Short-term Rental Alliance Building 101: Getting a Seat at the Regulatory Table with Dana Lubner

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Direct Booking Success Podcast. I'm Jenn Boyles, your host, and today I have Dana Lubner with me now. Dana is the director of community development with rent responsibly. Welcome, Dana.

Thanks, Jenn. I'm so honored to be here with you on your podcast.

Oh, it's great to have you here. Now for everyone listening, this is not going to be our marketing, a marketing focused episode. We are going to be talking about advocacy and regulations. But don't switch off yet, okay? Because this is something that is taking the world by storm right now. The word regulations, if you haven't heard it in your area, it's coming. And this is so important. So we're going to be sharing a lot about what advocacy is, how to get involved, how to get started, these kinds of things in your area. Because you have to remember that if the regulations come in and hamper your business so much that you can't operate, there's no point talking about direct bookings or marketing because you won't have a business to run. So this is that important. So, Dana, I'm so glad that you're taking time out of your busy schedule here today. Let's start by telling us a bit about who you are and what you do.

Yeah, no, I love it. And you've told me things about you that I didn't even know. I didn't know about the podcast that you did with Matt Landau. I'm going to have to go check that out. That sounds really cool. Really cool. So we know what's happening. I'm sure most people know what's happening in Canada right now in BC, where I am, and it's very hardcore regulations that have come down from the government and there was no association, there was no advocacy effort going on. We didn't have a seat at the table. These regulations are coming in effect this spring. People are losing their businesses and staff are losing jobs, and it's really serious. So this is one of the reasons why I'm starting to get more into advocacy. Things have happened in Scotland. England has just brought some things in. I know across the states there's been things, you know, if you haven't heard the word regulation, it is coming. And so this is why I wanted to bring Dana on because I'm seeing what's happening here in BC, where there is now an association and a great group of people called Direct Booking Success Podcast that are fighting this and fighting the government. However, had somebody taken the lead a year, two years, three years ago and created an advocacy group, we might not have been, we might not be in this position we are now. And so this is a warning to everyone out there. And I know you can put your head in the sand and say, it's not happening in my yard. It's not happening here, but it is coming. Dana, can you give us sort of an outlook of the changing landscape of advocacy for short term rentals that you see from your position with rent responsibly?

And I think we need to say that regulations in itself are not a bad thing. Short term rentals are largely unregulated throughout the world. Anybody can rent out a room or a house or whatever on Airbnb and the next day get guests in. So it's kind of like, almost like the Wild west, if you will. But the issue is that if you don't have a seat at the table, it's up to the government in your area to decide what those regulations will be. And they may not be very fair across the board. They may have ulterior motives, they may have other groups that are petitioning them for their rights. And that's what advocacy is, isn't it? It's getting a seat at the table. Is that kind of how you would describe that word?

Absolutely. It's getting a seat at the table. Being invited to shape future regulations. Like, the truth of the matter is that policymakers, whether it's at the state level, the local level, you know, they are looking at a myriad of different issues, topics and challenges that the community is facing, and they're not going to be an expert on a majority of them. And so if you can present yourself coming in respectfully and graciously and with curiosity, you're able to advocate for representing the hosting community as a responsible actors that care about their impact, that want to educate others, and that can share information about how our industry works in a way that these policymakers would never understand because for unfortunate reasons, whether they're too busy or whatever it may be, they're getting a lot of their facts from the headlines of the media. And we know the media does not really shine a bright light on short term rentals. And so we have to be able to educate and correct maybe misunderstandings or misconceptions or false narratives. And the way that you do that is through advocacy.

And if you're just listening to us and you don't see us, I'll have to tell you that Dana used air quotes when she was saying facts, because that's exactly right. I'm seeing what's happening here in BC. I'm seeing what the media is reporting, and I'm like, that's not the situation. How come you're not asking this question or this question? So, you know, I can see that the government is getting the same information from the media. It's almost like a vicious circle, isn't it? It could go around, and there needs to be someone to step up and say, look, this is not how we need this, how we need the regulations to go. And that's where the advocacy comes in, getting that seat at the table. So for someone listening to this going, okay, I'm in an area where we have no regulations, you're saying it's coming. What's the first thing they should do?

