REPORT MAY A Snapshot of Airbnb s Senior Host Community in the Toronto Area

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1 REPORT MAY 2017 A Snapshot of Airbnb s Senior Host Community in the Toronto Area

2 Airbnb helps older Torontonians stay in their homes In November 2016, Airbnb released a report that highlighted the increasing number of older Americans that take part in home sharing. The report, Home Sharing: A Powerful Option to Help Older Americans Stay in their Homes, outlines the positive impact that this new income can have on older adults finances and well-being, as well as home sharing s potential as a housing solution for the nearly one-in-five Americans who are retired. The report noted that Airbnb has seen a rapid embrace of home sharing by the older adult community. Additionally, older adults are some of the best-reviewed hosts, and they are also some of our most adventurous travellers. These trends hold true in the Toronto area, where senior hosts are the fastest growing age bracket on the Airbnb platform. While just six per cent of the Toronto area s roughly 11,000 active hosts are seniors, those aged 60 and older grew by 54 per cent in the last year, outpacing all other host brackets. With typical monthly Airbnb earnings at roughly $560, hosts aged 60 and older are amongst the highest earners in the Toronto area, only slightly outpaced by hosts aged 50 to 59. That means that the typical senior host in the Toronto area makes about $6,700 annually. In fact, the typical monthly earnings for a senior is just under the basic Old Age Security pension ($570.52) and just under the maximum Canadian Pension Plan payment amount of $ This is about $1,800 more than the annual earnings of a typical Airbnb host in the Toronto area ($4,900). Senior hosts tend to host the most often, and this is a contributing factor to their higher earnings. Over the last twelve months, the typical nights hosted by a senior host in the Toronto area was 55, or just under two months of the year. 2

3 Average Host Monthly Income in the Toronto Area When we break out the numbers by gender, there are more female senior hosts than male senior hosts (63 per cent versus 37 per cent) in the Toronto area. Compared to other female host age brackets, senior female hosts are growing the fastest at 49 per cent. However, senior male hosts grew at 38 per cent and were outpaced by the impressive growth among male hosts aged at 50 per cent. Senior hosts in the Toronto area also have the highest percentage of reviews that received 5 stars (80 per cent) compared to other host age brackets. Senior female hosts have the highest percentage of reviews that received five stars, with senior male hosts in a close second. The outstanding hosting by older adults on Airbnb means that not only are older Canadians benefiting from participating as hosts because of the supplemental income, but also the overall Airbnb community is benefiting from their participation due to the high-quality listings they offer. Airbnb is helping to provide an important support for older Torontonians. Many seniors lack sufficient retirement savings, and defined benefit plans are rapidly disappearing. While CPP has been recently reformed in Canada, the main beneficiaries of these changes are young 3

4 employees. Hosting on the Airbnb platform can help seniors in the Toronto area enjoy their homes, age in place, and make ends meet. Many seniors are on a fixed income, and half of Canadian couples between have no employer pension between them. Further, less than 20 per cent of middle-income families have saved enough to adequately supplement government benefits and the Canada/Quebec pension plan. Among all Canadians aged without pensions, half have only enough savings to last for one year. Airbnb can help support Canadians retiring by supplementing their fixed income in increasingly expensive cities. We have been excited to see so many older Torontonians discovering the social and financial benefits of home sharing, and welcome them to the Airbnb community. 4

5 Maxine, The Danforth Maxine has been hosting for the last two years and has used Airbnb for the last 10 years on her travels. Her days of hosting started when the 2015 Pan Am Games arrived in Toronto. Maxine s son offered to take some professional photos of her home and the whole experience took off from there. Maxine is a retired physiotherapist and empty-nester. When her two children moved away, Maxine decided to take a leap of faith and share their empty rooms with travellers. She hasn t looked back since. The extra income is helpful, Maxine said. I receive a pension now, but it s quite a change to go from my pre-retirement income to that. My hosting helps bridge the gap, so I can pay my expenses and utilities. Many of Maxine s guests love learning about and enjoying the local food and entertainment on the Danforth. Her guests often book tickets for a show at the Danforth Music Hall or explore Greektown, a boon for the local businesses away from the downtown core. Since there are no hotels in the neighbourhood and Airbnb offers an affordable alternative, guests often stay for longer periods, typically a week. In her retirement, Maxine enjoys hosting as a way to make meaningful and lasting friendships. She even once drove a U-Haul to help a Vietnamese couple move to a new place after they stayed with her. Maxine loves that her home is "lived in" and not empty, and that she can afford to stay in her home during her golden years as an Airbnb host. 5

6 Ruth, Bedford Park Ruth is a 69-years-young Airbnb host who has lived in Toronto her entire life. Her love of teaching started when she went to Mexico with a university student group and she found herself teaching, in Spanish, in a mountaintop makeshift schoolroom in a rural impoverished village. She had six children herself, and thanks to their intelligence, subsequently taught at a gifted school for 20 years. Ruth is currently retired. Her daughter introduced her to Airbnb when she told her mother about how the platform allowed her to travel affordably and meet wonderful, friendly hosts in the places she visited. Ruth assumed the service was primarily for young people, but when she tried Airbnb in Prague, she was hooked. After her children moved on to university, she decided to become an Airbnb host herself. Nothing prepares you for when your children move out, Ruth said. When I accepted that they weren't coming back home, I thought to use their former bedrooms to host visitors. I turned to Airbnb because I wanted other senior travellers to find a friendly senior host like me and experience these undiscovered neighbourhoods in Toronto. Ruth says many of her guests are looking for a quiet place to stay, outside the major tourist hubs and hotels. She has hosted many interesting and delightful guests, among them professors, engineers, doctors, a dentist, and a lecturer at the nearby military college. The extra money Ruth earns from sharing her home once or twice a month helps, but it s more about the company, the conversations, and the lasting friendships. 6

7 Lucille and Alan, Scarborough Lucille and Alan see Airbnb as a way to bring the world to their doorstep. As superhosts they have had guests stay at their home from many countries including Brazil, France, China and Australia. We have an opportunity to meet all kinds of people, and share our home with people from all over the world, said Lucille. Some of their fondest memories are of guests who they helped connect with their community, like the couple from France who they sent to a local French restaurant. It turns out that our guests and the chef lived 20 kilometres apart in France, said Lucille. They came home, and it was absolutely wonderful - the chef was right at their table the entire time. The couple made the decision to open their home after they heard about Airbnb a few years ago and haven t looked back since. The income they earn through hosting has afforded Lucille and Alan with an enhanced lifestyle that they appreciate as they age in place. They also enjoy that they can provide a comfortable space for more mature guests to stay. We get older couples, retired couples that will come and stay a few days, said Lucille. They choose to stay here because they know that we're going to have something in common with them. 7