>Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval.
Maybe I'm naive but it seems like that policy would be perceived by hosts as extremely hostile. Homeowners have both a financial and emotional vested interest in their homes so letting strangers book it without a cursory check isn't going to work. Having no checks would work for real estate holders who aren't emotionally attached to their homes but not homeowners who live in the same house they rent.
Even if it's irrational and discriminatory, homeowners want to maintain some semblance of control over who stays at their home. It's the homeowner who has to pay for damages/misbehavior -- whether directly or by home insurance deductibles and higher premiums. (As I understand it, AirBnb's coverage guarantee only kicks in
after the homeowner exhausts his personal insurance.)
Does anyone know the bulk of AirBnb's business revenue? Is it homeowners renting out a spare bedroom? Or is it people renting out non-owner occupied beach houses and lofts?
EDIT ADD: Every time an AirBnb thread about racism comes up, many commenters are confused or ignorant about what the law actually says. To copypaste a previous comment:
Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence"
In other words, if a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes.
On the other hand, if the AirBnb host is renting out a non-owner-occupied beach house, the discrimination laws would apply.
> In other words, if a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes.
But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use.
>But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use.
Well, since Airbnb has been around for 8 years and no states' attorney generals nor courts have ruled Airbnb to definitively be a "broker", _why_ would a homeowner think she's breaking any anti-discrimination laws when screening prospective renters for her spare bedroom?
I don't know about Airbnb's status in other countries but as far as the USA goes, that's the current situation. (There's one lawsuit filed by a property management in NYC to reclassify Airbnb as a "broker" but that's working its way through the court system and unresolved.)
Also, let's do a thought experiment. Let's say Airbnb changes some things to avoid the "broker" label -- or -- the states definitively rule that they don't meet the definition of "broker". If so, this outcome still wouldn't be realistic: "Well, Ms Smith's loft discriminates against black people but we're all ok with it now because Airbnb got a favorable ruling that they are not a broker."
Attacking the "broker" angle is a red herring. Even if Airbnb loses the broker reclassification, another service that let people discriminate on exactly who stays in their spare bedroom would fill the void. The underlying discrimination remains.
> since Airbnb has been around for 8 years and no states' attorney generals nor courts have ruled Airbnb to definitively be a "broker"
I said "brokering service" rather than "broker" for a reason, as a shorthand for a broad class of services (the exclusion from the fair housing exemption extends to any use of rental or sales services of a broker, agent, or any person in the business or rental or sales; this is much broader than classification as a "broker" specifically.)
> If so, this outcome still wouldn't be realistic: "Well, Ms Smith's loft discriminates against black people but we're all ok with it now because Airbnb collects money differently therefore they are no longer a broker."
It would be perfectly realistic, and is, in fact, the status of lots of small direct-by-owner rentals advertised through services that are more listing than brokering services, which do in fact discriminate on axes that would otherwise be prohibited. Units that do not use brokering services and fit within the size and other requirements of the fair housing exemption in federal law are (under federal law) perfectly legal. (If they don't fall into a state-law exemption, which are often narrower, they may run afoul of state fair housing laws, though.)
>I said "brokering service" rather than "broker" for a reason, as a shorthand for a broad class of services
And what makes Airbnb a "brokering service"? Is it the 3% fee collected upfront instead of commissions being billed monthly like Ebay? Therefore, if Airbnb collected money differently to avoid the label of being a brokering "service", would the outrage about discrimination really be avoided? I doubt it.
>direct-by-owner rentals advertised through services that are more listing than brokering services, which do in fact discriminate on axes
What would Airbnb have to change to meet that definition? To me, the homeowners have to create their own listings and upload their own photos. It's not like real estate agents who create listings in the proprietary and closed MLS system on behalf of clients.
(Regardless of your answers, I'm going to ask some Airbnb hosts and see if interacting with Airbnb to them feels more like contracting with broker services or more like an listing an electronic classifieds ad. It's a fascinating psychological angle.)
The fact that they take a commission (rather than, e.g., a size-of-listing-based listing fee, the way newspaper classifieds would), handle rental reservations, cancellations, mediate refund requests, and act as a payment intermediary, etc., all seem to point to them being a person in the rental business providing rental services, rather than a mere listing venue like a newspaper classified or bulletin board.
> Is it the 3% fee collected upfront instead of commissions being billed monthly like Ebay?
No, I can't see that that would be in any way relevant.
