COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - Next weekend, Columbia resident Randall Kilgore and his husband Gary Smith will cook breakfast for four strangers in their home. The couple, who will “host” a husband and wife for the weekend, also offered to serve the guests’ son and his fiancé breakfast while the couple stays in town.
Kilgore and Smith connected with the two visitors through Airbnb, an online marketplace that allows travelers to find homeowners temporarily renting either a room or an entire house.
“We’ve had people from as far away as Maine and from the West Coast, we’ve had a California visitor,” Kilgore said. “We have some guests we never see.”
The number of Airbnb rental properties has grown nationwide since the company launched in 2009. Airbnb reported Columbia had 4,000 guests in 2016 and Missouri as a whole welcomed 124,000 travelers. Kilgore and Smith host three to four guests each month in an addition on their home on Fairview Drive. The addition has its own entrance, with a keypad rather than a key. Behind a locked door in the bedroom is a laundry room and hallway with a door that leads to the rest of the home.
Kilgore said they built the addition for his mother when they moved in more than a decade ago. She passed away about four months after the space was completed. Since then, the room has been an off-and-on home to family and friends. But in October, Kilgore decided to sign up as a host through Airbnb.
Before moving to Columbia, he and Smith owned a traditional bed and breakfast in Rocheport. Kilgore said that experience left the couple well prepared for hosting guests through Airbnb. After Kilgore and Smith prepped the room for potential guests, it didn’t take much to get started.
“I literally decided to do this on a Sunday afternoon,” Kilgore said.
Kilgore registered on Airbnb’s website and listed the space as available. Within a few hours, the couple had a booking.
“It’s been pretty steady since then,” Kilgore said.
The Columbia Daily Tribune (https://bit.ly/2kdS4Kt ) reports that in Columbia, no regulations exist for Airbnb-style rentals. Leigh Kottwitz, neighborhood services manager for the city, said Columbia does not have a system for tracking Airbnbs because there are no mandates for the properties.
Kottwitz said city staff recommends people who plan to rent out a room or home more than a few times a year register as a rental property, which includes a fee and inspection, but it is not required.
“Right now, we don’t have a proactive way to identify those folks,” she said. “If people are renting their home out to visitors of our city, we want to make sure it’s a safe place.”
She described Neighborhood Services as a code enforcement-driven department. City staff reacts to problems reported by citizens. Kottwitz said the city does not receive complaints about Airbnb properties, which makes it appear that the rentals are not disrupting life in Columbia neighborhoods.
Megan McConachie, with the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Airbnb rentals are not indebted to the city’s hotel and motel gross receipts tax. The ordinance regarding that tax, she said, specifies a number of rooms a property must have to collect the tax. McConachie said Airbnb rentals usually have just one room.
Ben Breit, spokesman for Airbnb Midwest, said most cities nationwide do not have regulations specific to Airbnb-style rentals.
“Typically, when we’re talking with cities, they don’t have laws on the books that are applicable,” he said. “We try to work with cities, we try to partner, we try to collaborate to help them develop new common sense clear rules that can help them adapt.”
States that have had vacation rental markets for decades, including Florida, Hawaii and California, usually have laws that can be applied to Airbnb, Breit said. But, he added, it’s a new industry for the rest of the country, especially the Midwest.
“Everyone I talk to, it’s just not the case out here,” Breit said. “We don’t have that traditional vacation rental for the most part.”
Breit said he has not spoken with Columbia officials about potential regulations. If Columbia develops rules for Airbnbs, Kilgore said he hopes those requirements differ from rental units. He and Smith considered renting out the addition on their home before deciding it would be used as an Airbnb. But the couple’s lawyer said renting would not be possible because of Columbia’s zoning code.
Regulations on services such as Airbnb are being discussed at the state level. In House Speaker Todd Richardson’s 2017 opening day address, he advocated for Missouri to have an environment that’s “an attractive place to do business.”
“Two prime examples: ride-sharing and lodging. Uber, Lyft and others are changing the way people travel. Companies like HomeAway and Airbnb are revolutionizing the lodging industry, nearly everywhere but here. Here they are met with regulators trying to keep them from operating,” Richardson said in his speech. “It is past time that Missouri had statewide frameworks for disruptive technologies and allowed private enterprise to function in a free market.”
Kottwitz said Airbnb properties could be discussed in upcoming meetings between her department and the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“We’ve got more work to do in this area,” Kottwitz said. “It’s probably a topic worth flushing out. … It seems to be that there’s growing interest in this area.”
