Hey what's going on YouTube its Richard found a short-term rental university and
Airbnb super hosts and today I wanted to give you an update on sort of like the
future of regulation and what I think is intelligent and what the implications
are for us hosts as well as communities because regulatory risk in my opinion
remains the single largest risk in the short term rental space so let's address
it head-on so by way of introduction Erika myself and my daughters are going
to Palm Springs for Thanksgiving him we've rented an Airbnb Eric and I were
there earlier this year we really liked it it's beautiful its up-and-coming I
think it's a pretty interesting area but it's got a lot of regulatory hurdles to
sort of jump through in a first glance it might be unattractive to invest in
the Palm Springs area this video is not about the invest ability of Palm Springs
but it's now I am a guest and I'm going to Palm Springs and I'm jumping through
all of their regulatory hurdles and I want to share with you what those look
like and also what that guest experience is
like so that we can all way and benefit from like our personal travel experience
the first thing is Palm Springs has a good neighbor policy they regulate the
number of weeks that you can rent again we're not going to get into the
specifics of this so let's just assume that the hosts that I'm air being being
from is compliant with all of those items and now we're talking about what
hurdles I have to jump through and the first thing is I got an email saying
hello we're looking forward to hosting you in Palm Springs
per strict city guidelines all guests must review and sign the Palm Springs
good neighbor brochure and provide all the requested information please note
that we cannot honor a reservation that has not been finalized with the
completion of this document for your convenience we've set this up for
electronic signature please review and sign prior to your arrival in Palm
Springs and if you have any questions please feel free to reach out at any
time so I'm gonna share with you what that good neighbor policy is because I
think it's really important and it can help us all recognize what kind of
things cities communities care about because we whether we have the
regulations or not we can be our own monitor and we can improve our own
neighbor relations we don't need the community to vote this in we can do this
ourselves so what does the Palm Springs Good Neighbor brochure for vacation
rentals look like well the first thing is it gives us a nice welcome it tells
us about Palm Springs is a world famous for its warm welcoming and visitors
while on vacation we are pleased you have chosen to spend your vacation in
our city there's so much to see and do or if you choose just sit back and relax
and do nothing at all like many of our visitors you have decided to rent a
house or a condominium for your own unique experience that's great there are
many benefits to doing that perhaps the greatest benefit is the pleasure of
residing even for a short stay in one of our beautiful residential neighborhoods
you will be among many permanent residents who value the look and feel of
a quiet and safe place to live they and the city will look to you for your help
in preserving that sense of peace and quiet in short being a vacation renter
also means being a good neighbor makes a lot of sense right like we don't want to
go in and disrupt the neighborhood we don't want to be non peaceful or
threatening or loud or anything like that so let's use the Palm Springs good
neighbor policy to affect how we host and the communication that we have for
our guests to a point and I'll get to that and a lip in a little bit so the
first thing is that we are not allowed to create excessive noise or
disturbances or engage in disorderly conduct kind of a obvious and common
sense but consider how you would want your neighbors to behave in your own
neighborhood back home chances are your Palm Spring neighbors will expect the
same of you treat others as you would like to be treated yourself a little
consideration goes a long way we ask you to please observe the following city of
Palm Springs rules and regulations for vacation rentals and here they are the
first bullet is who is making all that noise so amplified music is not allowed
outside of your vacation rental unit music may not be heard at the property
lines at any time of the day that includes music coming from inside of the
home please don't bring speakers outside and crank up the music even if you think
everyone will enjoy it if your neighbors can hear the music you are in violation
of the city ordinance pool time is one of the most popular activities to enjoy
in Palm Springs please keep voices and pool activities
to a reasonable level continued an ongoing screaming for an extended period
of time is one way to disturb the neighbors please be thoughtful nighttime
hours are between 10:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m. also known as quiet hours please
consider moving indoors after 10:00 p.m. if you choose to be outdoors
please be considered of the neighbors and use indoor voices please remember
our neighborhoods are quiet surrounded by mountains and voices can easily carry
a call from the neighbors to the city we'll bring the vacation rental
compliance officers to your door our officers may issue you a citation if you
exceed the allowed noise levels or if another violation is observed so please
keep the noise down and be considered of the neighbors you may be on vacation but
other occupants in the homes around your vacation home may not be and then they
go into ordinances about parking and how many cars are allowed one vehicle per
bedroom dogs must be kept on a leash and then it talks about the trash like who's
taking out the trash so these are the things that the city of Palm Springs has
required of all guests that are staying in Airbnb is condos individual homes and
I think it makes a lot of sense and it's probably consistent with what we want
done in our own home when we're not there but we as hosts probably want our
guests to do all that we just may not be communicating it as effectively or
efficiently or eloquently but this is a great starting point that we should all
emulate copy include in our copy and our communication so that we avoid
disruption and neighborly disputes and besides regulatory risk the second
largest risk for the continued success of your business is neighbor relations
so the sooner we enact some of these policies and procedures and put them in
writing and communicate them the greater the relationship we're gonna have with
all of our surrounding neighbors who can also put us out of business by being you
know grumpy or they could actually be really loud and disturb our guests so
let's just avoid all of that now it's kind of interesting in the DocuSign is
there's some really personal questions that I don't believe are necessary but
it's not my law I'm not the city of Palm Springs
