Sorting out approved tourism rentals from non approved

[Manager0]

Hello. We are in Perpignan France. All 9 apartments are listed with the tourism office. We have been inspected by an FNAIM agent. We have certificates. We are fully registered and insured  to conduct this type of commercial transaction. It has come to our attention that there are a number of people listed on AIRBNB that are not listed and approved to carry out this type of business. In fact some are subletting government assisted housing as vacation rentals. Yes they receive housing assistance and then rent that place out. This is illegal as it is against the rental terms and conditions to do this. It also creates a situation where the legitimate owners who pay tax have to compete with scammers. You would think there would be  a badge that could be displayed on apartments who can email in to AIRBNB proof of certification. Otherwise this just becomes a race to the bottom. 

[Sabina1]

This was an extremely informative and refreshing comment. Thanks!  I didn't know the history of AirB&B other than it was designed for homestay and home hosting and that really appealed to me. I have been a "WOOFER" (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) host for 10 years and have had great experiences and made good friends through that opportunity to host international youth (under 25s) for days and weeks in my family home. I have stayed in several homes through AirB&B and it's always been a great pleasure to meet the hosts and their families and friends and enjoy well priced and straightforward accomodation without the glitz!   Having only listed as an Air B&B host myself yesterday for the first time I must admit that this discussion on "policing" and "undermining" is very off-putting and I hope the "shared economy" community movement rises above it all and goes from strength to strength.

[Sabina1]

That last comment about "interesting and informative" was directed at Deborah.  Thanks for the history!

[Helga0]

Well said Deborah and Jessa. Besides it is lawful in France to rent your principal residency under certain circumstances.
I don't believe that a room in a social housing flat is a competition for a professional hosts with lots of listings, permits and certainly on a higher standard and price level. There can't be many as they would risk loosing the apartment.
As for distinguishing badges, there is one: the Airbnb superhost program. The status is easier to obtain with a standardised apartment than with a home which cannot appeal to everyone and is usually full of clutter.

[Will1]

So then leave Airbnb. We do not need a "manager" in our community and you are not welcome here complaining about the very fabric that made Airbnb successful. 

[Sabina1]

Dear "Manager".  It looks like you may have accidentally joined the wrong community for your needs. Good luck finding your suitable  market.

[Mic-and-Leeah0]

Regarding Deborah's take on the initial poster (manager) of this thread. It seemed he really ruffled feathers. Frankly I think he has a good point. 

Deborah wrote, "when Brian, Joe and Nate began Airbnb, they started by offering a couch in their rented apartment.  Who knows if they even asked their landlord for permission.  They didnt' get a "permit" first.  There were no "permits" then.  If Brian, Joe and Nate had dutifully gone down to the City Business office or into City Council , to get permission and make sure that they were legal before they started listing their couch, Airbnb would not exist today."

Actually I think it was a couple of air mattresses (hence the name AIRbnb) was what they offered, but that is just a detail. And I think you are mistaken about there not being permits when they started. In every city, if you go search the municipal codes, you will find specific definitions of what are permitted activities in every zone of the city, what activities need permits, taxes etc and this is way before airbnb opened up its platform to connect people with extra resources (an empty room/house/apt) and people who would pay to use those extra resources.

And Airbnb has existed for centuries - back in Europe, for example, many people would take in travelers. This is not new. We personaly have been doing this since we first got married, for 25 years and with airbnb for 6. Couchsurfing is much older than airbnb and is the true sharing economy as well as homeexchange.

Deborah wrote, "Managers of Tourist hotels and commercial entities doing short term rentals, are coming onto Airbnb to complain about little homeowner hosts who aren't signed up with the proper paperwork? !! ?" Personally I think people who run a legal business with all the proper paperwork should be acknowledged. Really I can't think of any excuse to run a business without the proper permits and taxes.

