Downtown Buffalo at night with just the cap of City Hall showing.
You’d be surprised at how much home-sharing rental activity is going on in Buffalo, my home town. There’s a lot of wonderful architecture in Buffalo, and people are putting carriage house apartments, loft apartments in old Victorian homes and waterfront property on Airbnb, Homeaway, TurnKeyVR and many of the other home-share rental sites.
Buffalo prides itself on being the “City of Good Neighbors,” so I was a little surprised when a friend of mine who rents units in her home on Airbnb, told me that some of her neighbors were unhappy about it.
It may be impossible to avoid stepping on everyone’s toes, but as a host, you do need to be conscious of how your business is going to affect your neighborhood. Are you following the local laws about home-share rentals and paying any municipal fees in place for home-share rentals? If you live in a quiet neighborhood, are you screening guests to ensure that they won’t disrupt the normal rhythm of the street? I do know of one large house in Buffalo with a pool that attracts noisy partiers and the neighbors are not pleased.
I cover this in greater detail in my book, Host for the Most, and will be speaking about it at a workshop on hosting here in Buffalo in the fall. You can keep your neighbors happy and still have a successful home-share rental business–be a considerate host!
