Making Vacation Rental Safety Sexy! With Justin Ford of Breezeway

Today, joining Alex & Annie is Justin Ford, the Director of Short-Term Rental Safety & Certification Programs at Breezeway, the leading property operations and services platform for short-term rentals. In October of last year, Breezeway received their Series B Investment of $15 million USD and since then they’ve successfully scaled to over 150 team members, serving clients such as Lake Tahoe Accommodations, Huswell, Seaside Vacations, and more.

Justin’s journey to Breezeway began in the United States Coast Guard where he worked with fishery & boating safety. This eventually led him to a career as a yacht captain, managing a yachting fleet for a major credit card company for 11 years until Bank of America acquired their company. In 1997 he had purchased a lake cottage in Maine, which he was actively renting out. As word spread that he’s managing the cottage as a source of income for himself, others wanted him to do the same for them and so his business in the short term rental space was born.

His first venture that he co-founded, "On the Water in Maine Inc.," grew into the largest vacation rental company in the northeast and is still thriving until this day. During his time growing On The Water in Maine, Justin saw the challenge of educating and enforcing safety guidelines for vacation rentals. His next  venture started as a safety checklist, and then evolved into a company called Dwell Safe, and was acquired by Breezeway 4 years ago, where he was retained as a director.

Safety regulations are no longer an afterthought. Most incidents once deemed "accidents" are now seen as entirely preventable, placing great emphasis on accountability. While an accountability-based approach is unquestionably an overall improvement over the previous status quo, it does come with some growing pains that Justin and Breezeway actively aim to address.

A major issue is that many safety regulations are presented in a convoluted manner, discouraging self-education. The official government safety code is exceedingly complex, requiring a PhD in Safety Sciences to even read. Moreover, there are numerous aspects not covered in the official code, rendering proper implementation overly complicated.

Justin’s prediction regarding the restructuring of safety codes & regulations for short-term rentals closely follows the trajectory of the hotel industry’s regulations over the last 50 years. He anticipates that within less than 5 years, a government-approved definition of short-term rentals will be established, accompanied by a standardized code that will be approved and implemented overnight. This will cause a huge earthquake for short term rental operators, as they’ll have to immediately get their properties up to code or face the consequences.

Check out the full episode to learn how to stay ahead of the upcoming safety regulations!

HIGHLIGHTS:
01:31 Justin’s Road to Breezeway
05:32 How Safety is Viewed in 2023
07:25 Avoiding Confusion With The Safety Code
14:54 Vacation Rental Safety Revolution
19:00 The Future of State Legislatures & Building Codes
25:14 Justin’s Prediction for Safety Enforcement Changes
28:01 The Growing Pain of Insurance for Vacation Rentals
34:05 Most Common Occurring Tragedies on Rental Properties
37:42 How to Get in Touch with Justin

This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!

Connect with Justin:
Website | Linkedin

Connect with Alex and Annie:
Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe

AlexAndAnniePodcast.com