San Francisco Airbnb

[wjquigs]

Looking for other SF Airbnb hosts, with "whole-house" rentals. As you're probably aware, in 2018 Airbnb and the city will start enforcing a law limiting whole-house rentals to 90 days per year. Without getting into the politics of the influence of the hotel industry on local government, suffice it to say that this law will shut down the short-term rental market, unless you happen to be rich enough to own a piece of real estate that you don't really need to generate income (and those people weren't doing airbnb anyway). My brother asked a reasonable question, which is: why not run my Airbnb as a very small hotel? Hotels are still allowed to do short-term rentals, why not me? I assume the answer is that the hotel industry carefully crafted the law so they are somehow exempt, but I'd like to toss the question out there just in case any other Mustachians have investigated.

[tralfamadorian]

Not a SF airbnb host, but your answer is zoning. The property would have to be rezoned as a b&b or hotel, which can be very difficult.

[Tobias]

I'm a Seattle host and rent my basement rather than entire home, but if we faced a 90-day limit here, I would rent to a grad student or visiting professor from September to June, and then put the space on AirBnB for the busy summer tourist season.

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[Dicey]

Hotels are subject to considerably more regulation, which is not self imposed. Think public safety, ADA access, safe working conditions for employees, adequate parking, etc. Oh, and they pay more taxes and have to collect, report and submit all those damn tourism fees. Your attitude is off-putting. I'm going to suppose it came off different than what you intended, so that I don't scream at you.

Comply with the rules. Get a copy of the SF Convention schedule, add in the major activities like B2B (that means Bay to Breakers in SF, for those readers who live elsewhere), festivals and the like, then choose your days carefully. Less work, still great reward.

An alternative is to just get a roommate.