NEW YORK, NY June 22 (DPI) – AirBnB fed a nonsensical declaration to The Washington Post last week that the home-rental broker would “bar landlords from profiting off pandemic evictions” – a virtuous but utterly unenforceable claim that left most readers amused and befuddled.

“This sounds more like a feel-good press release than actual action,” wrote one respondent to the report, echoing the sentiments of many. Most of the 125 comments challenged the idea that AirBnB had any genuine ability – or even desire – to penalize homeowners that rented space during the pandemic and have been barred by the government to evict non-paying customers. Federal and various state prohibitions are scheduled to end June 30.

In fact, some readers noted that AirBnB was simply engaging in strategic PR as it came under fire from a widely circulated Bloomberg report detailing the short-term housing broker’s rare – but violent, traumatic and criminal – episodes that take place at AirBnB listings, and the costly lengths that AirBnB goes to to keep such incidents out of the public eye.

Most readers didn’t make that connection, but a few did: ” This PR nonsense is an attempt to deflect from the Bloomberg article that came out this week about AirBnB’s “elite security division” which handles all the unsavory episodes at AirBnB housing. The author of this article and The Post were simply being used. “

The most popular of the comments attached to the Post article:

This is theft.  Politically correct theft.  
Some renters are freeloading, some are not.  Some landlords may be going bankrupt while their renters pocket the subsidies and stiff their landlord.  It is an individual situation in each case and Air-BNB is broadly socially posturing at their expense.  
Time is ripe for Air-BNB to get some competition.  

I am so tired of third parties thinking they have some right to tell property owners what they can do, or what they should do with their property. Most responsible property owners are likely to me more than willing to to work with good renters who may have fallen on temporary hard times, rather than lose a renter, property owners are not charities, they all have bills to pay also.
It is particularly annoying to here stories of people not paying rent after receiving generous government payments. If people needed rent relief, and monthly payments should have gone directly to landlord to cover rent first.

There are places where tenants haven’t paid rent in a year. That money is lost forever and there is no compensation in sight. But once landlords are finally able to get the tenant out, they won’t be able to list the property on Airbnb because they landlord would be profiting from the COVID crisis?

It is hard to see how any landlord is profiting off the eviction moratorium. They are only losing money, and lots of it. This is silly grandstanding from Air BnB.



If you want to stop this problem in its track, get the states on board with the Emergency Rental Assistance.  In my state, hundreds of millions in federal assistance is idle because of silly paperwork requirements.