Airbnb and apartments don't always mix. There's frequently nosy neighbors who badger tourists roaming through the apartment complex halls to ask if they're Airbnb guests. Often, hosts have already coached their guests to lie and say they're friends or family spending the weekend to avoid an awkward encounter.
One apartment landlord company even went so far as to sue Airbnb for ignoring its requests to remove apartments in its complexes from its website.
Now the home-sharing company is trying something completely new: Airbnb-branded apartments designed from the beginning to be friendly to tenants and tourists alike.
For the last year and a half, the $31 billion startup has been working with Miami-based Newgard Development Group on launching a brand of apartments called "Niido Powered By Airbnb".
A 324-unit apartment complex in Kissimmee, Florida (nearby Walt Disney World) will be the first building to open under the new brand in the first quarter of 2018, the development group said. Newgard will retain 100 percent ownership of the complex and Airbnb will not own any of the property.
"We’ve been following what Airbnb is doing the past few years and we realize that homesharing is here to stay," said Newgard Development Group CEO Harvey Hernandez in an interview with Forbes. "So we felt like it was a great opportunity to us to create an offering where we basically take homesharing to another level as well as create an ability for our tenants to really create that extra income that they really need."
Under the arrangement, residents who sign year-long leases with Niido can rent their entire apartments for up to 180 nights a year on Airbnb. If they opt to rent out a single bedroom in an apartment that they're living in, what's known as a hosted stay, then there's no cap on the number of nights, Hernandez said.
"At the end of the day, we wanted residents that were interested in doing homesharing in their homes. We don’t want a business activity out of it," Hernandez said. "So we felt 180 days was a good way of limiting that activity."
In return, Niido will take a share of the revenue generated by its tenants from their Airbnb home-sharing activities as part of Airbnb's Friendly Buildings Program. The Information first reported in September that Newgard and Airbnb were working together on the test units.
Its cut of the profits will go to extra services the apartment complex offers, like key-less entry or a "MasterHost" that can be called on with any issue, Hernandez said. The MasterHost will be able to check-in guests and assist with anything that might come up with the stay, making it both easier for hosts and guests in case anything, like a flight delay leading to a late check-in, pops up. In addition, the complex will offer cleaning services for a nominal cost that can be covered by the cleaning fee when guests book.
"I encountered a lot of challenges that some guests encounter and we’re looking to mitigate some of those challenges with Niido," Hernandez said.
The real estate developer first had the idea to partner with the company 18 to 20 months ago when he met one of the company's cofounders. Soon after, Airbnb sat down with Newgard Development Group and some of its architects to talk about how to make an apartment complex that's designed for home-sharing from the start, based on all the data its collected from hosts and guests over the years. Things like keyless entry, clearly designated spaces, and easy to clean surfaces were top priorities.
"I’m lucky enough to experience the feedback from literally thousands of hosts every year," said Jaja Jackson, Airbnb's head of multi-family housing.
The company now has a full 20-page guide on best practices for designing apartments for home-sharing, from building in space for luggage storage to using toiletry dispensers for shampoo and conditioner instead of single-use items.
Designing a building for home-sharing also overcomes the other angry neighbor challenge. The point of an Airbnb-friendly building is to build a community that enjoys home-sharing and doesn't seem as a negative or nuisance to living there, Jackson said. Prospective tenants are opting in to live in an apartment complex that is going to have a lot of people coming and going.
"It’s actually a benefit and will enrich the experience of the long-term residents and the guests rather than be something that is a detractor to the quality of life," Jackson said.
Neither Jackson or Hernandez are worried about the apartment complex becoming overrun with guests and losing the authentic feel that typically makes an Airbnb experience unique.
"No we are not worried that this will become a transient community because it’s simply not designed that way and there are controls in place for the property management," Jackson said.
While the Kissimmee property will be the first co-branded complex to launch under the Niido brand, Hernandez told Forbes that he expects an additional six to eight properties to launch in the next 18 months designed with home-sharing in mind.
"For us, it's very important to people to understand the reason we’re doing this is because we think, through homesharing, our tenants will be able to make additional revenue that could actually change the way they live by attaining the lifestyle that they might want but we know they can’t afford," Hernandez said. "Hopefully this is a step in the right direction."
