Challenges Facing the STR Host Community

Platform Inequity, Local Zoning & Other Challenges

The problems faced by all vacation rental hosts are many. This project is designed to build a community to help ourselves as a collective, achieve status and build a community treasury to fund projects we care about most.

Currently, the significant challenges to vacation home hosts include local zoning seeking to limit or ban STRs, the legitimate issues caused by STRs in terms of affordable housing, staffing our rentals with cleaning and maintenance crews, and of course, the simple fact that the platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO.

Using big platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO is not uncommon in the Web2 world of giant software as a service (SaaS) platforms. Facebook, Salesforce, Airbnb, and VRBO use their users to make billions in annual revenue. They have teams of high-priced lawyers who draft Terms of Service (TOS), which essentially say, 'if you don't like it, leave. You have no rights, no recourse, and there is no transparency. You (we) are the product.

The problem presented by the use of SaaS platforms Airbnb and, to a lesser extent, VRBO is that we are not talking about whether grandma gets to see the pictures of her grandkids. Hosts put their homes, mortgages, and safety on the line for Airbnb. Airbnb uses Host payouts and substantial sweat equity to build its empire. Airbnb's marketing department promises a partnership with Hosts. But that partnership has never been anything more than a feel-good marketing stunt which could not be further from the truth. The truth is that Airbnb has all the power. Hosts have none.

Some Things to Think About.

Here are a few simple questions to ask yourself:

• What changes in the Airbnb and VRBO business models would improve your life?

• What are your biggest concerns about the Airbnb and VRBO platforms?

• Terrible things happen to hosts every day. Preventable things. And all too often, Airbnb and VRBO brazenly refuse to communicate, let alone make good on their promises. If one of these things happened to you, would you be better off standing with 10,000 or 100,000 other hosts or standing alone?

• What if Airbnb arbitrarily, without justification and notice, terminated your account and canceled all your future reservations, telling your guest that it was your fault or that you or your property presented safety issues?

• What if a guest started dealing drugs from your home, pulled guns on you and your children, and Airbnb not only refused to provide support but kicked you off the platform?

• What if a guest destroyed your home and Airbnb refused to pay the host guarantee claim