Airbnb said it will now allow tenants of participating buildings to host their apartments on the platform. Jesse Stein, head of real estate at Airbnb, joined Cheddar News to discuss the new program and what it means for the company.

Airbnb Now Letting Users Host Apartments

Airbnb is launching a new platform that's gonna partner with landlords and renters to host departments on the app, Airbnb saying the new page on insight will list Airbnb friendly buildings, letting tenants host their own apartments in an official capacity, like a homeowner joining me now is Jesse stein, head of Real Estate. Airbnb Jesse, thank you so much for coming on the show, big news for your company today and it is my understanding that you helped build out this program. How will this work? Well, chris, thank you for having me um you know, in today's economic environment, many people have turned to hosting to keep up with inflation, but if you're a renter it's been historically hard to find homes that encourage part time hosting. That's why we partnered with hundreds of buildings across the US to make it easy for renters to go to Airbnb browse apartments that encourage and support part time hosting and get in contact with the building and move in. Okay, so I think the biggest question for renters out there is how do they check if their own building is compatible with Airbnb? How would they go about doing that? Well, go go to Airbnb friendly apartments, look on the apartment, we've actually created a waitlist button at the build the bottom of the product where you can put in your information and we can contact your Building if it's not already on the browse page. Fabulous, what does this mean for your company, jesse? I'm sure I'm sure it will lead to more business over time. Yeah, we're really excited because everybody should have the economic benefits of hosting and we're excited to expand this offering to renters across the us and we'll see what the future holds. This is just step one. We're really looking forward to diving in deeper and in terms of expanding some of the partnerships with buildings, I see 175 on the list. Now, let's say 12 months from now, how many more apartment buildings do you intend to add to this list? Well, Kristen time time will tell. Um right now we're focused on our initial partners and scaling growth with our initial partners and we're gonna continue to add over the coming weeks, months and years. What's the pitch? Two buildings. I mean some buildings might be keen to do this, some might be tentative. I don't know, I'm not the one having the conversations jesse. I'm sure your team obviously is as they look to build out the list of available apartments. What is the deciding factor often for some of these apartment buildings to see whether or not they would join? Well, Airbnb is a huge community. We have millions and millions of guests and hosts around the US and the world and a lot of our guests and hosts um you know, our renters and they do look to Airbnb to help them find their next place to live and we are going to market our partners buildings to our community of guests in in addition renters today are telling our partners they're looking for this, They're looking for ways to make incremental income to help with the cost of living. So there's a lot in it for our partners. They also have tools to oversee the program and make sure that everything is above board and transparent. Okay, so we've talked about what it means for Airbnb, what it means for renters, what's in it for travelers to stay at one of these places? Well, you should browse some of the buildings. These are beautiful buildings that are owned by our partners in a plus locations around a variety of cities in the U. S. These gyms are amazing. These amenities are amazing and the residents slash guest slash host. These buildings are very welcoming. So we're really, really excited. So it sounds like in some, in some cases jesse, this is kind of like staying at a hotel. Maybe you can get room service, maybe you can, maybe doordash will take care of that. But it sounds like it does come with amenities as you mentioned, gyms. I don't know if pools are included. I mean, how would you stack up this experience staying at one of these buildings versus per se staying at a hotel? Well, first and foremost, you're staying in someone's home, you're staying in their their their place where they live full time, they're hosting part time. So you get the details of one's home when you stay there. Now, most of these buildings do have amazing amenities like hotels, pools, gems. We have golf simulators and some. Um, so it's a really unique, interesting experience. But you're living like a local and you're staying in one's primary home. So it's, it's unique and interesting. What's the average price per night at some of these locations? Well, it, it varies. We're a marketplace. So we have, you know, places that are $90 a night to a couple $100 a night. It all depends on the location, the building, the time of year, so on and so forth. But as a marketplace, we have all different types of inventory on the program. As a renter, what do they need to know in terms of liability? Perhaps people do have renters insurance that may or may not cover this. Are there any extra steps that renters and or the buildings that they live in would need to take just to make sure this is a smooth process for any traveler who wants to stay? Well, yeah, each one of our buildings has set forth a set of building rules and I would recommend that the renters in these buildings talk to their building first to make sure they understand what the building's rules are for that building and work with the on site team to understand that we obviously have air cover that we announced an improvement for recently. And I would just suggest starting with the on site team, they're all trained and up to speed on the program and the benefits of it. Okay, so I see many of the many of these cities and offerings jesse starting here in the US. Are there plans to expand this program renting out your apartment to global markets? You know, we're really keenly focused on the US right now and expanding the business in the U. S. What the future holds. I do not know. But we are definitely looking to grow the program in the US and potentially elsewhere. All right, Jesse stein out of real estate Airbnb Jesse, Thank you.