Airbnb looks to expand into the long-term rental market

Bloomberg reports that Airbnb, the vacation rental company, is exploring the possibility of getting into the long-term rental business and has retained management consulting firm McKinsey & Company to conduct an analysis of the market.

The research includes analyzing Craigslist, the popular classifieds website, which currently dominates the sublet and temporary housing sector.

According to two people at Airbnb who are familiar with the matter, the vacation rental website sees an opportunity to apply its system of identity-verified listings to provide a safer alternative to Craigslist, which doesn’t verify listings and is therefore rife with scammers.

Although Airbnb has listed sublets that allow users to rent homes and apartments by the month since 2011, the system is rudimentary and the feature isn’t promoted on the homepage. Still, according to the Sublets page, Airbnb offers long-term rentals in more than 5,000 cities.

Bloomberg reached out to spokesman for Airbnb, who declined to comment on the matter, saying that the company considers many initiatives at all times, many of which never come to fruition. Airbnb continues to report rapid growth despite receiving pushback from cities where short-term rentals are illegal.

Via: Bloomberg