The San Francisco Airbnb Boom

Airbnb is headquartered in San Francisco, which also happens to be home to an incredibly high concentration of Airbnb rentals. The company allows homeowners or renters to rent out a room or an entire home to travelers, and all booking is done through the Airbnb website. The company has changed the way travelers consider booking accommodations worldwide.

In San Francisco, famous for its soaring rents and outrageous real estate prices, it makes sense for homeowners and renters to host travelers through Airbnb. They can often earn the equivalent — or more — of their rent or house note with a few guests a month. Often, renting out a room or your entire home through Airbnb in San Francisco can make it possible to live in the city in the first place. There are nearly 5,000 Airbnb listings in the city.

But this trend has caught the attention of lawmakers who want to put new restrictions on rentals through Airbnb. They successfully signed a law into effect Feb. 1 that places restrictions on Airbnb hosts, requiring them to register with the city, limits home rentals to 90 days a year, register as a business, and more. Whether these new guidelines will impact the trend remains to be seen.