Airbnb, Pillow Residential Partner to Make Home Sharing in Apartments Easier

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Airbnb and Pillow today announced a new partnership that will support landlords and tenants who share their homes on Airbnb. Under the new partnership, Pillow Residential will become the preferred partner for landlords enrolled in Airbnb's Friendly Buildings Program. Pillow Residential's tools for multi-family housing owners and operators include online dashboards that give landlords information about home sharing and services for hosts who want extra help sharing their space. The first landlord to engage with this partnership and offer the program to their long-term residents will be San Francisco's largest apartment building and urban retail owner, Veritas Investments, which will launch with a pilot group of five buildings in San Francisco.

Here's how the partnership works:

• Landlords and multi-family building operators can join the Airbnb Friendly Buildings Program, which allows landlords and tenants to share revenue generated by home sharing. Landlords can set a percentage of revenue to support upgrades and program oversight to improve the quality of life for all residents. Landlords in the Friendly Buildings Program can also join Pillow Residential to access Pillow's suite of comprehensive tools.
• Pillow's tools for landlords include onboarding tenants and educating them about home sharing, creating and executing lease addendums that support home sharing, and working with building management to incorporate building rules into listing templates.  Pillow Residential also gives landlords a single dashboard with information about hosting in their building, so they know what units are being rented out at any given time.
• Tenants also benefit from Pillow's tools. Pillow Residential's tools help tenants create Airbnb listings that automatically include information about their building's shared amenities and mobile guides for guests with everything from building access codes to emergency contact information. When guests check out, tenants can use Pillow to hire cleaners who can assist them with cleaning their listings.

"Together, Pillow and Airbnb can give landlords and tenants access to the best tools and make home sharing better and easier for everyone," said Jaja Jackson, Director of Global Multi-family Housing Partnerships at Airbnb. "Veritas is a leader and innovator in the real estate community and they are one of the multi-family building owners who know Airbnb is a tremendous benefit for their properties and the residents who call their buildings home."

According to National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) studies, over half of those age 25-34 and over 60% of those under age 25 are interested or very interested in the ability to share their units, and apartment owners and tenants are increasingly embracing home sharing. To date, landlords have enrolled buildings with over 13,000 total units in the Airbnb Friendly Buildings program.

"Demand for home sharing among renters keeps growing, and we anticipate a day when Pillow will be on every renters' checklist as a must-have, alongside amenities like air conditioning or high-speed internet," said Sean Conway, CEO of Pillow. "This partnership with Airbnb is a logical next step in making this vision a reality. Veritas is a trailblazer and we're proud to be a part of offering the best solutions for their residents."

"We reached out to and surveyed residents, and there's a great deal of interest in this new aspect of the 'sharing economy','' said Yat-Pang Au, CEO of Veritas Investments. "This well-supported home sharing program of Airbnb and Pillow can help our residents with economic empowerment and could further differentiate our properties. Veritas strives to offer market-leading opportunities in some of the most character-rich, well-located apartments, which enhances our residents' experience. This partnership also marks one of the more significant pursuits from our newly formed Veritas Innovations business unit that advises, invests in, and incubates synergistic real estate technology partners."

About Airbnb
Founded in 2008, Airbnb's mission is to create a world where people can belong when they travel by being connected to local cultures and having unique travel experiences. Its community marketplace provides access to millions of unique accommodations from apartments and villas to castles and treehouses in more than 65,000 cities and 191 countries. With Experiences, Airbnb offers unprecedented access to local communities and interests, while Places lets people discover the hidden gems of a city as recommended by the people that live there. Airbnb is people-powered and the easiest way to earn a little extra income from extra space in a home or from sharing passions, interests and cities.

About Veritas Investments, Inc.
San Francisco-based Veritas Investments, Inc. is one of the largest owners and operators of multifamily, urban retail and mixed-use properties in San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area. Veritas has assets in excess of $2 billion and in 2016 completed an $815 million financing, the largest portfolio financing of its kind in the history of San Francisco. Vertically integrated, the firm and its affiliates provide property management, leasing, project management, redevelopment, accounting, asset management, financing, and investment management services. For more information, visit www.veritasinvestments.com

About Pillow
Pillow gives apartment complex owners the ability to easily enable short-term rentals in entire buildings and entire portfolios. Our platform provides automated online compliance, safety, payments, monitoring, property management tools and controls – all in one digital solution.  Pillow, based out San Francisco, has raised $18 million from investors including Mayfield Fund, Homebrew, Sterling Capital, Sherpa Ventures and Peak Capital Partners. Pillow works with Virtu Investments, Peak Residential, Marian Group and other Multifamily partners. Pillow Residential has 4,000 units enrolled in San Francisco, Houston, Oakland, Denver, Louisville, Salt Lake City, Louisville, Albuquerque and eight additional cities.  More information can be found at www.pillow.com

SOURCE Airbnb