Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Landlords Want a Share of Renters' Airbnb Revenue (thestack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the you-bet-they-do dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A group of leading U.S. property owners, including AvalonBay Communities and Camden Property Trust, have met with lodging rental site Airbnb to discuss ways that they can get a cut of their renters' income. The tech company has faced obstacles to its growth, with residents putting their leases in jeopardy by renting out their places to Airbnb users as temporary accommodation – a form of illegal subletting. A future agreement between owners and tenants could mean renters no longer need to take a risk when letting their apartments on the site.

9 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Seems reasonable by plopez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are renting it is not your property.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is not that simple you have rights as a renter. You may not have the right to sublet however.

    2. Re:Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The right to sublet is often standard in rental agreements.

      The owners are already getting a cut. It's called rent.

    3. Re:Seems reasonable by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Standard? I don't think I've ever signed a lease that didn't explicitly forbid it- its a pain in the ass for the landlord and can lead to difficult 3 way legal issues. I can especially see a landlord not wanting it done for short term leases- a normal sublease is annoying, who to sue when you have a contract with one person who subleased it for 3 days each to a half dozen people via a 3rd party website? No thank you.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    4. Re:Seems reasonable by mjwx · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is not that simple you have rights as a renter. You may not have the right to sublet however.

      This.

      That means you may not use the property as a commercial enterprise. To me, owners asking for a cut is a very, very fair compromise on that rule.

      Before some smart arse pipes up and says "but it's no different to having a home office", first let me say, you're an idiot because it's completely different. As a home office you're running a business out of your abode, as an AirBNB you're running your abode AS A BUSINESS.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  2. Re:Double dipping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You made your bed, fucking sleep in it.

    Can't, it's being sub-let for the next four nights.

  3. Analogy, please by Sloppy · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is Slashdot, so we need analogies.

    Say I have a KVM Linode, and then "WebBnB" wants an LXC container on my Linode, and they're running Apache in their container, and serving up several VirtualHost websites for their customers. WebBnB needs to charge their customers for the websites, so I can charge them, and Linode can charge me extra. And we all take a cut, thereby making WebBnB the stupidest and most expensive webhosting company ever, so the customers leave 'em and start doing business directly with Linode. Problem solved.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
  4. Re:Interesting precedent by magarity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A car owner with a car loan is the wrong comparison. The proper comparison would be with a leased car.

  5. I am a Landlord by brian.stinar · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am a landlord, of four one-bedroom apartments, and all of my leases explicitly disallow subletting. Numerous posters, with zero stated understanding of any kind of real estate practice, seem to think that subletting is "illegal" if it's disallowed in their lease. Someone is not going to go to jail, or have to deal with the cops, for breaking a provision in a lease I wrote. They may get evicted, which could involve the cops, but that's an eviction. Breaking the agreement isn't going to have legal consequences, past the *potential* eviction, unless I chose to try and have a judge pass a judgement (and then good luck on enforcing this judgement.)

    Plus, this 100% depends on the lease. I can write a lease which gives full authority to sublet, one that disallows subletting, or one that gives me a percentage of the sublet. Unless we read the lease, there is no reason to try and pass any kind of informed judgement on the situation.

    The entire process I described to you, having a judge pass judgement against someone, and then sending that person to collections (or garnishing their wages) is a big, big, pain. Plus, it's going to destroy the relationship with the renter. The judge is going to award you probably all the income they made, since they were not authorized to resell your place, and maybe 3x as much for damages. That's still not worth your time, unless you like spending time in court or need to be there anyways. Even then, the tenant isn't going to be able to pay, and collections won't be able to get it out of them...

    It's like 1000x easier if you have an agreement in place with airbnb.com, as a property owner, to automatically get a cut of the short term rental on your place. Especially if you own a gigantic tower in New York City, as opposed to four rinky dinky apartments in Albuquerque, New Mexico (like I do.) You can negotiate with airbnb.com ONCE for your entire property (if you have a standard subletting clause, which everyone is under) as opposed to getting a judge to offer a judgement against every single person, who is going to end their lease at that point.

    The only reason this is even news is because most people have no idea about how rental property actually works. This isn't news - it's called good business.