(Bloomberg) -- Airbnb Inc., theshort-term apartment rental site that’s rankled landlordsnationwide, is seeking a reconciliation.

The startup is reaching out to some of the largest U.S.apartment owners with the aim of working out a deal in whichtenants can rent out their units through the website — andhave their landlord’s blessing. San Francisco-based Airbnb is inearly talks with companies including Sam Zell’s Equity Residential,AvalonBay Communities Inc. and Camden Property Trust, according toa person with knowledge of the discussions.

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Airbnb, with a $25.5 billion valuation, is surging inurban hot spots around the U.S., making landlords out ofpeople who own no property, and drawing scrutiny from citygovernments and neighbors. At the same time, it’s growing inpopularity with tenants who see the ability to earn significantincome from opening their homes to strangers.

“We know it’s taken off like crazy and we don’t want to ignoreit,” Kristy Simonette, senior vice president of strategicservices for Houston-based Camden Property, said in aninterview. “We need to take a look at it and understand what allthe opportunities are.”

The company’s talks with the startup’s executives arepreliminary and, for now, are mainly to understand the firm’sbusiness model and the role it plays in the multifamily industry,she said.

“There’s so many legalities — this is going to be a long-term thing to see it all play out,” Simonette said. “I have to givethem credit: They reached out to the multifamily industry to workthrough it.”

Revenue sharing

Any agreement would probably include some kind of revenuesharing, giving landlords a cut of income the tenants earn fromrenting out their apartments, said Rick Haughey, vicepresident of industry technology initiatives at the NationalMultifamily Housing Council. Negotiations would need to reassureowners that they’d have a say over what happens at theirproperties.

“Right now, they don’t have any control over this situation,” hesaid. “They don’t have control over how often people are rentingtheir units out, and they don’t have any control as to who’s comingin. They don’t know.”

Partnerships between Airbnb and landlords initially would belimited to markets where the legality of short-term rentals isn’tin question, the person with knowledge of the discussions said.That would rule out New York City for now but possibly includecities that have passed home-sharing regulations, such asPhiladelphia; Nashville, Tennessee; and San Jose, California,according to the person.

Early stages

Christopher Nulty, a spokesman for Airbnb, said the firm is justbeginning to discuss ideas with landlords and that “nothing isdecided yet and we have no news to announce.” The talks were firstreported on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.

“It would be news if we weren’t talking to landlords,” Nultysaid in an e-mailed statement. “We are committed to working witheveryone — hosts, policy makers, community groups, landlordsand others — to ensure middle-class people can share theirhomes and contribute to their communities.”

Related: 5 Airbnb horror stories that will keep insurers upat night

Zell, chairman of Equity Residential, the largest publiclytraded landlord in the U.S., with more than 100,000 units, saidWednesday that Airbnb approached his company and “has had someconversations.”

“I don’t think the overall scale of Airbnb is going to changethe multifamily business,” Zell said in an interview on BloombergTelevision.

Jason Reilley, a spokesman for Arlington, Virginia-basedAvalonBay, declined to comment on Airbnb.

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