Airbnb's Friendly Buildings FAQ

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Airbnb's Friendly Buildings FAQ

Hello everyone,

 

We often see questions and discussion topics here in the Community Center around hosting regulations for your building, condo, or rented home. So we brought your most-asked questions to the Airbnb team and have gathered their answers for you.

 

I hope you find the responses helpful. To make it easier to read all the information here, please click 'Read more' to view the replies! 🙂

 

Thanks,

Lizzie



 

Do I need permission from my landlord or condo board to host on Airbnb?

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We encourage responsible hosting, which means you should check your HOA or condo board regulations to make sure there are no restrictions against subletting or hosting.  If it looks like hosting is prohibited through leases or regulations, we’d encourage you to talk to your landlord, HOA or condo board about our Friendly Buildings Program, which promotes responsible, transparent hosting.


If you’re living in a condo, HOA or strata, read more about the Friendly Buildings Program here. If you’re living in a rented apartment unit, learn more here.

My landlord or condo board has ordered me to stop hosting on Airbnb. Now what?

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We encourage you to carefully review the provisions identified by your landlord or condo board to determine if they restrict hosting.  


Consider having a conversation with your landlord or HOA board about why hosting can be a great thing for all parties involved. You can let them know that Airbnb works with landlords and HOAs through our Friendly Buildings Program.


Visit this page to learn more about how to champion hosting in your condo, and read on for suggestions on how to talk to building management and neighbors about hosting.

If you need to remove your listing or cancel upcoming reservations because you have determined that hosting is prohibited by your landlord or HOA, you can make those changes by managing your listing or by contacting Airbnb Customer Service.

How can I talk to my landlord, condo board, or neighbors about hosting?

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The Friendly Buildings Program is great for landlords and tenants alike. Benefits include:

  • Transparency: Landlords or HOA board members get access to a dashboard with basic information about when residents are hosting and how many guests are staying with them.
  • Control: Building management can define home sharing terms for participating residents—like blackout dates and pet policies—in lease addendums or building rules.
  • Value: A growing number of tenants and buyers view permission to home share as a valuable amenity, and the Friendly Buildings Program helps to attract and retain these residents. In condos or strata, HOAs can decide how much of host earnings must be paid back into the community fund and used for social events, renovations, maintenance, or to subsidize HOA dues.

We also have a number of trust and safety resources available to hosts and building owners/managers as part of the Friendly Buildings Program. Some of these resources include:

  • 24/7 Global Support and Assistance: We strive to ensure that every host and guest has the best possible experience on Airbnb. Our global customer service and trust and safety teams are standing by 24/7 in 11 different languages to help make things right if something doesn’t go as planned. Hosts are protected by our Million Dollar Host Guarantee, which covers listings for up to $1,000,000 USD in damage -- and it’s free for all hosts and every single booking. Our Host Protection Insurance also provides home sharing hosts with protection against third party claims of property damage, including in community common areas, or bodily injury up to $1,000,000 USD.  
  • Neighbor Tool: We want to do everything we can to help our community members be good neighbors in the places they too call home, which is why we launched our Neighbor Tool. Anyone can go to airbnb.com/neighbors to share specific concerns they might have about a listing in their community. Hosting is a big responsibility and those who repeatedly fail to meet our standards and expectations will be subject to suspension or removal.
  • Screening: In order to sign up for Airbnb, all guests and hosts must provide their full name, their date of birth, a profile photo, their phone number, and their email address. In addition, hosts can require that their guests provide a government ID.  We screen all hosts and guests globally against regulatory, terrorist, and sanctions watch lists. For all United States residents, we also run background checks looking for prior felony convictions, sex offender registrations, and significant misdemeanors. We are working with additional governments around the world to identify where we can do additional background checks.
  • Home Safety Tools: We run home safety workshops with hosts and local fire services to equip our community with the latest advice from leading experts. We also give out free smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to hosts and provide online safety cards containing important information —such as emergency phone numbers, locations of fire extinguishers, and fire alarms, as well as emergency exit routes—so guests know what to do if there is an emergency.
  • Customized Filters: To give you more control over who can book your space,  you can apply filters that only allow reservations from guests who have previously traveled with Airbnb, are recommended by other hosts, have only positive reviews, and more.

Home sharing policy changes often comes through the support of community members, so it's important to spread the word about fair rules for home sharing. As a renter or condo resident, learn how start the conversation here.

Does Airbnb provide insurance if I list my apartment, condo, or rented unit? Is the landlord responsible if anything happens?

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The Airbnb Host Guarantee protects hosts in the unlikely event of property damage to their listing, and the Host Protection Insurance Program provides coverage for eligible third-party claims against Airbnb, hosts, and landlords (as additional insureds) related to both property damage and bodily injury. Both programs are available in the United States as well as various other jurisdictions and are provided at no additional cost to hosts. As a landlord, HOA, condo board or strata, if you suffer damage, the programs offer both you and your residents ways to manage liability or financial exposure. See details and restrictions for Host Protection Insurance and the Host Guarantee

How often do negative incidents happen in Airbnb listings?

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Negative incidents are extremely rare. Of our more than 30 million trips in 2016, significant property damage (claims reimbursed under our Host Guarantee program for over $1,000) was reported in only 0.009% of stays. At that rate, you could host a new reservation every single day for over 27 years without expecting to file a significant property damage claim under our Host Guarantee.

How do I talk to my landlord or HOA about profit sharing?

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If you live in a condo or strata, your HOA can decide to ‘share the wealth’ and require that a certain amount of your host earnings must be paid back into the community fund and used for social events, renovations, maintenance, or to subsidize HOA dues.


If you live in a rented apartment building, the landlord and participating hosts can agree to include an addendum to the standard lease or building rules, where all parties agree on the percentage of the hosts’ profit the landlord receives.


Including your landlord or HOA board on revenue sharing is a way for residents, owners, and management to all have buy-in and support hosting in the building. We think that facilitating collaboration between landlords, HOA, and residents is a pretty special thing...and we think you will too!

 


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Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

5 Replies 5
Linda108
Level 10
La Quinta, CA

@Lizzie  Not my situation however I am sure this will be useful for many hosts.  Is this in the Help Center?  What is the best way to refer a host to this information?

Kelly149
Level 10
Austin, TX

@Lizzie Slightly different, but similar. The city nearest to me has significant restrictions on STR. Yet when scanning nearby listings it is rare to find that even 1 out of 20 listings is legal and that’s generous. All those illegal listing tarnish abb’s reputation and they harm those of us who are legal. Don’t suppose there is any interest from abb to insure that listings are legal??

Andrew642
Level 2
San Francisco, CA

@Lizzie - I currently live in San Francisco, and was wondering if you/any other community members had any infromation on the condos/apartments in San Francisco that are already part of the airbnb friendly buildings program?

 

Thanks!

Patrice38
Level 2
Carrollton, TX

How do I find Airbnb friendly buildings? I am looking to host an apartment/condo/townhouse in the Dallas area and would like clues as to how to find properties that would allow it.

Xavier448
Level 2
Marietta, GA

Where are the airbnb friendly buildings in downtown atl