Airbnb aims for rebound with use of inspectors

SAN FRANCISCO — Airbnb is dispatching inspectors to rate thousands of the properties listed on its home-rental service in an effort to reassure travelers they’re booking nice places to stay.

The Plus program, unveiled yesterday, is aimed at winning over travelers who aren’t sure they can trust the current rating system drawn from the opinions posted by past guests. The misleading pictures drawn by Airbnb’s rating system have become a big enough problem to spawn a website devoted to horror stories spanning from an overcrowded, dirty “hippy commune” in Pasadena, Calif., to a Paris vacation ruined in a moldy, bug-infested apartment.

Airbnb’s internal surveys have found nearly threefourths of the travelers on its service are willing to pay more for inspector-certified properties, allowing homeowners and apartment dwellers to quickly recoup a $149 fee to participate in Plus.

Human inspectors will review properties based on a 100-point checklist covering everything from the speed of the Wi-Fi to the comfort of the bedding. Properties that fail can still be part of Airbnb’s regular listings; the company will also offer advice on improvements to qualify.

The program will initially cover about 2,000 properties in 13 cities — Austin, Texas; Barcelona, Spain; Cape Town, South Africa; Chicago; Los Angeles; London; Melbourne, Australia; Milan; Rome; San Francisco; Shanghai, Sydney and Toronto. That’s a small fraction of the roughly 4.5 million properties listed on Airbnb in 81,000 cities worldwide. By the end of the year, the company foresees verifying 75,000 homes in 50 cities.

Airbnb is shaking things up at a time its growth has been slowing, a trend the company would like to reverse before it sells its stock in an initial public offering expected within the next two years. Despite its popularity, Airbnb remains unprofitable, with a loss of $75 million on revenue of nearly $2.6 billion last year, according to financial statements reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Airbnb’s success since its inception a decade ago has drawn fire from city officials upset about lost revenue from hotel taxes. It has also stirred protests from longtime renters of homes that are being converted into short-term places to stay instead. Airbnb’s critics contend the latter trend has been making it even more difficult to find a place to live in cities such as San Francisco, where housing is already scarce and expensive.