for unemployment in the TN because lack of quarterly income reports that I can not document from airbnb unless I screenshot ALL my bookings history individually!!
As far as SBA and PPP I also encountered issues.

I feel I am left alone and unsupported.

I am asking airbnb to give hosts more financial support as well as support eith applications like what to put for industry type and business codes , ,, in those applications.

[Tim670]

Honestly, if you need to screenshot all of your bookings to pay your bills then what are you waiting for?

[Rana17]

I don't understand. What do you mean?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Rana17 

All the information you need for previous years bookings should be on your reservations page

[Rana17]

Thank you. Your insight was helpful. However, there is not an option to print or save the bookings' transaction history.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Rana17 Screen shots should be enough for an application - I have no idea how you do screenshots but Mr. Google will know.

[Rana17]

Thank you. I realized if I use a computer instead of cell phone airbnb app, then it gives me the option to select, copy and/or print the transaction history. This is much easier than taking many screenshots. 

[Huma0]

@Rana17 

You need to go to your Transaction History page. Here you can select the dates for the relevant time period and then click download to get a spread sheet of your payouts. 

I assume, however, you have paid taxes on that income? I ask because I don't know why you would not have documentation for it if you had included it on a tax return, but perhaps things are different in the US than in the UK. If you are being asked to provide proof of income, I would imagine you would also need to have paid income tax on that income.

[Rana17]

Thank you Huma!  Your message made me think about using a pc instead of mobile app to print the information I needed and it worked just fine.

I did include my airbnb income in my tax return. However to apply for loans and government help I needed to have additional proof of income.

[Tim670]

@Rana17 I understand what you are going through. Many are going through a situation similar to yours and are very frustrated and taking it out on whoever and whatever they can. You can and will get through this with a little grit and determination. Hopefully I can help you out. Feel free to message me directly if you want to.

Most of us had a flexible cancellation policy. Because these guests canceled under the cancellation policy,  AirBnB was not entitled by any means to pay hosts. It is unfortunate but understandable. They simply do not have the funds sitting around to do this. That would bankrupt them. They did generate two different funds from there own pockets to help hosts out which will be a huge financial burden to them. The superhost relief fund is only for individuals who are in extreme financial stress right now and is on an as-needed basis. I have not heard any news about this except they will contact directly and probably ask clarifying questions. I hope that you are one of these people.

As for the SBA loans. There are two types you qualify for (at least). This first is called the EIDL offered directly through the SBA. This is a loan with an interest rate and a term. The interest rate last I checked was 3.75%, max term of 30 years, and no payment for 12 months. The PPP is an SBA approved loan that is offered through an independent SBA approved lender (like a bank or a credit union). This is a loan too with a potential for 100% forgiveness if it is used a certain way (to cover payroll). Even if it isn't 100% forgiven, the interest rate is 1%. Probably the lowest loan rate you will ever see or get. Everyone is struggling to figure out if AirBnB hosts are eligible for PPP loans. I have seen limited success (if any) on AirBnB hosts being approved for PPP loans. What I would recommend, and what I actually have done, is apply to as many SBA approved PPP loam providers as possible. Most financial traditional brick and mortar institutions are not accepting new PPP applications. However, several "fintech" ones are. Fintech ones are financial tech companies like Kabbage, Paypal, Square, etc... The applications are very easy. I would apply to as many as possible and hope it goes through. You can only accept one loan so if you are magically approved for multiple loans you will have to deny the others. Give it a shot. You can always turn them all down if you want.

I would also consider getting another job at the moment. Just temporarily until things clear up. Many places are hiring like delivery services. Whatever you can do to keep the cash flow coming in. Best of luck. You can do it. I know you can.

[Rana17]

Thank you for taking time to give me these information very clearly and explaining the situation to me. I learned many things from you.

Frustration happens when we don't have knowledge and resources on a situation and how to deal with it. 

I reached out to other hosts here because I  had difficulty and could not get any help from airbnb on how to fill out applications for SBA, PPP and unemployment (resources that bnb CEO suggested to get help from and they were new to me) still I don't know what business type and code should be used for airbnb hosts.

I have learned more and feel much better now and I am more confident about the future of our airbnb hosting.

Again, thank you for the encouragement and all the information.