#if i lived in Chicago i could buy two adjacent apartments in this building

[expatesque]

My parents are looking at flats in a building built in 1912 that the Wrigley's used to live in and it's basically my dream renovation project. There are two adjacent units that could be combined. There's a massive bay window. There are 6 fireplaces and twelve foot ceilings and crown mouldings to die for.

[passivenovember]

Harringrove April, Day Three. 

Elevator.

Believe (Part One)

--

It had wooden slats for a door. And a little pull tab that you had to reach up and grip with both hands, at first, when they were first looking at the apartment and Steve’s muscles were too doughy for the way Billy could hold a smoothie in one and pull the doors shut with the other. 

The Elevator opened, like some sort of unattainable fabric-split to a magic world, directly into their second story apartment.

Maybe that’s why they signed the lease. For the discretion. 

Their apartment was huge. Industrial. Used to be an old leather factory so the walls still smelled like grease and smoke in the summertime. It was grimy and gray and charming in the way all pre-civil war buildings could be. Located in a neighborhood that was Here, Queer, and Up and Cumming. 

Steve wanted to grab the A-train the second the relator said that, but.

Their sky-lit two bedroom was located over Sidetrack. So they could be young, gay, and fashionable on Friday nights when Billy took a few shots and stumbled downstairs to “experience a little bit of life.” Steve could feel the bass thumping below his mattress and imagine Billy, shirtless and covered in glitter and getting eaten alive. 

One week into their stay and Billy was in love, and Steve was in love with--

Yeah.

It was a small price to pay for how Billy’s shoulders loosened. Skin and muscles smoothed over with an impenetrable layer of peace that they had somehow been lucky enough to find themselves in Chicago. 

In the ‘90s.

Right in the heart of where they could really, truly, finally, be themselves. 

Their apartment had a balcony, a breakfast nook, and a space by the front door that was wide enough to house Steve’s pottery wheel. Just down the street sat the headquarters of Nightlines, Chicago’s very own Village Voice, and adjacent from a spit-level building that housed a dual bakery and kink shop sat a bookstore. 

It was, unfortunately, perfect.

Steve spent his weekends curled up by the window. Reading and drinking lavender tea and playing with the lazy bodega cat and--it was a dream. Steve had once lived in a castle on top of the hill, bu this?

It was the stuff of clouds. He felt at home, in their apartment. In their life. Eating midnight pizza with Billy above their night club.

The place couldn’t get more queer if it was called the Meat Packing District and Steve couldn’t get happier if he won the damn lottery, so he kept track of his blessings, with every new guy Billy brought moaning up that elevator.

It was never easy. 

At first it was about the mortgage. The pottery business. The bills and the plight of the starving artist and how it was easier for them to buy a place together, so they could push product quicker than before, when they were in college and had to rent studio spaces. 

But then it became about the wooden slats. 

And the little pull tab Billy could never reach when he had some guy’s tongue down his throat. When his hands were preoccupied. When Steve took power naps on the couch, still covered in residual clay and a shift’s worth of kiln smoke, only to jolt awake to the man he loved dragging some guy that was way hotter than Steve into his bedroom.

Steve sat him down and outlined the basics. “I don’t like random men in our house.” He said. 

It seemed reasonable. 

Billy leaned back in the dining room chair, silk robe popping open to display a line of fresh hickies and bite marks, snaking around one peck and disappearing into the waistband of his boxers. 

Steve ignored them. 

Filed them away. “It happens pretty much every night. You go downstairs, you fuck some guy in a bathroom, you trail him through the house--”

“Sorry, Bambi, I’m not trying to step on your toes, or anything.” 

“You’re not stepping on my toes.”

“it’s just easier to bring ‘em to our place since it’s right upstairs and we’ve got--”

“--The elevator. Yeah.” Steve took a sip of coffee. Winced at the burn of the liquid and the burn of Billy’s gaze, as he tried to work out all the shit Steve was backlogging.

“Fuck’s going on with you?” Billy asked uneasily.

“Huh?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t play that shit, you say it’s not bothering you but then you cook breakfast and call a meeting and you’ve got talking points? Scribbled on a fucking legal pad?” 

