Starting a short term rental business in commercial spaces

[Scott Venkataraman]

Hi everyone, 

I'm in the information gathering phase and considering creating a company. My current employer leases (doesn't own) their commercial space, but occasionally sub rents their space out to other companies and individuals with short term agreements. 

This employer has checked his lease agreement and is able to do this. He also has a license agreement that he has the sub tenants sign, makes sure they have some liability insurance. I've been connecting him with these renters through marketing, and screening them before referring them. If I simply refer the renters, my employer collects payment from the renter and pays me a percentage of the rent as compensation, up to a certain dollar amount. If I take a more active role in regularly scheduling them and handling payment, I receive a regular percentage of the rent without a cap.

The tenants pay him per hour and usually rent for a few hours at a time. I would like to expand this as a service, connecting sub renters with commercial spaces in my network that want to rent out their space. The examples I'd refer to are Airbnb, and https://www.peerspace.com/.  I'd like to start this as a service by hand first, and progress to a web based booking and payment model if the business does well and shows room for growth.

I've been told by a rental attorney in California that I'd have to have my broker's license or work with someone who does because with this model I'd be acting as a broker, but he didn't seem confident in his answer. I'd rather have a business model that doesn't have that layer of complexity.

Question 1) Can anyone provide information, or refer me to someone who can, about whether a short term rental business model similar to Airbnb or Peerspace would require a broker's license? 

Question 2) If a broker's license is required for regularly handling scheduling and payment, would the first method be a possible solution that doesn't require a broker's license? (where I refer the renters but don't handle scheduling/payment, and just receive a fee from the commercial space owner for referral up to a cap). 

If anyone has other feedback or ideas, I'd love to hear them. I'm currently doing all of this for and under the umbrella of my current employer. I really want to expand to further test the model, but want to do it in a way that makes legal and logistical sense. 

Thanks! 

Scott