> Therefore, if Airbnb collected money differently to avoid the label of being a brokering "service", would the outrage about discrimination really be avoided?
If they changed what they collected money for, sure, but that's not a scheduling thing, its what the basis of payment is and what services they are providing.
> What would Airbnb have to change to meet that definition?
As I see it, they'd need to act as a listing venue rather than a deeply-involved intermediary in the rental transaction. Their fundamental business model, IOW, would have to change.
Ok, I think the logic as you've laid it out makes sense to you and I won't argue it but I will explain how other people view what a "broker" or "broker service" actually is:
The core value-added function of a (traditional) rental broker is the matching of renter and landlord. For the renter, brokers recommend which apartments in which neighborhoods are appropriate. For landlords, brokers pre-screen for appropriate renters. With Airbnb, they leave this "matching" as a self-service exercise for both renters and landlords. The prospective renter has to manually browse the listings without the guidance of recommendations and the landlords get no benefit of a human intermediary filtering out inappropriate renters. In other words, Airbnb doesn't even do the main thing that brokers are supposed to do.
You don't have to agree with the above but that's how a lot of people think about rental "broker services".
>handle rental reservations, cancellations, mediate refund requests, and act as a payment intermediary, etc.,
For those who think of broker services in the traditional way, Airbnb is more of a "payment platform" that happens to specialize in rentals rather than a true brokering service.
This is why going after the "broker service" angle would be a weak approach in changing homeowners' minds about discrimination.
> This is why going after the "broker service" angle would be a weak approach in changing homeowners' minds about discrimination.
I'm not suggesting it as a way to change homeowner's minds, which isn't even something I'm interested in doing [0]. I'm interested in enforcing the existing law prohibiting discrimination. If hosts wish to discriminate, I'd prefer they'd be limited to doing so only in the limited circumstances and manners permitted by law, and not willy-nilly in defiance of the law.
[0] Okay, its something I'm interested in doing, but its a longer-term, less-immediately-critical goal that's pretty much irrelevant to anything I've said about the issues in this thread, except in this footnote.
>I'm interested in enforcing the _existing law_ [...]
I understand but your opinion is predicated on your particular reading of the "brokering services"[0] law you cited previously. That extensive enumeration of brokers/agents/salesman/employee is a person that does the matching work on behalf of the client. If other reasonable people don't think Airbnb's "self-service" approach is brokering, then the word "existing" in "existing law" doesn't apply.
Likewise, if one downloads PDFs of legal forms from a website to sell a car or incorporate a business and fills out the form himeself, that website is not providing "attorney services" -- even though many lawyers might download the same PDF files and fill them out for their clients. (Self-service legal forms != attorney services)
Persuading homeowners to not discriminate by convincing them that Airbnb is a real brokering service seems like too big of a mental hurdle to overcome. (No lawyers are issuing dire warnings to homeowners saying Airbnb is a "brokering service". No court rulings have made the headlines saying Airbnb is a brokering service. Etc) Therefore, they see no "existing law" that applies to them.
[0](A) without the use in any manner of the sales or rental facilities or the sales or rental services of any real estate broker, agent, or salesman, or of such facilities or services of any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings, or of any employee or agent of any such broker, agent, salesman, or person and
> I understand but your opinion is predicated on your particular reading of "brokering services" law you cited previously.
Well, yes, obviously. I was responding to your claim, which was about the utility of the position as a tool to convincing people about whether they ought to discriminate, and pointing out that that wasn't the point.
> That extensive enumeration of brokers/agents/salesman/employee is a person that does the matching work on behalf of the client.
I've done both sales (on both sides) and rentals (on one side) through brokers, and in no case have they performed matching for me, in every case they provided a variety of administrative support services, including assisting in the search for matches (though, in the present case that I am currently working on, I hope they don't need to even do that -- if things go well, the match we handed them at the outset will be the final one.)
Which is to say that I think your idea of what a broker/agent/salesman or any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings does is excessively and unjustifiably narrow.
It wasn't obvious and your previous statement had to be dissected to clarify it. Upthread, you stated the following without any disclaimers of "in my opinion" or "in my interpretation":
>But its not legal to use a brokering service to arrange the rental if you discriminate, so there goes AirBnB for that use.
It certainly sounded definitive but if left alone without further commentary, it's misleading.
That statement depends on how expansively one defines "brokering services". Not everyone agrees with your definition and I further would claim that the majority do not.