So the first thing you want to do is if you're considering saying, hey, what can I do to get ahead of these regulations? Or how can I best position us to be prepared when these conversations start first, see if a short term rental alliance already exists in your community. So the best way to do that is rent responsibly and have an alliance directory. You just go to rent responsibly.org and click on the alliance section at the top of the website. We have 93 different alliances listed there. So see if one already exists and then reach out to them and say, hey, how can I get involved? How can I support your efforts? But if one doesn't exist, I recommend finding two to three local property managers or hosts to collaborate with. So the key is to recognize that you cannot do leadership alliance building by yourself. It's really a collective effort. And the more that you set that standard, that it's a collective group effort, you'll be able to share that workload. So you don't find yourself facing a lot of folks, that if you're listening right now and you're in a leadership position, you may be able to recognize signs of burnout that you've had over the course of the time that you've served, or I first personally have experienced it myself. The best way to prevent that is to look for individuals with a diverse set of skill sets, as this will bring strength to your alliance, and then you can go to the Rent Responsibly now RR network that we launched last year, and there are a ton of free resources that will help you hit the ground running. So everything from how to build them. An ultimate short term rental alliance, how to start a 501, you know, that's the direction we're seeing. A lot of local short term rental alliances and statewide alliances head toward.

What does that mean?

So 501, yeah, so it's a nonprofit trade association classification with the government. So you have a tax exempt status once you file with the IR's. So this is going to be, I believe, primarily for your US listener, but this allows your organization to collect membership. Dude. So a 501 is a charity classification. A c six has that trade association. So oftentimes, you know, your chamber or your realtors association, those are going to be 501 c six s. And what that's going to allow you to do is build a group that is able to bring revenue into your organization by charging member dues. You know, we oftentimes see additional layers be added to the line item of operating a short term rental. You know, you have to have short term rental property insurance. You know, you want to make sure that your property is safe. The expectations around the guest expectations add a lot more there. Now we're also looking at licensing, taxing fees, all of that. The other line item we need to consider is a membership dues fees to your local short term rental alliance. Consider that part of your insurance package on future proofing your short term rental so that you have a group, a community you can lean on to support you if regulations come up or, you know, a community that you can leverage for learning best practices or networking with others. But in this digital networking, this is where you can find things that help you become an advocate. If you feel like, I have no idea how to do advocacy, you don't have to know how to do advocacy. Rent responsibly, has things like how to give public testimony or how to raise funds for your alliance. So tons of free resources for folks that are like, I got to start somewhere. I've been feeling this calling. Where do I go? What should I do? We've got a ton there that are free for you.

And take it in small steps because it would be very easy. I'm overwhelmed just listening to you. All the things that starting an alliance is a big thing to do, calling up the others in your area and discussing with them who could do what. Getting everyone involved, I think, is the biggest key here, so that you're not taking on the burden yourself and the resources that you're mentioning are for people worldwide, aren't they?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the beauty of it. It's applicable wherever you are. And it might have some different vernacular or terminology, but the community building is the base of what we do at rent responsibly.

Mm hmm. I think it's hard because the regulations that come out are in such small pockets, aren't they? Like small areas. I know ours here in BC, it's a province, but it can be before the province has gotten involved, there were regulations in cities and towns. So it starts at a very local, grassroots level. And so knowing who else is in your community and just starting to talk with them about regulations and what is fair, that's. I think the point to get across is what is fair for everyone involved. Sort of a level headed approach, do you think, Dana?

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the phrases that I learned that resonated with me is if you feel like you had to compromise a bit about the outcome of what the regulation was, if you had to have some concessions, you are, and so did the other side, whoever the other side may be, you're going to find regulations that are more balanced and that are built to last. If you feel like you've had a landslide win and you got everything you wanted, expect short term rental to come back to your city hall the next year or the next election cycle. Do you want to feel like you're really part of a collaborative discussion where you're saying, what can we live with? What can't we live with? What are, what are we going to die hard on the hill about? Like, where are our boundaries? And then getting that seat at the table when your community starts saying, hey, we want to discuss what it would look like to regulate short term rentals, even being proactive and saying, hey, I'd like to be on a task force. I'd like to serve on an advisory committee. And in Denver, I served on our advisory committee that we had in place for, I think, maybe six years when regulations were first passed. They started this committee, and I joined the committee. But you could go as far as saying, you know, hello, council members. Denver has a model, the short term rental advisory committee, acronym STRAC. And I want to propose that we build that advisory committee of community members, hosts, managers, you know, a myriad of different perspectives. So we can really have regulations that are part of our community versus somebody that doesn't understand our industry deciding our future for us.

And what are some of those regulations that you see coming out of these, out of the different governments? Are there things that you're seeing time and time again, or, you know, anything new? What are the regulations that normally come out from the different governments?

