Shahar Goldboim
January 7, 2025
Professional property managers and Airbnb are like an old married couple.
They bicker, they banter, they can’t live with each other, they can’t live without each other.
And just when we think they've finally settled into domestic bliss, along comes a new plot twist to spice things up. Enter Airbnb’s latest curveball – the Co-Host Network, a shake-up that has the tongues wagging throughout the entire short-term rental sector.
What is the co-hosting network?
In case you missed the latest plot twist, Airbnb recently unveiled its Winter Release 2024, which included a kind of marketplace for co-hosts. Essentially, it’s a matchmaking service that pairs less experienced or time-strapped owners with capable hosts who can handle everything – from jazzing up listings and juggling check-ins, to full-service management.
Sound familiar? Well, that might be because it’s what property managers have been doing for decades! And yet, Airbnb is only allowing individuals to sign up as co-hosts. Why not property management companies as well?
Better service?
According to CEO Brian Chesky, it’s a quality issue. He said: “The average five-star rating for co-hosts on Airbnb is significantly higher than the average rating of a third-party property manager.” But is that really fair?
Chesky has been hammering this point home repeatedly, framing hosts and co-hosts as generous mom-and-pop businesses that thrive off warmth and hospitality, the implication being that professional managers run their operations like cold, unfeeling machines. Guest ratings, Chesky argues, trump well-polished business models and reliability.
You can almost hear the collective groan of property managers worldwide. They contend that review scores are misleading and don't tell the whole story. Sure, someone managing a single vacation home might well have the time to bake cookies for guests while leaving handwritten welcome notes, but try scaling that up to 100 or 500 properties. What’s more, large-scale property managers have deep enough pockets to offer tech perks and luxury amenities that a retired couple renting out their spare room can only dream off. Comparing the two would very much be a case of apples and oranges.
Quality vs. quantity
Airbnb’s defense is that its strategy is no longer about listing as many properties as possible; it’s about listing quality. The company has actively removed 300,000 subpar listings in the last year and is on a mission to improve the platform’s overall experience. That’s the official story, anyway. The company has also emphasized its focus on sustainable growth and has hinted that the Co-Hosting Network could unlock “millions” of new listings in the future. It’s a calculated move to invite more homeowners into the ecosystem, while giving third-party management firms the cold shoulder.
But property managers aren’t buying it. To them, the move feels like a slight, one that undermines the investments they’ve made in platforms like Boom to become increasingly tech-savvy, ultra-efficient, and scalable – attributes that bring better guest reviews. And they have a valid point — Airbnb’s numbers still lean heavily on the vast inventory provided by professional operators, whose properties are more likely to be available year-round, not just the odd weekend.
For many co-hosts, the razor-thin margins for their work will mean they will have to manage a slew of properties to turn a profit — effectively turning them into property managers like the rest of us! And once those co-hosts reach a certain level of maturity, they won’t be content with just distributing on Airbnb; they’ll start eyeing other platforms like Booking.com and Vrbo and will need technology to facilitate that.
Co-dependent customers
For some property managers, it’s the final straw. If you’re able to survive on direct bookings, good for you! But in most cases, the dependency is mutual.
On one side, you have many property managers who can’t live without Airbnb’s massive booking engine. Few platforms can drive the kind of guest volume that short-term rental businesses need without Airbnb’s reach and reputation.
On the flip side, Airbnb benefits enormously from these professional operators, who add millions of high-quality, reliable listings. Together, they've built an empire where money flows and guests book happily.
David and Goliath
This clash is being played out in regulatory debates around the world. The gap is between Airbnb’s vision of neighbors helping neighbors in a sharing economy utopia and property managers who see the reality that individuals alone will never be able to absorb the high levels of demand that we’re seeing for short-term rentals globally.
In some cities, like Paris, larger property managers are penalized by local regulations, which favor one or two-unit hosts. In my opinion, this is largely due to the narrative that Airbnb has been pushing for years that their hosts are just normal people trying to make ends meet.
I ask, what’s wrong with professionals making a business out of short-term rentals? These businesses are employing people, paying their taxes, and bringing revenue into local businesses far beyond just the lodging sector.
The long and short of it
We shouldn’t have to choose between individual hosts and professional property managers. There’s room for both in the industry, and they serve different guest segments in different ways. If you’re a solo traveler looking to completely immerse yourself in a new culture, then maybe a homestay with a local family is perfect for you. But if you’re a busy professional looking for somewhere reliable and central with an electronic check-in so you can just start relaxing straight away, then you need something quite different.
So, where does this leave us? With a market as young and innovative as the short-term rental world, anything could happen. Property managers may double down on diversifying their booking channels, while Airbnb could face challenges if co-hosting doesn’t scale smoothly.
But there is one thing that we can be sure of in this tug-of-war, and that is adaptability will determine who thrives and who gets left behind.
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