City leaders team up with Airbnb to solve short-term rental issues

By Judy J. Beasley Last updated May 3, 2022

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) — City leaders have responded to concerns about Airbnb and other short-term rentals.

For the past few months, News 4 has covered issues surrounding illegal short-term rentals, some of which have turned violent and even deadly. According to AirDNAa website that tracks the number of short-term rental properties on a given zip code, there are over 100 properties in the downtown St. Louis area, nearly 50% of which are both on Airbnb and Vrbo.

“Any host that allows parties in their properties does not belong to Airbnb. And they don’t deserve to operate as a short-term rental host in the city of St. Louis or really anywhere. That’s all just irresponsible and it’s not good practice,” said Ben Breit, director of trust and safety communications at Airbnb. “We don’t usually see that.”

During a downtown public safety briefing on Monday, Airbnb expressed a commitment to not only stop people from renting Airbnbs for the purpose of hosting parties, but also to remove properties that encourage or do not guarantee not that this behavior is prohibited.

“We take these exceptions very seriously, those rare instances in which a guest knowingly books a property for the wrong reasons, such as hosting an unauthorized party without the knowledge or consent of that property’s host,” said Breit. “There have even been instances where we at the company have taken positive legal action against guests who have hosted these types of unauthorized parties and we will not hesitate to do so again.”

Breit said guests without a history of positive reviews will now be prohibited from making one-night reservations over the upcoming Memorial Day and July 4 weekends and will have additional restrictions on some two-night reservations. nights.

“It’s both in St. Louis and across the United States actually,” Breit said. “We rolled out these restrictions for the 4th of July last year and in fact 500 people in the city of St. Louis alone were impacted by these restrictions which are meant to prevent unauthorized parties, so we hope to replicate that success. .”

Rachel Roman, who is a downtown resident and Airbnb host, says it’s good to see issues with problematic properties being resolved. She runs about 40 Airbnb/Vrbo listings in the St. Louis area, most of which are located downtown. Those who rent from her are carefully vetted to make sure they don’t disobey Airbnb’s party guidelines, and she also limits this type of behavior by having a two-night minimum booking policy.

“Airbnb has a no-party policy. We have a no-party policy. So I think it’s important that this issue be brought to light,” Roman said.

These are among the other tools that Airbnb already implements or uses to combat unauthorized parties that occur at properties through their website:

Ban parties on its lists.
Ban customers from its platform who attempt to book for the wrong reasons, such as hosting an unauthorized party without a host’s knowledge. Airbnb said it would partner with law enforcement to help hold criminals accountable.
Using technology that blocks or redirects certain last minute local booking attempts by customers with no positive review history – with the aim of stopping as many unauthorized parties as possible.
Prohibit party houses, i.e. houses where parties are held repeatedly and cause disruption to neighbours.
Provision of a neighborhood help line, accessible on airbnb.com/neighbors and includes a 24/7 hotline.
And because many short-term rentals are listed on multiple platforms, Airbnb recently announced the Community Integrity Program, in partnership with Vrbo. Through this industry collaboration, Airbnb and Vrbo will share information regarding properties that have been permanently removed from each platform due to repeated violations of respective community policies.

The City Assessor’s Office is also working to address concerns about problematic short-term rental properties.

“We’re trying to identify these properties because short-term renters don’t necessarily have to raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, I’m hosting a short-term rental site here,'” said Mike Dauphin, of the city of St. Louis. Assessor. “So what we’ve tried to do is identify those that are not owner-occupied and are available full-time year-round for rental, and when we identify them. .. we would treat them like any other business that we would treat in the city of St. Louis, and we would tax them commercially. [It] double their tax bill, and again, they’re treated like any other business. So it goes from 19% to 32%, and then there’s a commercial surcharge added to it. So, more or less, that’s about doubling the taxes.

However, Airbnb hosts like Roman worry that recent party and violence issues in downtown apartments and lofts are creating a false perception that these properties are Airbnbs-only.

“They may not be renting a unit through Airbnb,” she said. “You can have someone just say hey, give me 500 bucks, you can throw a party at this place, that’s not the job I work in.”

As the city moves forward to resolve short-term rental issues, Roman hopes Airbnb hosts can also take a seat at the table to discuss solutions.

“So we can explain what we do and how to do it, not to be part of a problem, but to be part of the solution to promote St. Louis as a wonderful place to stay and experience all the cool things we have here. “, said Roman. “Implement licenses. Put things that verify hosts as well as guests, and it can be what it’s intended to be.