Airbnb is adding Starwood Capital Group and other landlords to a program offering rental properties that are also eligible for short-term stays, part of an initiative aimed at attracting tenants who aim to become hosts themselves. The company now partners with 250 buildings that allow renters to lease their apartments part-time on the home-sharing platform, a 43 percent increase from when it launched the program last fall. Renters across 38 cities can browse Airbnb-friendly apartments on the company’s website and use a calculator to see how much income they could generate through part-time hosting. Landlord partners can “effectively reduce their marketing costs rather than having to go spend a lot of money on marketing just by being featured on our website,” said Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Airbnb. “The hope is that other landlords, including smaller landlords, will learn from the success of the bigger landlords and this will create an industry-wide trend towards allowing home sharing again.”
Bloomberg (04/18/23) Diana Olick