San Francisco newspaper story: "Airbnb loses thousands of hosts in SF as registration rules kick in"

[Matthew285]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Airbnb-loses-thousands-of-hosts-in-SF-as-12496624.php

According to this newspaper story, AirBnB (along with other home-sharing services) is supposed to remove the listings of unregistered San Francisco hosts from the system on Tuesday, Jan 16, 2018.

The story says due to the registration requirements, Flipkey listings in SF have dropped from 555 to only 57.

About 2,168 SF hosts have registered so far (we registered over a year ago). There were more than 8,400 SF AirBnB listings in August 2017.

I wonder if this will cause a huge wave of cancellations/rebookings if a huge number of SF listings are removed all at once.

If this is so, as hosts I think we would need to be especially patient with the AirBnB support staffers as they have to handle the customer service issues that would arise from all the rebookings.

I hope they figure out a way to make this less disruptive than it sounds like it could be.

[David126]

maybe a good time to reconsider your rates?

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Matthew285 I wonder how Airbnb knows who has a licence and who doesn't ? 

Is there a place where hosts can enter their licence number? I've seen it for VAT number only.

[Matthew285]

@Branka-and-Silvia0, if you are a San Francisco host, there is a place to enter your registration number.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Matthew285 could you tell me where is it? On which page? Just to check if we have it too

[Matthew285]

@Branka-and-Silvia0, I'll show you!

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

Thank you @Matthew285 , yes, we don't have a "Registration" link . 

Btw, here in Croatia all hosts have to be registrated too. It was allways mandatory , loong before ABB.  the process to get a licence is expensive (about 300 €) , lasts over a month to get it and one thick folder per unit is needed for all that paperwork  😞

[Kelly149]

Wow!! If our area only had legal units it would be a HUGE decrease. (When I look I’m lucky if I find a legal listing 1 out of 25)

[Matthew285]

@Kelly149 how do they do enforcement in your area?

[Kelly149]

@Matthew285 abb does nothing. If the city catches someone (would have to be tattletale neighbors) there are fines. The city has obnoxious fees, limits & registration requirements (I thankfully am just outside the city limits so none of it applies to me)

The city must not be putting much into enforcement though bc unregistered listings are way more common than not

[Matthew285]

So I guess nothing happened today (Tuesday, Jan 16, 2018) because the actual deadline is midnight (a few hours away still).

www.sfgate.com/business/article/Airbnb-listings-in-San-Francisco-plunge-by-half-12502075.php?t=37120...

"Airbnb said it expects to have about 5,500 San Francisco listings at the stroke of midnight Tuesday, a dramatic decline from August when it had about 11,000."