Steve cleared his throat.  Shuffled the papers on the island in front of him, like, “Robin helped me.”

“You talked to Buckley about this before me?” Billy asked, still chewing but softer now. Thoughtful. Hurt. “What the fuck is going on?”

Steve read through the list of things that Robin said had to be cleared up. Bullshit, petty things like shooting garbage at the recycling bin instead of walking over to throw it away, and forgetting to pick up the things that bounce off the recycling bin and clatter under the sofa. 

It seemed like bullshit, now. Fodder. Steve knew he could live with all that if Billy would give up the big one. 

Fucking other guys. 

Billy swam through to the other side of Steve’s long, panicked silence shook his head, reaching to gnaw at the last slice of bacon. He tore it in half with his teeth, holding out one piece and biting into the other, and--

Fucking other guys.

Steve took it from him.

“What’s going on, baby?” Billy said. “Can’t take it anymore. Those sad eyes are eating me up. You’ve been acting weirder and weirder since we signed the lease.” Billy leaned forward, bacon still held gingerly between two fingers. “You not happy here? ‘Cause we can move. Just say the word, and--”

“No, that’s not,” Steve sighed, scrubbing at his face. “It’s just.”

I can’t watch you fuck other guys, anymore. Because I love--

“Can you make sure the guys take their shoes off when they come in? I don’t like having to vacuum every time there’s dirt on the rug.”

Billy sat for a long, silent moment. Staring and searching like he didn’t believe it.

Like he didn’t believe him.

There’s no way he bought a single word, but. Billy nodded anyway. Pushed back from the table, anyway, gesturing to the slice of bacon. “You gonna eat that, pretty boy?”

“What? No.”

Steve handed it over, along with other important, breakable, nameless things. Watched Billy roll the strip of bacon into a half eaten pancake, slathered with butter, jam, and peanut butter, and that familiar ache in his heart when Billy’s cheeks bulged like a chipmunk.

I love you. I love you so much, it makes me feel like I could float--

Steve wished he wasn’t such a coward.

[chaunceyandchumleysdad]

Chicago West Side Art Deco Architecture

Looking to bring new development to the long-overlooked West and South sides of Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently announced two winning proposals for the Austin neighborhood on the West Side and for Auburn Gresham and Englewood neighborhoods on the South Side. The Austin project will include a renovation of the former Citizens Bank (aka Laramie Bank), a beautiful Art Deco building at the corner of Laramie and Chicago avenues. The $37.5 million project will renovate the 20,000 square foot building for commercial use (bank branch, café, etc.) and will also house a Blues museum. I am speculating that maybe this Blues museum will be focused on the history of the West Side Blues which has largely been ignored and overshadowed by the famous Blues history of the South Side. On the land adjacent to the building, the plan is to build a multistory apartment building with a public plaza, green roof, and outdoor art.

While growing up in the Austin neighborhood, the Citizens Bank building was about a mile from my house. It was where my dad did his banking as he had grown up two blocks away. My buddy Chris and I would often go to that bank with my dad so that we could buy rolls of pennies with our paper route money. We would check each penny for valuable finds that we could add to our coin collection. The bulk, of course, would be rejects, so we would re-wrap them into fifty-cent rolls and cash them in at the bank or at a local retailer such as a grocer. (This was in the mid-60’s when pennies were still an integral part of American cash-based economy.)

The bank building was built in 1928 (when my dad was 6) and opened as the Laramie State Bank but closed two years later in 1930. It was intermittently used as an office building until 1946 when it became Citizens Bank. The bank survived until 1991 when it was declared insolvent. In 1995, the building was designated as a Chicago landmark. It continued to serve in various capacities including a banquet hall, furniture store and deli. Since the foreclosure of the building in 2012, it has been vacant and at risk of falling into total disrepair. It will be wonderful to see this proposed development breathe new life into the old structure.  

