After a shooting at an Airbnb rental left five dead on Halloween, the company says it's banning "party houses" from the platform.
CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Twitter Saturday the company's steps following the shooting in Orinda, California, which include expanded screening of "high-risk reservations" and the creation of a "party house" response team.
The woman who rented the listing allegedly falsified the reason for the rental, but a party was advertised on social media, according to the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office.
Now, Airbnb is trying to prevent parties and incidents like this from happening at its listings.
"The company has six million listings. For them to wake up just today and realize 'ok maybe we should be a little stricter about it because we're getting some bad PR' might be too little, too late," Dror Poleg, author of "Rethinking Real Estate" told Cheddar in an interview Monday.
As Airbnb faces more regulation and plans to go public, the company "will have a big challenge balancing between their need to continue to grow and the need to become more sustainable in their operating," he said.
But Poleg is not optimistic the company can accomplish that.
