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Understanding Airbnb Regulations in your Area

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SUMMARY:

Learn about how to find the regulations that affect YOUR Airbnb property or Airbnb property management business and how you can operate in an area that has regulations setup. 

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AIRBNB FOR DUMMIES:

This video is going to talk about two, slightly different topics.  First, we will talk about how you can figure out what the regulations are for having a property listed on Airbnb. Then, we will talk about how you can find the regulations that regulate your ability to manage other people’s properties on Airbnb. 

There is a wide spectrum of regulations. Melbourne, Australia has put it into law that they cannot limit the way that a person uses their property like that. On the other end of the spectrum, New York has a complete ban on listing your property on Airbnb. Other cities have things such as licensing requirements or limits on how many nights per year can be rented as short-term rentals. 

Because there are so many different approaches, the question that gets asked is, “How do I figure out what the regulations are?”

The truth is that the answer is not as simple as you think.  If you do a quick Google search, you will find different articles pointing you in opposite directions because there are different biased sources of information.

You need to go to your state or city’s actual government website and try to find the specific documentation of the regulation.  People are reluctant to do this because they might be scared off by the jargon that’s likely to be on these sites.  However, this is the ONLY place that you are going to get truly unbiased information and really understand the requirements. 

If you have questions about it, you can always call your city or state’s office and get more clarity on it.  When you are asking questions, you want to relate it to the documentation.  When you get an answer, ask for the specific documentation that supports the answer that is being given, because people can be misinformed. You want to get everything in writing and have it in front of you to be able to read through it and understand it fully. 

The process will be the same in figuring out if you can manage properties on Airbnb and what kind of restrictions may exist.  However, people are often misinformed in assuming that managing short-term rental properties falls under the same category as managing long-term rental parties and that is simply not true. 

Managing long-term rental properties means you’re dealing with things like the Landlord Tenancy Act, collecting rent, negotiating leases and that involves a different set of regulations.  With short-term rental properties, you are not doing any of those things.  

There can be some overlap to a certain degree, but in most cases, you will have different activities involved in managing long-term rental properties and so they will fall under different regulations than short-term properties. 

Again, there are websites that you can go to such as allpropertymanagement.com that will give you a good baseline.  However, your best bet will be sticking to your city or state’s actual government website and looking up the documentation.  

Another question I am asked is what to do if there are regulations.  Can you work within them? Are there ways to work around it?  Can I work in a different area where it’s more lenient.  

The answer to all of those questions is yes.  There’s always ways to either work around the regulation, work within the regulation or operate outside of it.  I don’t mean doing anything illegal or operating in a gray area.  I actually strongly recommend against operating in any kind of ambiguous area where the regulations are unclear and you may be at risk.  

What I recommend is figuring out ways to operate within the regulations.  For example, in a city where there’s a cap on how many nights you can rent out per year, then you’ll want to make sure that during the down season, you’re focusing on rentals that are 30 days or longer.  During the high season, you rent out your property as you would normally on short-term rental.  Realistically, 180 nights will last you about seven or eight months, so for the remainder of the year, you need to focus on longer term stays. 

Alternatively, you can just operate in a different area from where you actually live. 

To learn the specifics of exactly how to do that, or other ways to work within or around local regulations, check out the link above to the free training where I walk through that in a lot of detail.  

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

What's up guys my name is James and in today's video we're going to talk about Airbnb regulations. Specifically, I want to talk about two slightly different topics. Number one, I want to talk to you about how you can figure out what the regulations are in your area or really any given area for having a property listed on Airbnb, as well as how you can find the regulations for the your ability to manage other people's properties on Airbnb, and whether it's your area or really any area at all.

Now, a lot of people think that these are the same things that they're going to be the same exact rules and regulations for managing your own property just having the property listed on Airbnb compared to actually managing property on Airbnb. However, they can sometimes be a little bit different. So we're going to talk about both of those.

Now before getting to the video. I'd love to ask you a quick favor. If you could just take a second and subscribe to the channel. If you want to see new videos like this twice every single week, they're going to be going to give you all the latest on Airbnb, all the best stuff For how to grow your Airbnb or your Airbnb management company, then just click this subscribe button down below and subscribe to the channel to get access to all of our latest videos. And also if you get value from this video if you appreciate the videos if you you know, learn something new from them, then please click the like button that helps you out a lot with the YouTube algorithm as well. So if you do that, I would really appreciate that as well.

So to get started with it, there are typically like I said two different categories of regulations. The first are going to be regulations around having a property on Airbnb period in a given area. Some areas completely ban Airbnb, however, they are very, very rare in North America. So other cities, other places, other locales are going to have different regulations around things that you need to do in order to list your property on Airbnb and still be compliant with the given regulation.

For example, cities like Nashville require licensing so there's a limited number of licenses you have to get a license for your property. In order to have it listed on Airbnb, there's a process involved with that on that front. Other cities like for example, Toronto require it to be a primary residence. Some cities have night caps in terms of you're only allowed to rent the property on short term rental for X number of nights a year.

And so there's all kinds of different potential regulation landscapes other places like Melbourne, Australia, I know has a complete they've got a complete ban against banning Airbnb ease meaning that they put it into law that you're not allowed to limit the way that a person uses their property like that. So you know, condo Corp cannot tell you not to manage your property on Airbnb. So it's very, very Airbnb friendly and cities like that.

Other cities like New York City, have a complete ban on Airbnb, meaning you're not allowed to put your property on Airbnb. So there's a whole big spectrum and the question kind of comes down to one that gets asked pretty often is, you know, how do I figure it out? Like, where do I actually go? How do I figure out exactly what the regulations are, if they're even ours? For my area?