In the Midwest, Breit said many decide to sign up as an Airbnb host to make extra rooms an economic opportunity.
“We see a lot of empty nesters who do this,” he said.
Kilgore and Smith said home-sharing through Airbnb has helped them make money from what otherwise would be an empty addition on their home. After Kilgore’s mother passed away, they had no use for the space, which consists of a large bedroom, kitchenette area, bathroom with a jetted tub and a large shower and walk-in closet.
Kilgore’s sister lived in the space for several years when she first moved to Columbia from out of state. And a University of Missouri student stayed there for a month one summer when he needed to be in Columbia but couldn’t get into campus housing until the start of the school year.
“The student was in a way a pivotal point in us realizing this could work,” Kilgore said.
The couple decided to turn the unused space into an Airbnb rental after a neighbor who also hosts Airbnb guests suggested they try it.
Kilgore, who is nearing retirement age, plans to continue hosting travelers after he retires. He describes hosting as a passion of his.
Columbia was the fourth largest Missouri city for Airbnb in 2016, according to the company. Breit said there are about 100 “active” Airbnb hosts in Columbia. While he didn’t know when the first Airbnb registered in Columbia, Breit said the company saw significant growth in cities of Columbia’s size around 2011. Columbia’s 4,000 reported “guest arrivals” in 2016 brought hosts $422,000 in income, Breit said. The median income for a Columbia host last year was about $2,200.
The only Missouri cities that reported more check-ins and revenue through Airbnb were St. Louis, Kansas City and Branson. While Columbia ranks among the state’s top cities for Airbnb activity, McConachie said the Convention and Visitors Bureau hasn’t seen Airbnb make a significant impact on local tourism.
The bureau estimates only about 1 percent of Columbia’s visitors used Airbnb in 2016. While the impact on tourism was small, McConachie said she’s glad Airbnb regulations are being discussed at the state level.
“It’s something that as a tourism industry we need to be talking about,” she said.
Kottwitz said her department became aware of more weekend home rentals when the University of MIssouri joined the SEC a few years ago.
“There was a lot of buzz about there not being enough hotels here,” Kottwitz said. “We saw an uptick of folks marketing their homes for football weekends.”
Kottwitz said that observation is anecdotal because even when an Airbnb host registers as a rental property, the city does not categorize it as an Airbnb. She said a future software upgrade could add a category that would allow the city to keep a tally of the number of Airbnb hosts, or at least those who voluntarily report themselves.
Breit said Columbia’s university and colleges increase the opportunity for home sharing. Homecoming, family weekends and graduations can put a strain on hotels, he said.
Breit said most of Columbia’s hosts rented out an extra room rather than an entire house. On average, guests stayed in Columbia 2.8 nights, according to Airbnb’s records.
Nested, a company which helps people sell property quickly, included Airbnb rentals in its 2017 real estate return on investment index. The company’s research showed a fast return for U.S. cities without regulations and a significantly slower return on investment for cities with Airbnb laws.
Property in Washington, D.C., according to that research, took 219 months to “recuperate value via traditional rental methods” but only 64 months through Airbnb. In San Francisco, when taking the city’s regulations into account, Airbnb took 554 months longer than traditional rental property to recuperate value.
Breit said Airbnb caters “to a different type of guest.” Hotels in most cities, he said, are mainly concentrated in one downtown district.
“Many people want more options. They want to experience cities like the people who actually live there,” Breit said. “They want to know about the hole in the wall cafes that only a local resident would know about. … Our host plays a vital role in bringing that to fruition.”
Airbnb encourages its hosts to focus on making each guest’s stay an “experience.” Breit said some hosts show guests around town or drive them to the airport. Kilgore and Smith often suggest activities for guests staying with them. They also offer to cook and serve guests meals or arrange for special outings. Kilgore said he has ordered flowers, offered to host wine and cheese gatherings and make other purchases for guests.
Kilgore said the company’s review process allows guests and hosts to leave public and private reviews for each other.
Breit said Airbnb launched a new “full-trip experience” in 12 cities around the world, including a few in the United States. That concept involves the host acting more like a tour guide but with an emphasis on experiencing a city more than simply seeing the sights. The goal is to bring that concept to every city, Breit said. Kilgore said he’s excited to see that concept make it to Columbia.
“Every guest we have is different, but every guest comes with their own story,” Kilgore said.
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Information from: Columbia Daily Tribune, https://www.columbiatribune.com
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