And yes, Airbnb sells itself as the little guy renting out a room, or occasionally a whole house when they leave town, but the truth is many people have seen that it can be quite profitable and hence have, one way or another, acquired numerous places to list. I think Airbnb will, and maybe already is, trying to decide exactly WHO they are. And there are already many official inns/hotels/bed&breakfast places that also list their rooms on Airbnb. When we were in Venice, Italy almost every place I looked at on Airbnb was really a small hotel. This is very profitable for Airbnb, but they try not to publicize this because it is bad for their image (and their bottomline).

Lets just try to keep conversations civil and listen to each other's point of view without getting hostile.

[Maxine0]

As others have said, airbnb was set up in support of the 'sharing economy' to enable 'home-owners' to share their properties with travellers seeking a local experience rather than a corporate one.

I do agree that it is wrong for someone to get social housing and rent it out for profit as opposed to living at the property and sharing their space to build an income - and reduce their reliance on state benefits.

I also agree that hosts must make sure that their rented rooms and apartments are clean and safe for guests.

However, I don't agree that airbnb should be only for commercial licensed landlords and normal bnb's - policed by governments and lawyers. To do so would be to rip the heart out of the shared economy philosophy of airbnb and spoil the local host/guest experience.

If that happened, 000's of hosts supplementing their pensions or low income, or starting a new business and earning some funds to support that, would end up having to rely on state benefits or end their dream of starting a new business and creating the jobs of the future for others.

It may transpire that airbnb seperate listings into home stays (owner occupied), commercial units (blocks of apartment buildings) and licensed bnb's, / small family run hotels - and leave it to the guests to decide on the experience that best suits them. And the review process should be enough to guide guests on their choice of accomadation and expectations.

[Helga0]

I would not mind seperating professional b+bs from owner occupied ones. But if I remember correctly, there were a lot of platforms before airbnb and tourist office publications before that, available only to professional renters or asking for prohibitive fees and percentages, thereby excluding the occasional renters.
Then airnbn changed the whole market, renting becomes a financially interesting activity even on a small scale and logically the professional renters arrive too.
But when professional renters then want to chase away the small private competition, that seems short sighted to me. In the end, we would return to a situation before airbnb, A less successful platform with higher priced business renters only. And a new shared economy platform would replace the airbnb part.
Maybe the cohabitation is healthy in the end: clearly hardship that people compare high business prices with private rooms but that sharpens communication skills to sell a 4 star hotel room more expensive then a social housing sublet.
Clearly hardship for the other side that guests compare comfort and cleanliness of a private room with a fully staffed hotel, but aspiring to comply at least partly improves everyone's living conditions.
The first poster wanted to have a world where he gets permits to do a thing and thereby can exclude others from doing it. Maybe develop a time machine and return to a time when adhering to a guild granted that wish.

[Stan-and-Jan0]

Greetings. Our city and region is and has been known as a tourist destination for quite some time. There have been vacation and short-term rentals in our city and the region for decades. But, the city has recently initiated very strict rules on licensing and operating any type of short-term rental (STR). STR's are considered rentals that are occupied by visitors nightly (for less than 30 nights). Even a room inside a home is required to apply for an operating license. Now, there is also a 250' radius restriction so that there can be only one STR within that radius. All STR's are required to have a Land Use Permit, Operating License and pay the city transient room tax (10.4%) and the state room tax (1%).  We are also required to post our operating license on any listing or advertisements and inside our STR's. So far these new restrictions have caused an attrition rate of about 15% over the course of 6 months and they have turned down well over 100 new applications. It is costly, time consuming and sometimes impossible to have legally permitted STR's in this city. They are policing and enforcing these new regulations and will shut down violators. Best to play by the rules because (at least in the U.S.) tighter regulations are likely coming to your city.  In my opinion, regulations can be a good thing but these new regulations are over the top and unecessary.

For those who don't play by the rules it is tempting to "turn them in" or do some policing but I don't feel that it is up to me or Aibnb to police who plays by the rules and who doesn't. The city created these rules and it is the city's responsibility to enforce them and they are doing that.