Banks in the 19th and early 20th centuries were built to look stately and secure so that you knew your money would be safe and have the opportunity to grow. With its detailed Art Deco exterior, this bank building took that concept further. As you look across the columns and façade, you see coins of United States currency, letting you know that this is a good place to keep your money. To reinforce that concept, there are owls to let you know that you are wise to keep your money in this bank. The laborers are there to remind you that you work hard for your money and you want to be sure it is kept safe and sound. The squirrels suggest that just as they store the nuts they gather to be used when needed, you can do the same with the dollars you gather to assure your future. The bees and their hives perhaps suggest the sweet life you can live if you work hard and save your money at the bank. While I always remember being impressed by the building as a kid, I do not recall if Chris and I spent any time studying or even noticing the detail of the Art Deco exterior. Fortunately, others have noticed and are doing their best to keep this beautiful building alive and well.

[day0one]

Donald Trump lost the presidency. Residents and realtors of Trump Tower think it may become valuable again.        45 mins ago.* President Donald Trump is projected to be the eleventh incumbent president to lose his run for reelection.* His marquee Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan has seen heavy security, protests, and political scrutiny during his time in power.* In 2019, Bloomberg reported that the 238-unit condominium was New York's "least desirable luxury building."* Now, as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take the White House, the tides at Trump Tower may be changing.* Residents of the tower, located at 721 Fifth Ave., told Business Insider that they believe their property values will go up once Trump leaves the White House. Real-estate experts are similarly optimistic.* Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.It's a new day in New York City's Trump Tower.Sandra Arnold, who lives in Chicago but has owned an apartment there for over 20 years, said that when President Donald Trump's political star began to rise, it was "terrible" in the building."I really did think that I want to move and sell the property, but I love New York so much," she told Business Insider.But now that Trump has suffered a historic defeat — he's only the eleventh incumbent president to lose his reelection run — things at the swanky Midtown tower could change.For one, residents and realtors hope that the extensive security around the building may relax. In November 2019, Trump announced that he would be permanently relocating from New York to Florida — and Arnold hopes he stays true to his word. "I'm hoping that if he doesn't come back there, and we take his name off the building, we could have a wonderful spot to live again," she said.Matthew Soufer, whose parents Negar and David bought one of the building's 238 units in 2017, said his family has no plans to sell it anytime soon. "We just got it at a really nice price because when he got elected, the prices went really, really down south," he told Business Insider. "So we thought of it as an investment opportunity."Charting the tower's declineBloomberg reported in 2019 that the tower — located at 721 Fifth Ave., less than three blocks south of Central Park — had become one of New York's "least desirable luxury buildings" and that the occupancy rate had plummeted.From 2015 to 2019, the average sales price per square foot for Trump Tower apartments dropped by 37%, Forbes reports. Another one of the Trump Organization's trophy condo buildings, Trump Park Avenue on the Upper East Side, saw a similar decline, with the average sales price dropping 32% per square foot. By comparison, Forbes notes, the value of Manhattan luxury apartments overall rose 15% during the same time period.And city property records analyzed by Bloomberg and adjusted for inflation showed that most Trump Tower condos that sold between 2016 and 2019 sold at a loss — some at by as much as 20% less than their owners originally paid for them.The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.Predicting a brighter futureSoufer said that his family is planning on holding onto their unit long-term, and that he hopes the value increases. His family doesn't "care much" about the political name that the building is tied to.Mark Cohen, a broker who previously lived in the tower, said his outlook for the building is very "positive." Cohen, of Brown Harris Stevens, currently represents three adjacent 41st-floor units for sale there. Currently used as pied-a-terre for an owner who can "jump from one to the other," Cohen said, a deep-pocketed buyer could nab all of them for $9.49 million and combine them into a mega-apartment with Central Park views.Post-election, as emotions "calm down," Cohen added, he thinks tours and visits to the homes for sale will pick up."I expect the traffic will probably be more robust in this particular case because he [Trump] is not returning to reside in the building in New York," Cohen said. He's optimistic about when it "goes back to being a building like it always was before." What's in a name?Keller Williams broker Rana Hunter Williams has been doing business in the building for 30 years and currently represents two units, with asking prices pegged at $2.9 million and $4.5 million. She said Trump Tower's name has actually been a draw for some buyers."There are a lot of people that are interested in the building in a positive way" because of its political connotations — not in spite of them, Williams said. Cohen said that the name's connotations has both fans and detractors."It's all changed a lot, largely, with his election as president. Obviously, people have strong views," Cohen said. "So there are people who flock to the building. And then there are people that don't favor it." Arnold, the longtime apartment owner, said that she's received some cheeky comments from friends about her property. She said that "people sometimes tease me."Soufer said his family hasn't told social acquaintances about their ownership in the building, saying that he prefers privacy when it comes to "business decisions.""Given the negative connotation about him and stuff, I'd rather just keep it to myself," he said.Read more: Think NYC is dead? One of the agents behind the city's most expensive contract says 3 features are leading luxury's comeback.The impact of COVID-19 and the electionRealtors pointed to the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had generally on the New York housing market.Cohen said that, prior to COVID-19, he had multiple offers on the Trump Tower apartments he was representing. But when the pandemic hit, everything was at a "standstill." "I've seen a little bit more activity in there in recent weeks, prior to the election," Cohen said. "I think a lot of people were taking a wait-and-see sort of attitude — maybe because that building has such a personal association with the individual — that maybe they were waiting to see how things play out."Qazi Shaukat Fareed owned a unit in Trump Tower "before Mr. Trump crashed into the political scene." He ultimately held onto the property for a year, simply renovating it to flip it, but never actually living there. He said he would "absolutely not" buy there again.He had seen the reports of prices dropping after he sold his unit, but thinks that people who want to live in the area will start buying again — and boosting prices."Later on, it might pick up a curiosity, which could raise the pay scale," Fareed said.Arnold said she hopes that New York will recover from the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic and that she can visit soon. When asked if she still wants Trump's name removed from the building, she said, "Yes, that would be cute."Broker Lee Summers of Compass, who is currently marketing a Trump Tower condo on the market for $7.99 million, put it succinctly: "I think the answer is: call me in January." Read the original article on Business Insider.

