Airbnb rental

A short-term rental advocacy group is claiming that online “pirates” are stealing registration numbers from the city of Toronto’s website and using them to post fake listings on Airbnb.

“The city attempts sweeping enforcement actions to take down pirates, but pirates easily repost fake listings by reusing the permit data the city leaves unprotected,” contests Fairbnbhosts.ca on its website. “Visitors can’t be sure if they are booking a pirate space or a legal operator.”

Since September 2020, Toronto has required all short-term rental operators to register with the city. This is to “prevent the proliferation of ‘ghost-hotels’ and protect critical rental stock by maintaining access for tenants to long-term accommodations,” the city said in an email.

Airbnb rolling out ‘anti-party’ technology in Canada and U.S.

As part of this process, operators receive a registration number from the city, which they use to set up their listing. But all 6,277 of these registration numbers are publicly available online, along with the first three digits of the short-term rental’s postal code. Scammers can access the registration numbers and use them to set up fake listings.

There’s a simple solution, says George Emerson, director of Fairbnbhosts.ca, which describes itself as a travel industry trade association protecting the interests of Toronto’s Airbnb operators. “The city says [the registration numbers are] how they verify with the booking platforms,” he says. “But if your website and my website want to exchange information, we don’t have to do that in a way that’s exposed to the public finding it. We do it on a secure shielded website. We would use a database. Every website has a database, and we would use that method to exchange information.”

Emerson adds that this is commonly done. “Computers verify large datasets all the time through secure ways without revealing identities.” But when he asked the city whether it could privately exchange registration information with booking sites, staff told him it wasn’t a priority.

The city is aware of the fake listings being posted. To combat the issue, it performs compliance audits using data discovery techniques. “The city compliance audits flag listings that have missing, inaccurate, or incomplete information that prevents the city from verifying registration status and operators who are not in compliance with the bylaw,” the city said.

But these compliance audits are part of what’s wrong with Toronto’s short-term rental regulations, Emerson argues. When setting up a listing, the rental’s information must match the city’s registration data. “The address mismatches are so tiny, like whether there’s a ‘St.’ or ‘St’,” he says.

Other incorrect listing information includes operators using nicknames instead of their full name as listed on government-issued IDs, using incorrect postal codes, adding in building names rather than street addresses, not including unit numbers, or placing unit numbers in the wrong field.

If a listing’s information is flagged as incorrect during a compliance audit, the city will take the listing down. When the city flags a “pirated” listing, it may also take down the legitimate listing, penalizing an operator who’s following the bylaws.

“No other type of business gets this kind of a shakedown, this kind of level of harassment,” Emerson argues.

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Airbnb is making changes to its platform after the company received complaints from guests about hidden fees.

“I’ve heard you loud and clear—you feel like prices aren’t transparent and checkout tasks are a pain,” tweeted Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in early November.

As of December, Airbnb said it will be making its prices more transparent by offering an option to view a property’s total price before taxes in the search results, map, filter, and listing pages.

Previously, the company displayed a rental’s average nightly rate, meaning add-ons, such as a cleaning fee and Airbnb’s service fee, weren’t included until you reached the payment page. Suddenly, a $400 weekend getaway might jump to $700 with add-ons. Once a guest toggles on the fees-included feature, though, it will enable the guest to see the total price before starting the booking process.

“I think it’s better to be more transparent. I think people like to know the costs that are associated with choosing an Airbnb over a hotel,” said Jennifer Schnier, an Airbnb host in Georgian Bay Township. “Because the experience in an Airbnb is very different.”

What are Airbnb’s hidden fees?

The extra fees that pop-up on a rental’s payment page have long been a point of contention for Airbnb guests, particularly the cleaning fee. This fee is meant to cover the cost of cleaning and sanitizing a rental between stays. But the host has control over how much is charged. The amount charged typically correlates with the length of stay and the size of property.

For her four-bedroom rental, Schnier said she charges a $50 cleaning fee for short stays and $150 for stays longer than a week. “There is behind-the-scenes cleaning. When you rent a hotel, you’re not cleaning a stove, an oven, a fridge. There are different amenities, so there is associated cleaning fees that go along with that,” she said.

But some hosts use the cleaning fee as an excuse to squeeze out additional revenue from guests, charging more for cleaning than their nightly rate. Guests have also taken issue with hosts charging a cleaning fee and then asking them to perform tasks, such as vacuuming, before checkout.

“You shouldn’t have to do unreasonable checkout tasks, such as stripping the beds, doing the laundry, or vacuuming. But we think it’s reasonable to turn off the lights, throw food in the trash, and lock the doors—just as you would when leaving your own home,” Chesky said in a tweet. “If Hosts have checkout requests, they should be reasonable and shown to you before you book.”

The other fee that pops up on the payment page is Airbnb’s service fee. The company charges a service fee to cover the cost of operating. For most stays, Airbnb said the service fee will be less than 15 per cent of the booking’s subtotal.

How does this affect cottage rental owners?

When it comes to renting out your cottage through Airbnb, it should be business as usual. To stay competitive, you may want to consider how much you’re charging for cleaning.

According to Airbnb, 55 per cent of listings charge a cleaning fee and, on average, the fee is less than 10 per cent of the total reservation cost. To avoid scaring away potential guests, Airbnb suggests keeping your cleaning fee reasonable or doing away with it altogether.

In early 2023, the company plans to introduce new pricing and discounting tools that will help hosts understand the total costs guests pay and how to set competitive prices.

What other changes is Airbnb making?

In addition to being more transparent about hidden fees, Airbnb said it’s tweaking its search ranking algorithm to prioritize rentals by their total price, rather than their nightly rate. This means that higher quality listings with better total prices will rank further up in the search results.

“The Airbnb experience is already different [than traditional accommodations], so if we are more transparent with the up-front fees then people might have a bit of an understanding of why there are some extra fees there,” Schnier said.