>the utility of the position as a tool to convincing people [...], and pointing out that that wasn't the point.
But that is the point. If you want to use an authoritative phrase like "existing law", people have to agree with your intepretation of Airbnb's utility as a "brokering service". If they don't, they believe they still have a legal basis to discriminate.
>I think your idea of what a broker/agent/salesman or any person in the business of selling or renting dwellings does is excessively and unjustifiably narrow.
On the contrary, I think it is your classification of Airbnb as a "brokering service" that is idiosyncratic.
Based on my informal survey of Airbnb renters and landlords, it doesn't seem like the majority agree with you. I ask them "What is Airbnb?" and they say "rental listings" and not "rental brokers".
For people to believe they are breaking the antidiscrimination law because they use brokering services, they need signals from the world such as the states requiring Airbnb to acquire brokerage licenses. (Maybe also add to the process that an Airbnb representative must join the transaction via chat or email to "close" the deal between renter & landlord.) Reading your interpretation of what "brokering service" is not enough.
To recap, the factors you believe Airbnb a brokerage:
The "self-service" is a huge mental block and overrides the commissions payment factor in many minds. The sentiment is: "If I do the work to create the listing, why would Airbnb be the broker? That makes no sense."
The self-service aspect is why some people think of Christie's and Sotheby's as auction house brokers and they "broker a deal" to sell a piece of art ... but nobody thinks of do-it-yourself Ebay as an auction broker. Ebay is auction listings.
What if there was a reputation threshold for a traveller to make an instant booking? Of course it's still not immune to racism or sexism, but it seems that it would provide a decent buffer against it.
You can require guests to go through Airbnb's ID verification process (giving them a copy of your license and/or passport, and connecting at least one social account).
The Airbnb Host Guarantee is a total fraud. I looked into the abyss of worst case predatory corporate behavior when I filed my claim.
I am a big Airbnb fan, both as a host in my New York aparment and as a guest. But when I had my first bad experience with a guest that damaged property (floor, walls) and stole a whole set of expensive cosmetics from a friend that were stored in my bathroom, Airbnb behaved terribly. They basically dragged out the process over a month, demanding more and more “evidence” (a police report, exact list of missing items, photos of damage, quotes from handyman and Amazon list price links were insufficient). They continuously set 48 h “deadlines” for responses nearly every time I got a message, and said if I miss them the case gets closed.
After jumping through all the hoops, they told me they decided to close the case anyway.
This was a shocking experience - I read the terms and of course, there are certain things I didn’t provide (mostly the purchasing receipts for the stolen goods, since I don’t keep those). But the pictures with damages and police report got simply ignored by them.
This was “only” about $3,000, so it’s not worth to hire a lawyer and spend more time on this.
The Airbnb Host Guarantee is definitely a fraud, and Airbnb should be absolutely ashamed for their deceptive advertising.
Here are some more details in case you are interested:
* I had trouble with the guest already when they stayed in my apartment, and complained with Airbnb. Airbnb reviewed the case and had the guest actually pay for additional people they brought over to live there. The Airbnb team responsible for handling problems with the guest while staying there was great.
* After the guests left, we assessed the room and saw all the damage, and realized they had stolen lots of valuable items from the bathroom. I immediately informed Airbnb. They passed the case on to another guy called “Reiko”, and that’s where nightmare started.
Some official correspondence from Airbnb’s Reiko:
“If a host requests compensation through the Host Guarantee program, Airbnb will review the damages to determine if the guest is responsible and if the host qualifies for reimbursement under our terms:www.airbnb.com/terms
If the host qualifies for compensation, Airbnb will take measures to recoup those funds from the guest.”
> So, Reiko told me basically that if the guest doesn’t pay, I don’t get paid. Of course the guest doesn’t pay, he was a crook who stole my stuff.
After 1 months of back and forth, police involvement, handyman reviews and spending hours on this stupid case following Reiko’s instruction, he send me this:
“Thank you for getting in touch with us. We understand that this may have been a difficult and frustrating process.Unfortunately, we did not receive a response from you within 48 hours of our last email, sent on August 7th, as was specifically requested. Therefore, your claim was closed.”
>> The Airbnb host Guarantee states explicitly that a host has 60 days time to SUBMIT the request. I submitted within 24 hours on July 30th, and then Reiko dragged the process out over a month back and forth.