[touristguidebuzz]

Oasis CEO: Expect More Consolidation, Disruption From Alternative Accommodations

Oasis CEO Parker Stanberry said his company is pursuing a growth strategy fueled by strategic investments and carefully curated services for both guests and homeowners. Oasis

Skift Take: Will Oasis and other alternative accommodations players' arguably steadier, slower, and more curated approaches to scale pay off in the long term? Or will the speed and scale of bigger players like Airbnb win out in the end?

— Deanna Ting

Have alternative accommodations reached a saturation point at which they’re no longer considered “alternative”?

While that’s certainly up for debate, it’s also clear that this particular part of the lodging business, while still relatively young, is beginning to mature and to evolve.

Giants like Airbnb are branching out into other tangential businesses like tours and activities and, perhaps, even flights. Major companies like AccorHotels are investing in home sharing and vacation rental businesses themselves, buying onefinestay and soon, Travel Keys, a luxury vacation rental platform.

And if you speak to Parker Stanberry, CEO of Oasis (formerly known as Oasis Collections), we should expect to see much more consolidation going forward.

“There will be some consolidation,” Stanberry told Skift. “We bought a couple of smaller local players. We bought a company in Buenos Aires three years ago. We bought a company in Sao Paulo six months ago. These were strong, I’d say, local versions of Oasis. [It gives us the] ability to sort of drive value by adding those local players to our marketplace. Just leveraging our platform and our expertise and our distribution channels to apply them to that inventory that these people have meticulously built over time, that’s something I think we can go do or a bigger player could also come in and buy companies like Oasis itself and a few other people and sort of put it all together.”

Last year, AccorHotels took a 30-percent stake in Oasis, which markets itself as “home meets hotel.” Last month, Oasis raised $2.5 million from an undisclosed investor, and it now has more than 2,000 properties in 22 cities worldwide.

For now, the company is content pursuing a strategy of targeted growth, even as the marketplace is increasingly more crowded and more competitive.

“The core is more about slower growth based upon quality of experience, curation, really kind of nailing the model and nailing the experience.” Stanberry said. “I want us to be a global brand and a global leader and that requires some sense of scale. But to me, scale is, you know, 70 to 80 key destinations, or 300 to 500 properties per city. So you’re talking about a you know, 15,000- or 20,000-properties kind of platform. That’s real scale but it’s still not as big as a 3-million listings platform where you’re just never going to be able to create a uniform experience, right? So I think it’s experience first for us, experience and curation and then scale sort of logically from there.”