so I'm going to comply but it asks me for my personal name my address I need
to send a copy of my driver's license and include the number of my driver's
license my personal cell phone and include the name of every single person
who's gonna be occupying the property while I'm there and the property
management team it's not clear whether this is their own rule or consistent
with the city of Palm Springs but they are saying that it's consistent with the
city of Palm Springs likely to encourage me to you know just go with the flow but
they also have to meet me in person which is kind of hard and now I want to
turn to the implications on a guests so that we can not only use the best
practices about regulatory considerations and noise and trash and
parking and all of that but now let's add a little bit of hospitality and talk
about how I feel about all this so the first thing is I think it's great that
it's on DocuSign because I travel a lot and I don't have a printer and I don't
sit at a desk so making it easy to comply with the DocuSign is a great
thing it takes more time than I personally want to devote to it but I'm
happy to comply with the rules and regulations and be a law-abiding citizen
and so like it is what it is I'm going to just do it when I rent from a hotel
sometimes I have to speak to people on the phone but to be perfectly honest I
avoid that and I do it all online so you know I'm used to spending a little bit
of time online and filling out forms and putting in credit cards and all that one
of the beautiful things about Airbnb is that that's all done once and then it's
pretty much said it forget it you don't have to do it again but the city of Palm
Springs and my belief is more hosts and more communities will start doing this
on a go-forward basis as well I now need to sign some document include some
personal information and who are staying there and I'll do all that where it gets
a little bit cumbersome and burdensome and it stretches over the lines of like
guests hospitality is in addition to wanting to know everyone who's there
they want to know all of the makes and models of the cars and the license
plates now I'm renting a car so I don't have any of that information now so not
only am I going to fill this out and comply with it now chances are as soon
as I land in Palm Springs I'm gonna have to do the same thing go back online or
update it or ask them to send me a second link and here's where it gets
really challenging they need to meet me in person so they want to meet me at the
time that I arrive but if you're like me I don't
know what time I arrived my flight lands at one o'clock then I have to take a
shuttle to rent the car I'm really stoked I hope we're renting this Tesla
electric vehicle that's a little surprise oh but I'm excited about it um
I don't know how long that takes it's not actually at the airport because it's
at an exotic car place and then once I have the car and Erica she and I are
probably gonna go get groceries and stock the fridge and so like I don't
know you know I live my life from a point of flexibility and freedom and I'm
not like time bound or constrained and I don't have a lot of appointments and I
kind of liked that flexibility in this nomadic lifestyle that we've set up for
ourselves so to ask me what time I'm prepared to meet somebody at the home is
kind of challenging so I just said look it'll be sometime in the evening I don't
know what time but we're gonna go do our stuff we'll get to the Airbnb and I'll
check in with you later and like they're rolling with the punches too because
they're great hosts and they want me to be happy and satisfied and so on but at
the same time they're like you need to tell us what time you're gonna be there
so that somebody can come and meet you and I just don't know maybe we'll go
right to the Airbnb and then we'll go to the grocery store maybe we'll go to the
grocery store and then the Airbnb and so like maybe I'm making a big deal about
it but just know this if I'm making a big deal about it I'm not the only
person that would make a big deal about it and so just recognize that these sort
of questions while they seem really useful and helpful and we're trying to
be friendly and hospitality oriented can actually be quite cumbersome and like I
don't know how to answer I'm not being avoidant I'm not trying to like not meet
you I just have no idea what time we can
actually meet and so the city of Palm Springs in doing what I think is smart
and responsible and sustainable putting in practice you know good policy good
neighbor policy is also making it a little bit less desirable to come to
Palm Springs if I could go to another location and not fill out multiple
DocuSign and not meet total strangers and not have to tell them what time I'm
there well you know maybe I'll decide to go somewhere else on the next time or
the rest of the hosting communities will all start to implement similar
regulatory things and then it's level playing field and it's all equal and I
believe it's the latter it's more likely that more restrictions more regulation
more signatures required more inspections more this stuff happens to
keep good neighbor relations because at the end of the day
every city wants to thrive and welcome wonderful vacationers tourists people
that are paying you know and growing their local economy eating at the
restaurants shopping and you know doing all these things but they want to do it
in a responsible way and so this is the first example that I have personally
I've stayed in dozens hundreds of Airbnb is all around the world all around the
United States and this is the first time I'm encountering anything like this and
I just wanted to make this video with you and give you an update about my
experience my belief what I think it feels like and what the actual reality
is and the chances are when we're in Palm Springs I'll give you an update
video so in the meantime go ahead and comment below what do you think of these
regulations are they enough are they not enough have they gone too far what would
you do differently what do you currently ask your guests to sign or fill out or
implement what kind of agreements because again the more that we share the
more we comment below the more ideas we all have and we can all share the best
practices because at the end of the day the reason that we have this channel the
reason we pay attention all this and we're in our Facebook group is to be the
best host we can be the most successful entrepreneurs possible to be the most
profitable and successful and have a long runway with good neighbor relations
good community relations good city relations so share your best stuff below
we're not in competition with one another it's not going to take any money
away from you by helping somebody halfway across the world but you'll feel
great you'll feel whole you'll be doing something wonderful so do it
and likewise like the video and please subscribe to the channel thanks friends
we're going to Palm Springs