Coming on the heels of numerous reports about tenants home-sharing their apartments without landlord knowledge or approval, Forbes is reporting that Airbnb has been working on a new program that will bring owners and landlords of multifamily buildings into its home-sharing service. Airbnb calls it the Friendly Building Program, a new initiative that will let building owners sign up to work with Airbnb and tenants to allow home-sharing on their properties according to mutually agreed upon rules. Airbnb will collect and pay applicable taxes and as well as paying the hosts and the landlords – reportedly around 5% – 15% of their tenants earnings from the program. Not too shabby.
“The program works like this: Building owners—provided they operate in a jurisdiction where short-term rental laws are clear, meaning that there’s no ambiguity nor potential for a regulatory mess—apply for the program. Once accepted, the owner then decides the terms (which units, for how long, revenue division, etc.) under which tenants can rent out their homes and submits them to Airbnb as well as amends its tenants’ leases. Eligible tenants in that can then sign up for their building’s program through Airbnb, and become part of the regular reports the company sends to the landlord.”