He added, “We’re looking at ways to drive scale in a thoughtful way by buying or combining with more local leaders where, if we can go from 100 homes in a city to 250 homes, that’s an attractive route for us.”

Skift recently spoke to Stanberry about the current state of the alternative accommodations space, why the lines between vacation rental, short-term rental, and extended stay are blurring, and what’s next for Oasis.

The following is an edited version of our conversation with Stanberry.

Skift: What’s new for Oasis right now?

Stanberry: We did a rebrand to Oasis instead of Oasis Collections. A bit of a sort of fresher, younger look I’d say. We brought in a great VP of marketing who came over from Bonobos that has just a great vision for the brand. So we did that.

And then we also released an iOS app that facilitates booking but also has all of your stay details and curated city guides. It has a perks section where it shows you a deal with Barry’s Bootcamp or Soul Cycle so you have a free class as an Oasis guest. Or something complimentary, you know, like a behind the scenes art tour at a gallery. Soon, we’re going to put a chat functionality in there as well, with the local concierges. We’re trying to move more toward mobile and it’s definitely a big push.

The other thing we’re doing is called “upgrades,” that leverages the fact that we do have teams on the ground everywhere. So after you book you can add a stocked fridge, or professional cleaning multiple times a week, or an airport transfer or pre-book something like an art tour during your stay. We’re trying to take the experience to the next level via these upgrades. Again, we’re really distinguishing that from what an individual host on a peer-to-peer platform would really be able to execute.

We launched Rome and Chicago last October. And then San Francisco earlier this year — it’s sort of still in beta mode. It’s a tough market from a real estate perspective. It’s just a very, very tight real estate market. This kind of completes a 13-city geographic push that we did over the past five quarters.

Onefinestay, I’d say, is probably our closest competitor but they’re in six cities now. Then you’ve got some domestic players that are scaling a little bit, like Sonder and a few other guys that have done, you know, some more second-tier U.S. cities. But from a global perspective, we’ve got a pretty big lead now footprint-wise.

  An Oasis listing from Austin. Source: Oasis

Skift: Are you also going after the extended stay market and if so, how do you position Oasis?

Stanberry: Yeah, definitely we do. Our business is kind of a barbell in terms of the use cases and the metrics. So we’ve got this sort of leisure, B2C piece that is a seven- to 10-day average stay, which is still quite long because we’re attracting an international traveler use case more so, than a New York to Boston, right? It’s a New Yorker going to Buenos Aires or a Brazilian family going to Paris for a two-week winter break or something. So we’ve got that dynamic of seven- to 10-day stays, but then we’ve got the corporate extended stay dynamic of 40-day average stays, which is very, very long. And we do stuff up to 6 to 12, even 12 months.

So the reason we’re positioned to do that is because our inventory is more sort of full-time rental ready inventory, where we’re not working with primary residences. So I can go to a JP Morgan and say, “If you’re moving 10 people to Buenos Aires for a year we can service that,” like true extended stay.

How we’re positioning it? We have offline sales people so we’re definitely doing in-person, good old-fashioned B2B sales and then we also find that a lot of leisure travelers who use us on their own are also the types of sort of young professionals who work for the kind of companies that could use us.

Skift: Lately it seems like all these categories we have in hospitality seem to be blurring. It’s hard to know what’s extended stay, a vacation rental, a short-term rental, etc. What are your thoughts on that?

Stanberry: I think trying to keep things in separate silos is not really necessary anymore and I think hospitality companies need to think about how products can be a little bit more versatile or sort of multi-use. With Oasis, people want me to say “This is exactly what it is.” Or they ask me: “Is it you know, for hip leisure travelers? Is it corporate? Is it extended stay? Is it short stay? Is it vacation rental?”

We’re trying to create a product that is versatile, that has a variety of use cases and that serves the same customer for different needs. During the course of the year or a lifetime. I think that’s why hotel brands are thinking about both. It’s so kind of far from their core businesses, it’s hard to imagine them actually building or having that skill set in house, right? But then if you come a little closer to what a traditional hotel is, what if half of your rooms had living rooms and kitchens?