You said 400%. I just wanted to drop. I just. It's just so short sighted. On behalf of the legislatures, the policymakers, the government, and this term, I like how you describe this sort of housing. It's a workforce housing crisis or an affordability housing crisis, whereas I see this vicious cycle, especially in the news here in BC, they just say housing crisis. So the public are up in arms thinking nobody can afford a house. We've got all these people coming in. Nobody can live anywhere. You know, let's get those short term rentals on the market so people can live there. And they're not seeing the wider picture that the affordability crisis is worldwide. It's worldwide. Talk to any major city right now. Look at what's happening there. And it's about bringing in the workforce. They can't afford to live in the major cities. So these companies that are having these major workforces need to think of other options, like building their own apartment block or whatever. You know, there needs to be other solutions presented. And I just. It is. It's sad and it's frustrating to see the media and the government in this circle of misinformation. I guess that's what you would call it. But it's lovely to hear that, you know, with the groups and the grassroots organizations getting together, that people can fight these things once the government has, you know, put them in law and that people are going all the way to the Supreme Court in the states and overturning them. And how else can rent responsibly help?

So for groups that are in more of this advanced stage of their journey, they may be in a position where they've been in leadership, they're facing burnout. You know, they're looking to grow their alliance. They want to launch membership dues. Maybe they're tired of doing email communication. We have our pro services that they can leverage us for, hire us for, so they can do, we will do things for you like building a website, do your email management and communication, membership dues processing, legislative tracking, board development and succession planning, and so much more so folks can, like I referenced earlier, leverage us for a ton of free resources on the RR network. But then there's also our pro services where if you're like, hey, we're at a place where we really just need to take it up a level and really want to professionalize ourselves. Additionally, I do leader seminars throughout the year, so every couple months or so we'll bring in an expert to educate on topics like last month we did membership sales mastery, so it helps groups understand strategies for growing and retaining your members, or how to become a more confident public speaker, which we did with Amber Hurdle, or the art of professionalizing your advocacy effort. It's topics that I'm learning and hearing from alliances or possibly experiencing myself and my own journey that I think would be really valuable to bring to the community. And then I do office hours. So I have an hour on the second Thursday of every month where folks can join a zoom room. Usually there's about five to ten of us or alliance leaders that come and talk about what their challenges are. Leadership can feel very lonely and very isolating. So it's kind of like a group therapy session, a chance to learn and share from each other. Just really a beautiful, supportive community. So that can be found if you reach out to me for any of these, or Jenn, if you include them in your show notes, you can reach out to me at dana@rentresponsibly.org. And I'll be happy to plug you into any of these tools. But yeah, there's just a ton of ways that you can leverage our support. And nothing's more satisfying because these are all the things that I wish I had when I got my journey going. And so it really feels very gratifying to be able to support others in a similar way.

Yeah, no, I love it. Because if this is something that your new advocacy regulations are a new world, it's very overwhelming. But also to the fact that you don't have to reinvent the wheel, that people have been there before you and you can learn from them and have a community around you to support you going through this. So I'm going to put those links for the website rentresponsibly.org dot. I'll put all the links in the show notes and the network. I'll put your LinkedIn link in there as well. And you also are available for advocacy and leadership, one to one consultancy calls, aren't you?

Yep, absolutely. You know, I grow by learning about the challenges of others, and I'm able to share what I've learned over the course of my years in leadership. But also, nothing gives me more satisfaction than connecting people with each other. So we've got a short term rental community builders private group within the RR network. And so people that are aspiring leaders are currently our leaders of short term rental alliances. Reach out. We'll get you in that group. There's a ton of resources curated just for you there, but it's really a chance to connect with the other folks that are leading the charge out there so you can really feel like you're not alone on this journey.

Well, thank you, Dana, so much for coming on today. I think it's upsetting and sad and frustrating that these are what has to happen. However, it is uplifting to know that there are groups out there and that you're supporting them with rent responsibly so that we can get a fairer regulation, a landscape for the short term rentals industry.

Yeah, it's an honor to have a conversation with you. I wish this wasn't necessary are really the challenge that we're facing in our industry. But what I always say to myself is, you know, what we're doing now, the steps we're taking today are shaping the future for our businesses and for our industry. So whatever we can do to future proof for success, you know, we won't regret taking those steps. You'll never say, like, oh, I wish I hadn't been so prepared. You'll say, I wish I started sooner. And that goes through all the different assets, facets of starting a group. So I'm honored to have this discussion with you, Jenn.

Well, thank you so much, Dana, and we'll see you soon.

Thanks. All right, thanks. Bye.