Airbnb expands to include apartments

Large corporately run apartment buildings offer a certain kind of appeal. The units are standardized and the service predictable, which is reassuring in that same way that a latte from Starbucks is. The perks are often better -- the monthly rent may come with access to a gym, a pool and a community lounge. In high-end buildings, as in hotels, there's typically a doorman.

The carpeted hallways inside even have that crisp hotel-like smell.

Big apartment living is basically the closest you can get to actually living in a hotel (right down to the complimentary daily newspaper). Which is why it's very interesting that Airbnb is now talking to some of the largest landlords in America, companies that manage tens of thousands of reliably maintained, amenity-rich units. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that major landlords like Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities have been chatting with the homeshare site about revenue-sharing models in which they might allow tenants to rent their apartments on Airbnb for a cut of the money.

The idea addresses a number of problems. It would satisfy landlords miffed that tenants have quietly been profiting off their properties. It would give tenants confidence they don't have to use Airbnb on the sly, risking eviction. And, for Airbnb, it would open up a large new stock of housing.

But the idea is also intriguing because all that housing could attract the kind of customers Airbnb has yet to lure from hotels -- the type more interested in an antiseptic stay than a quirky one. The kind of traveler who wants a doorman and a pool, not a bed at Brenda's studio in Brooklyn between her cross-stitch stuff. If the earliest homes available on Airbnb were more akin to a bed & breakfast, corporate-style studios and apartments -- albeit with someone else's furniture inside -- would look a lot more like hotels.

It's harder to predict the other consequences of such an expansion. Airbnb says it's opening up conversations with large landlords for now but would be interested in partnering with smaller ones as well. And the company says it would only work with landlords on listing tenants' primary residences. That means that Avalon could not lease 80 percent of the apartments at its Gallery Place building in D.C. to regular tenants, and set aside the other 20 percent for Airbnb use.

The landlords in this scheme wouldn't be hosts themselves; rather, they'd charge for granting tenants the right to host. That also means that people currently hosting would make less money. In theory, this would prevent the system from sapping the housing supply of scarce rental units, a complaint Airbnb has faced in several cities. But could it alter the cost of housing in other ways? As Laura Kusisto suggested at the Wall Street Journal, landlords might find it easier to raise rents on tenants by telling them "you can make that money back on Airbnb!"

It's also possible that the ability to rent on Airbnb could become an amenity itself, making some properties more desirable and nudging up the rent. Picture a building that offers the doorman, the gym, the pool and the right written right into your lease to sublet your home for extra income.

Third scenario: If only a few tenants in a large building are ever interested in doing this, the effects may not be large enough to alter anyone else's rent.

What's more predictable is that this whole idea will make affordable housing advocates uneasy, because it represents two foes -- Airbnb and landlords -- joining forces. Inevitably, there will be an outcry, even if the consequences are unclear. But in the next fight, the real estate industry is a powerful ally for Airbnb to co-opt to its side.