There’s this really cool property in Amsterdam called Zoku that’s won some awards and has mini studio apartments, or mini loft apartments. It feels like a hotel but they’re like mini loft apartments.

Or what if a hotel made a deal with an adjacent condo building to administer short-term rentals?

The companies that are being innovative are trying to service areas, slivers of that spectrum and not just be so constricted, I guess. Does that make sense?

Skift: For people who aren’t familiar with Oasis, how would you best describe the model that you operate on, then?

Stanberry: The easy tagline is, “The home meets hotel.” It really is right in the middle and it’s trying to take the best parts of the hotel and the best parts of a home rental and ram them together to create a third sort of category that’s in the middle. By virtue of it being in a home, it could be a long-term rental. Someone might want to rent this thing for two years. Maybe they don’t care about our concierge services or whatever but they just really love the property.

And it’s suitable for a true extended stay. It’s also suitable for a 30-day corporate stay. It’s also suitable for a leisure stay. So you’re servicing an end of the spectrum that’s almost getting into real estate. It’s almost people that are actually looking for a place to live versus a combination.

I don’t compete for one and two night stays. I think the hotel experience is just fine for a 36-hour stay. I don’t think we add that much to a 36-hour stay, quite frankly. And there is so much on the convenience. You know, the in-and-the-out and the utter convenience. But when you start to get to sort of four nights, five nights, I think, our product caters to people that are hotel people and aren’t really interested in the sharing economy, per se. But our offering sort of tips them over the edge, you know? On those four-night plus use cases.

Skift: Right. And you’re managing these properties on behalf of the owners?

Stanberry: Yes. It’s a fully intermediated marketplace where the traveler and the owner never speak to one another. The traveler deals with Oasis as a hospitality provider. The owner deals with us a property manager, basically. So that’s another way to think of it from kind of a business model perspective.

Skift: Earlier this year there was so much talk about the luxury vacation rental space, with Accor saying it wants to buy Travel Keys and then Airbnb buying Luxury Retreats. Why do you think there was so much interest in that particular part of the business? And what does this mean for your business at Oasis?

Stanberry: People are acknowledging that there is a fundamental difference between a peer-to-peer classifieds or web-driven classifieds business and a high-service hospitality business. They’re two different things, right?

Airbnb realized that and said, “We’re sort of trying, we’ve been trying to fake it ’til we make it to some extent.” If they’re really going to step into it, it’s a different expertise. It’s a different approach, it’s a different model, and I think the easier niche within that sort of broader niche to focus on is the sort of villa rental business. Because it’s been around a bit longer and there’s people that have more scale.

Luxury Retreats has been around 18 years. It’s got, it’s just got more scale than anyone that’s doing it at an urban level. It’s an easier target. Wyndham has also bought a few more traditional villa rental or high-end vacation rental businesses over the years.

I think there’s a lot of disruption in the extended stay. It’s ripe for disruption, this sort of relocated extended stay business, because traditional corporate housing is pretty drab and pretty depressing a lot of times. And there are a lot of intermediaries in the whole value chain: a company who goes through a relocation company who goes through a corporate housing company aggregator who goes to someone like me. So there’s a lot of room for this intermediation there. That’s something I’m pretty excited about, in that sort of corporate extended stay niche.

An Oasis listing from Rio de Janeiro. The Miami-based company got its start in South America. Source: Oasis

  Skift: How is Accor’s investment in Oasis playing out? What kind of a relationship do you have with the company’s other alternative accommodations players like onefinestay, which is a competitor?

Stanberry: I don’t want to speak for them too much but I think the way they approach it is, kind of a multi-brand strategy. They’ve got 19 brands and so, you know, if they’re going to go into alternative accommodations, having several brands that attack slightly different niches, is kind of the way they’ve chosen to play it.

We all are quite independent, whether they own 100 percent or they own 30 percent or they own 49 percent, there’s not a sort of unified operating platform or anything. We are each operating totally separately and we talk to each other and brainstorm things. We work with Accor on some specific synergies and projects.

