Airbnb to block hosts with multiple listings in San Francisco
Airbnb has developed an algorithm to automatically block hosts with multiple listings in San Francisco. To be implemented from 1 November, the algorithm is designed to ward off owners of illegal hotels. However, those with legitimate reasons for multiple listings, such as property-management companies and legal hotels, will be able to request exceptions.

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Airbnb is making a new effort to play nice with San Francisco, despite a fractious relationship that has heated up in recent months with the vacation-rental company suing its hometown and lawmakers considering new restrictions on rentals in private homes.

The company said it is building into its website a way to automatically bar San Francisco hosts who control multiple listings, sometimes a sign of landlords running illegal hotels. Hosts with legitimate reasons for multiple listings, such as property-management companies, legal hotels or people with two or more rooms to rent in their homes, can request exceptions.

The feature will take effect Nov. 1, but Airbnb said it already has jettisoned hundreds of San Francisco listings since April, when it promised to crack down on illegal commercial operators.

“In cities that identify as having housing challenges, we want to find solutions,” said Chris Lehane, Airbnb head of global public policy. “Our underlying objective is to get to the policy goal identified by San Francisco of making sure (illegal) commercial activity is not taking place on our platforms.”

Airbnb said that since April it has removed 213 entire-unit listings and 525 shared spaces — many of them so-called hacker hostels. In addition, multiple-listing operators chose to remove another 180 listings, it said.

San Francisco law allows homeowners to rent out only their own home. Since no one can reside in more than one home, having more than one listing on the site is a red flag.

Informal hacker hostels, which cram temporary renters into bunk beds, often six or more to a room, are a phenomenon of the recent housing crunch and may violate planning, zoning and building codes. Many hostels relied on Airbnb’s worldwide reach and its systems for booking and collecting payments. Airbnb still lists a few hostels that appear to be operating out of houses or apartments and said it continues to manually remove ones that are illicit.

Airbnb has taken similar steps to remove illegal listings in New York. The company did not immediately respond to a question about whether it plans to remove multiple listings in other cities.

San Francisco lawmakers and housing activists contend that vacation rentals divert permanent housing. Airbnb and its supporters counter that renting to travelers helps middle-class people make ends meet.

The latest change comes as the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday began to consider legislation to limit short-term rentals to 60 days a year regardless of whether the host is present. (Hosts who had registered with the city by Oct. 11 would observe the current limitations: 90 days for unhosted rentals, and 365 for hosted ones.) That is even stricter than the 75-day-a-year cap that voters rejected as part of last year’s Proposition F, a San Francisco ballot initiative that Airbnb spent $8 million to battle.

Airbnb’s new move brings up a question: If Airbnb can take this step, why can’t it implement others? San Francisco regulators frequently ask why the company won’t pull the plug on whole-home listings once they exceed the city’s 90-day annual cap and why it doesn’t create a separate field in the online listings for San Francisco registration numbers, something it briefly offered but removed several months ago.

Lehane said such changes would need to come as part of a comprehensive overhaul of San Francisco regulations and systems — done in concert with Airbnb itself.

“We want to work with the city on a holistic approach to make sure the home-sharing laws are working,” he said, referring to Airbnb’s term for short-term rentals. “If those in office want to solve some of these bigger issues, we’d be interested in being able to participate in those conversations.”

For instance, on registration numbers, which now are buried within hosts’ listings, he repeated Airbnb’s contention that the city’s registration system is cumbersome.

“That’s part of a larger question of an effective registration system,” he said. “We could have an effective system, including a number that shows up on the site in a straightforward way, if the city was willing to work with us to figure that out.”

Airbnb is suing San Francisco over recent updates to its vacation-rental law that would hold Airbnb and other companies liable for steep fines and criminal penalties if they book guests into properties that failed to register with the city. That requirement took effect in February 2015, but only 1,650 hosts out of an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 have registered. A decision on Airbnb’s request for an injunction to halt that provision is expected soon. Meanwhile the city has suspended enforcement of it.

Jennifer Fieber, political campaign director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, said she was dubious about Airbnb’s self-policing, noting that while it temporarily removed illegal listings in New York, some later popped back again.

“There are still 9,000 listings in the city that aren’t registered,” she said. “We want those people’s names to be turned over to the city, and Airbnb has that information.”

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @csaid