As far as Airbnb servicing the big hotel chans - Airbnb is a leader in the "shared economy" movement. They provide a great platform for connecting individual travelers with individual hosts for temporary lodging. Similar to VRBO, HomeAway, FlipKey and others only they (Airbnb) does it much better. The Airbnb platform is not designed for large hotel chains and the current technology would never work for that. Airbnb would need to acquire or develop an entirely new platform to be in that business. It's a whole different animal. With every company there is (or should be) an exit strategy and/or an acquisition strategy. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. In the meantime, make the most of it! Cheers! Stan

[Deborah0]

@Mic-and-Leeah0

Short term rentals were illegal in San Francisco prior to February 2015, so  my understanding is that Brian, Joe and Nate would not have been able to get any sort of "permit" to do that when they started in 2008/2009.  Short term rentals were not only illegal in SF when Airbnb started in SF, but they were in some instances criminal -- it was actually a misdemeanor crime to do short term rentals in some instances, if I understand correctly.   So the  point is that sometimes when a movement is starting, it can't be entirely neat and perfect and clearly legal right away. It's the movement itself, the phenomenon itself, which often brings about the change in the laws/regulations, as we are seeing, as the phenomenon of AIrbnb hosting is bringing out changes in many city regulations to permit home sharing where it was not permitted before.  It literally has taken many people violating various "outdated laws" in mass numbers, in order to motivate cities to take up this issue and create fair regulations for the modern age.    

That said, if people who are receiving subsidized housing or welfare, are renting out on Airbnb what they receive for free or on subsidy, I think that is an issue for governments, not for other Airbnb hosts.   I think the host community is less divisive when we aren't putting on our police hats here to police each other over issues of law.    However, I also think you are correct, Mic, when you say that there are moral issues involved.  Yes there are moral issues in taking something that one gets for free or on subsidy, or by feigning need , or through exploitation of programs for the needy (eg rent control) and then turning around and profiteering on that.  I think arguments about morality and ethics are  appropriate for the host community, while I think we should avoid "policing" or pointing accusing fingers at each other vis a vis "the law" or "illegality."   Let the government do the policing, and we as hosts can do the hosting.  

Apart from the policing issue, another point I was trying to convey, is that precisely because the regulations on short term rentals are so much in flux these days, are changing in many places, it can be quite misleading to characterize something as "illegal" when in fact it may be illegal today, and quite legal tomorrow, or the reverse -- it's legal today, but will be illegal in 3 months from now.   When "legality" is so rapidly changing, let's not speak as if it is something set in stone.  The terms legal/illegal are just not that helpful,  and can be  misleading and problematic for a cultural phenomenon which is very much in flux and in regards to which, many cities are in the process of, or planning to, rewrite their regulations.  Particularly in those parts of the world where the regulations on short term rentals have not yet been revisited by their municipalities in the new era of Airbnb hosting, I think it is shortsighted to quote such regulations as if they were definitively authoritative and final.  The difficulty with short term rental "legality" is that in so many locales, it is a "moving target."  

 I also think the Airbnb host community will tend to lack empathy when a commercial landlord is upset about some small fry, because the small fry is effecting his larger business.   AIrbnb is the community for the small fry,  was the point I was making.  So we are naturally more empathetic to the little people hosts.    

@Stan-and-Jan0

Sorry to hear about your situation in Bend, OR.  It seems that some of the towns/cities which are most "touristy" are developing some of the most restrictive and really hostile regulations towards home sharing.  This is very unfortunate, but it is possible that in time with hosts advocating for their own interests, things might change.  

[Stan-and-Jan0]

I subscribe to the idea that the only thing that remains the same is everything changes. 🙂

[Deborah0]

Hear, hear, @Stan-and-Jan0,  your  confidence in impermanence sounds very wise!!.  If we all wait long enough, I think Global Warming will also take care of most of these quibbles, as many of our cities and homes will be underwater in the future, or in places that have become ghost towns due to the lack of water resources.  Time heals all wounds, smooths over arguments, and truly brings perspective! 

Here's a blog post on Question of Legality vis a vis Airbnb hosting.  

[Helga0]

I had a look on the blog, no time for more yet. A lot of good work, Deborah. And I love the fellow on the couch.