And so that's a really great question, because the answer isn't quite as simple as you might think. The reality is that there's a whole bunch of different biased sources of information just like anything else. And so if you just kind of go and do a quick Google search, you're likely to find different different articles by different news, publishing companies, whatever else that might be pointing you in one direction or the other.

But that might not actually be very accurate. I can speak firsthand to this because I was actually managing properties in Airbnb, as the City of Toronto started, you know, going through the process of establishing new regulations for Toronto and Airbnb.

And what we found was that, you know, as there was a different part of the process that we were going through as things were getting closer to regulations being made, there were different magazines, different news publishing companies, they were posting all kinds of very, very biased articles that if you read them would lead you to believe that the that the legislation or even past that the rules were already strictly being enforced, when in reality it was still 18 months before a decision. Got decided on. And that decision ended up being a total reversal from what it looked like early on.

So what you really really want to do is start off by just going to your local area, whether that's your city, or your or your State's website, just look for the actual government website and look to actually find the specific documentation of the regulation. A lot of people are scared to do this, because they're scared of all the jargon that's likely to be in these articles, and making it very difficult to sift through them and figure out exactly what the regulations are. A lot of people are just intimidated by that.

But I can assure you that that is going to be the only place that you can go to get truly unbiased information and to really fully understand the lay of the land wherever you are. Now, the other reality of this is it's actually quite easy to understand what's going on these legal documents. If you have questions about it, you can always call your city's office or your state's office as well and get more clarity on it.

And whenever you're asking questions, you want to be relating to the documentation you want to you know, Ask questions. And then whenever there's an answer provided, because some people can be misinformed, you want to make sure that you ask for the specific documentation that provides that answer that they're providing you with.

So if someone tells you that you can or cannot Airbnb your property, you want to ask them for the documentation that either says you can or says you cannot. So you just want to get everything in writing have in front of you, and be able to really read through it and understand it fully. Now, pretty much the same process can be said, for managing properties on Airbnb.

You're going to go through the same process for figuring out whether or not you're allowed to manage properties on Airbnb and what kind of restrictions there might be regulations. There might be around that. But again, bear in mind that this is where I find that people are most often misinformed because a lot of people assume that managing properties on short term rental falls into the same categories as managing properties on long term rental.

The reality is that's just not true. Managing properties on long term rental, you're dealing with things like the landlord tenancy act, you're dealing with collection of rents, you're dealing With a negotiation of leases, and so typically in most areas, that's going to have a different regulation set all together versus short term rentals where you're not doing any of those things.

Now, I'm not saying they can't sometimes over overlap to some degree, but in most cases, you're going to have different activities that are involved in managing properties on long term rental. And so they're typically going to fall under different regulation sets than managing properties on short term rental. So again, there's a couple of different websites that you can go to such as all property management comm, they're getting you going to give you a good baseline for things to look at.

But in general, I do recommend still just sticking to your city or your state's local website, the actual government website where you can find that documentation.

Now, another question I get following this up is, a lot of people ask, Well, if there are regulations, are there ways for me to work around it? Are there ways for me to work within it? Are there ways for me to work in a different area where it maybe it's more lenient? And the answer to all of it is yes, for you know, depending on where you are, no matter what You are there's always ways to either work around the regulation work within the regulation or to operate outside of it.

And whenever I say that I don't mean doing anything illegally, I'm not saying operate in the gray, I actually really strongly recommend against offering any kind of a an ambiguous area where there's unclear regulation where you might be at risk because you're just exposing yourself to a whole bunch of unnecessary risk. Whenever you do that.

What I recommend is figuring out ways to operate within the regulations such as, for example, in a city where there's a nightcap, you know, if you're only able to rent your property on short term rental for 180 nights of the year, let's say, Now, what you'll want to do is make sure that during the down season, you're focusing on rentals or 30 days or longer.

During the high season for about eight months or so, you're going to be able to rent your property as you normally would on short term rental, because remember, you're not going to have 100% occupancy rate. So although 180 nights is technically half the year, that's technically six months. You're not gonna get six months books straight without a Single gap a single opening in your calendar. If you do that you're doing really phenomenally well.

And realistically, you're actually probably leaving a bunch of money on the table by underpricing your property if you're that book to that extent. But those hundred a nights are probably going to last you about seven or eight months. So that means that the remaining four or five months end of the year, you just need to find the longer term stays that are gonna last longer than 30 days.

And you can have the best of both worlds and Howard property still perform really, really well that way. So there's different regulations that you can work within doing it that way. Or alternatively, you can also just operate in a different area, you can operate and manage a property completely remotely, you can do that, you know, in a different city in a different state, even in a different country from where you actually live.

Now, if you want the specifics of exactly how to do that, or you want the specifics of exactly how to, you know, go into more one, you want to go into more depth about really analyzing your market and figuring out from a regulation standpoint, as well as from a financial opportunity standpoint. You really want to start out and figure out where is the best place to start your management company. Then I've left a link down below to a free training where I walk through exactly that in a huge amount of detail.

I also walk through how to manage properties remotely, how to pick the best area, all that stuff. So again, if you want access to all that free training, then just register for the free training the link down below. So hopefully this helped to clear up that question I often get around researching regulation.

At the end of the day, you want to rely on your government, state or city website specifically, don't go and trust any kind of media you get because usually gonna be biased and usually going to be only a fraction of the real information that you actually need to go to your government's website.

If you want more details about how to work within regulations and how to operate and manage your properties remotely, then just check out the links in the training below. Until next time, I'll see you the next video. If you're new to the channel, please subscribe. And if you liked the video, please give it a like give it a thumbs up it helps you tremendously. So I'll see you in the next video.

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