Airbnb's Newest Weapon Against Regulation: The Real Estate Industry

Everywhere you look, regulators are cracking down on Airbnb. In Paris, the company’s largest market, hosts must now register with the city government and can only list their homes for 120 nights each year. In Amsterdam, new rules, which go into effect in 2019, will restrict hosts to listing for just 30 nights annually. And after the Japanese government forced the home-sharing site to cancel reservations of unregistered hosts by June 15, Airbnb deactivated 80 percent of its Japanese listings overnight.

That’s why the partnership Airbnb announced last week with the real estate company Century 21 is so compelling. Now, Parisian renters can request Airbnb-friendly leases, which explicitly allow a renter to sublet an apartment on the platform. In return, the landlord and Century 21 get cuts of 23 percent and 7 percent of the host’s take, respectively. (Airbnb still takes its transaction fee.) In the press release, Laurent Vimont, president of Century 21 France, calls the partnership “a win-win for the owner.”