I think there is definitely opportunity for some collaboration and synergies as time moves along. I expect that there would be some of that. But on the other hand, you’re right: I do consider onefinestay a competitor in the cities in which we coexist. We’re in a lot of cities where they’re not. But in the cities where we are in the same place, of course we are competing for the same travelers. But if you think of Accor’s universe or if you look at a Marriott-Starwood, you know, are Mercure and Novotel that different? You’ve got Mercure and Novotels in the same city.

So that’s kind of how hotel groups are set up. It’s definitely not the way that Silicon Valley brands are set up. The whole multi-brand thing is very hospitality. It’s not very start up-y. I can’t imagine Airbnb going out there and investing in or buying people and keeping those brands. They’re going to want everything under the Airbnb platform, I would think. But I think that’s just kind of a fundamental difference in how those two industries operate.

Skift: Are you concerned about brand awareness for Oasis given how competitive this market is becoming?

Stanberry: The travel and hospitality industry is the biggest industry in the world so if you’re small, it’s very, very hard to make a name. And I think we’ve done it in certain circles, based on just great guest experience and within the corporate travel universe, becoming a little bit better known and among the early adopters who knew us based on using us in South America in our early years.

Now they’re talking about us and they’ll come back and use this in Paris. We’ve done it in the kind of slower build, kind of word-of-mouth driven way. Now I think we are at the scale in terms of the offering and in terms of the coverage where that will naturally drive more awareness. Because we’re just going to be more relevant.

We’re still small scale but we’re going to be much more relevant being in 13 countries than when we were in, you know, 18 months ago we were in five countries, you know, in one region, and now we’re in 13 in three regions. So I think that pure kind of footprint is part of our push for awareness. And then beginning to scale up other channels.

But sure, is it a concern? Yeah. It’s hard and expensive to build a brand and build awareness in this space.

Skift: Are you planning to tackle the Chinese market?

Stanberry: No, I would do more probably more like the Western expat friendly destinations like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney; they would probably be the first three cities that we would do. Tokyo has the Olympics in 2020 and the events business is kind of one of our angles as well, helping companies and consumers with accommodations around major events. So I would think after we establish a base there, we’d be looking at a Tokyo, Bangkok.

Skift: Is there any reason you want to avoid China for now?

Stanberry: It’s just not a region that I have any expertise in. I think you have to be pretty smart about how you enter mainland China. And I think it’s just such a big fish to fry, that there’s so much other opportunity in Asia outside of there.

Skift: How has Oasis dealt with regulatory challenges as you try to expand?

Stanberry: It is a challenge. I think because we are on the ground, we’re nimble. We’re able to sort of navigate it a bit better cause we don’t have to be all things to all people, right? If there are particular neighborhoods where you can’t do it, we can just not do that neighborhood, you know? We’re not out there saying we got thousands of listings in every single neighborhood; we don’t need to.

So if Santa Monica is tough, then we can just avoid Santa Monica, you know? I think we’re also able to kind of have more of a collaborative partnership with the owners because we are face to face and on the ground and make sure they understand the regulations. If they’re going to violate them, at least they know it’s ultimately their choice.

On the company side, we are going to be collecting the taxes and paying the taxes; the hotel occupancy tax is necessary. In Miami, LA, and a few of our other jurisdictions, we do that. We collect that and remit that on behalf of the owners if there are minimum stay requirements, then we sort of work with those city regulations. Madrid, for example, has a five-night minimum stay.

I’d say Barcelona and New York are the two toughest regulatory environments in which we operate. Ones that I’ve looked at that are hard, thus we haven’t done them, are Berlin and Amsterdam. I really wanted to do Amsterdam. We actually took a hard look at it, put someone on the ground and it just seemed like it was going to be too hard and Berlin is rough as well.

Again we have the advantage of vetting things on the ground so we can sort of steer people in the right direction and we don’t have to be everywhere, right? So we can be a little bit more selective about where we go.

The other thing that helps us is just our long average stay. A lot of the regulations involve minimum lengths of stay. Or they tell their tenants you can only do three or four leases per year or some rule like that. And because we’ve got the sort of extended stay, relocation, digital nomad clientele, we can say, “Sure. If that’s the rule of this building, we can, we’re happy to market this for 30-day or 90-day stays.”