I freaked out given this out-of-control statement and asked Reiko what this is all about. I received this cookie cutter response:
“Thank you so much for following up, I definitely understand how frustrating all of this must be for you.
Whenever a situation like this arises, we advocate for an amicable solution. As a neutral third-party not present during the reservation, we must make a fair decision based on documentation and communication from both host and guest.
Following a full review of all documentation and communication in this case, we reached what we believe to be a fair compromise for both parties. As you may already know, our policies state that we have the final say in any dispute to which we are called upon to mediate. As such, the decision reached in this case is final and cannot be overturned.“
WOW.
Basically, there is no Host Guarantee. Airbnb simply tries to convince the fraudulent guest to pay. If they don’t pay, you (I) are screwed. Airbnb is not going to pay a dime.
This is in clear violation of their own stated terms. It says:
“We’re committed to creating a safe and trusted community around the world. Though property damage is rare, we understand you may need protection. The Host Guarantee will reimburse eligible hosts for damages up to $1,000,000.”
>> What it doesn’t mention is that it’s the guest’s responsibility to pay this $1,000,000.
It also states:
Useful documentation and information that will help process your payment request as quickly as possible include:
photographs of the damage being claimed
a police report for any damage that is over $300 USD
receipts or some alternative evidence of the accurate fair market value or report cost
proof of ownership
any other documentation that you feel will be helpful to processing your request
>> We delivered all of this, but it didn’t help. We didn’t see a single dime.
The bottom line:
Either Reiko is a liar and processed our case in the wrong way, or the Host Guarantee is a fraud. I am pretty sure I would win this in court; but Reiko and Airbnb unfortunately know that it’s not worth my time and money given the small (but still significant) amount of $3,000.
My guess is Airbnb simply assesses your earnings and comes up with a certain limit below that they will just screw you over and say “goodbye, no host guarantee for you” in clear violation with their own terms, since they know you can’t go to court.
I at least wanted to let my friend on Quora know.
Very sad and disillusioned with the “sharing economy”. This is not a friendly startup, but worst case predatory corporate behavior. If you have gone through the same thing, maybe we can file a class action lawsuit.
As a frequent traveler and often last minute booker, I only use Instant Book, particularly for its convenience.
Some hosts will take several days to respond which can drag the normal booking process into a week if you need to exchange a few questions. I just don't have time for that and want booking to be simple.
I found it kind of tricky to deal with AirBnB when I needed it, because my travel partner always booked the AirBnB, because my travel partner already had the rep.
That's what reviews are for, unfortunately as hosts, in the current environment of rapid expansion by AirBnB, it works out to typically 75% of inquiries are from new users with no reviews. So there is very little to go by when accepting people to sleep in your home with you.
But that's not a new thing - I definitely booked places with AirBnB through their "instant" feature more than a year ago. It's clearly advertised as such on selected places, and obviously the home owner has to agree to that system, but it meant that I knew where I was sleeping that night, without having to wait for the host to approve me.
Instant bookings have been going for a while and it's basically a business decision for the host as to whether to accept them. More hassle and risk but more bookings. They probably appeal more to people who are doing airbnb as a business rather than letting their home for a week.
Maybe I'm naive but it seems like that policy would be perceived by hosts as extremely hostile. Homeowners have both a financial and emotional vested interest in their homes so letting strangers book it without a cursory check isn't going to work. Having no checks would work for real estate holders who aren't emotionally attached to their homes but not homeowners who live in the same house they rent.
Even if it's irrational and discriminatory, homeowners want to maintain some semblance of control over who stays at their home. It's the homeowner who has to pay for damages/misbehavior -- whether directly or by home insurance deductibles and higher premiums. (As I understand it, AirBnb's coverage guarantee only kicks in after the homeowner exhausts his personal insurance.)
Does anyone know the bulk of AirBnb's business revenue? Is it homeowners renting out a spare bedroom? Or is it people renting out non-owner occupied beach houses and lofts?
EDIT ADD: Every time an AirBnb thread about racism comes up, many commenters are confused or ignorant about what the law actually says. To copypaste a previous comment:
Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence"
In other words, if a homeowner has a spare bedroom across the hall from her 13-year-old son's room, and doesn't want to rent to transgender, black, or 65-year-old guests, it is legal for her to discriminate on those attributes.
On the other hand, if the AirBnb host is renting out a non-owner-occupied beach house, the discrimination laws would apply.
[1]https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000a: