Dunno what else to tag this with.
IE, it's illegal absolutely everywhere but no municipality has ever had to police it before and AirBnB knows this thus their entire business model is frontrunning democracy. I fucking hate AirBnB. Every AirBnB I've ever been in was weird and with no exception, hotels have been cheaper. Fight me.Airbnb hosts’ backgrounds, financial circumstances and businesses vary, which makes addressing their woes challenging. They operate in a gray market in many cities because short-term rental laws are still evolving.
The death of AirBnB would be a small silver lining in the quandary that is covid. I fucking hate AirBnB. There’s some decent people using it but by and large housing shouldn’t be used for an “AirBnB portfolio”, those people can get fucked for contributing to the housing issues we have in this country.
Probably the travel business will eventually recover. If Airbnb disappears, what would you like to see take its place? Just more business for the Hilton family? I agree that converting apartments into vacation rentals puts pressure on the housing supply. That housing was mostly created by developers hoping to make money by increasing supply. Where housing is scarce now, developers have a clear opportunity to make more money by building more housing. Why don't they?
I feel like you're trying to get a bite on that line. Obviously housing policy is a big problem here, and one that liberals love to whine about until anyone suggest that zoning laws be relaxed in their neighborhood to create low-income multi-family housing. I think Minneapolis is in the middle of an interesting experiment, as they recently banned single family housing exclusive zoning. I haven't been following it, but my guess is it will take years to get any data around it. Personally, I like AirBnB. I like it even more since I've had kids, since staying in a hotel sucks when you can't go to restaurants for every meal due to kids, and you need separate bedrooms due to kids. Try renting a suite with a kitchenette at any hotel worth its salt. Usually not an option and when it is it's like $1200 per night. AirBnB obviously fills a niche that needed to be filled. Whether they satisfy all the appropriate tax laws and safety standards I guess should be up to local authorities. I won't shed a tear for anyone who leverages the shit out of their personal income to get more AirBnB properties. There's no such thing as free money, and high reward is the opposite side of high risk. But as long as I can rent a condo in a desirable location when I travel with my family I'm going to do it.Why don't they?
They're called Bed'n'Breakfasts. They're licensed. They're run by small proprietors. They pay taxes. And they're generally in the same neighborhoods as the AirBnBs. Oddly enough, it's almost as if "AirBnB" had them in mind. The price difference between an AirBnB and a non-air BnB is the difference in taxes and regulation. Period.AirBnB obviously fills a niche that needed to be filled.
Yeah for sure. But just as with ride sharing, it's not just about price, but availability. The chance to get an ultra short term rental anywhere you want to go is enough to paper over the problems. Not at all saying it's problem free. Just saying that while it's available it's irresistible.
I resist 'em just fine. They have zero fucking charm for me and they destroy neighborhoods. You probably haven't seen end-stage weirdness like I have - you visit a friend in his 1-br apartment and are told to talk quietly because the lump on the couch is an AirBnB "guest." You stop in on friends from out of town and you talk about the decor and you hear a loud "HAH!" from the upstairs you didn't know it had because behind that door over there is a stairway that the family retreats behind when they rent out their house to cover their ridiculous Santa Monica rent. My last apartment in LA was $2850 a month for 1300 sqft. As soon as we left the landlord flipped it to a $300/night AirBnB despite every CC&R forbidding them from doing so. Why? 'cuz it takes months for condo boards to act and that's at least six months worth of income while "guests" break corona bottles in the hot tub.
No, I'd rather see people staying at the little inn up north that's for sale because people rent out other families 2nd and 3rd cabins instead. Which I realize is a total edge-case but that's primarily what I use AirBnb for. A couple of issues I have with AirBnB which kleinbl00 hasn't already keyed in on. "$55 per night - $240 total" is actually $269. "$30 per night - $119 total" is actually $133. There's so many fees and associated dollars I'm paying which don't go to the AirBnb renter and the existence of AirBnB directly impacts the amount of money I'm paying in rent, and others too. Here's a bunch of resources confirming that: HBR CityLab EPI Phys Also and this is me being petty but when I type in where I live, AirBnB gives me a picture of Seattle and fuuuuuuuck that.
People are free to stay at little inns, but many travelers have other preferences. I've had similar frustrations with Airbnb, so it helps that there are dozens of alternatives. If you are concerned about how well the owner is treated, there are guides oriented toward the host. One of these points out that there is some compensation for Airbnb fees in that they have the largest community. If you live in a nice place, there's going to be demand to live and visit there, and housing/accommodation prices will rise if supply doesn't keep up. As b_b observed, policy bears some responsibility when Apartment buildings are illegal to build in 76% of San Francisco.
You know what? No. There's a patchwork of federal, state, city and zoning legislation that permits or does not permit transient accommodation and licenses or does not license transient accommodation. All of these regulations were passed through the legislative process, by stakeholders in their municipalities, to maintain or improve the standard of living of the communities they live in and are responsible for. These regulations are not new, are not controversial, and have never been questioned. AirBnB's entire business model is "come at me bro." The fundamental operating principle behind AirBnB is "you don't have the manpower or budget to enforce this." And when people try to pass measures to drum up the manpower or budget, AirBnB spends millions to defeat it. As is their due, of course - grifters gonna grift. But the whole point is not "people are free to stay at little inns" the point is that people settled on and voted on how they want their neighborhoods to run and AirBnB knew they could get away with a smash'n'grab. If AirBnB had the vaguest interest in keeping those places nice they'd handle the lodging tax that pretty much every municipality requires. As it is, they only do it where it's been mandated, saying it's the responsibility of the host to deal with it literally everywhere else. If you live in a nice place, there's going to be demand to live and visit there, and housing/accommodation prices will rise if supply doesn't keep up.
Apartment buildings are illegal to build in 76% of San Francisco.
Yeah when you look anywhere rural you see a lot of dead bed'n'breakfasts killed by AirBnB. it was actually comparing "hey, this house in my LA neighborhood doesn't suck, wait it's how much, okay how much would that get me where I actually want to live" that got me out of LA. There was a 2200sqft house with no ocean view in Playa Del Rey going for a mere $600k more than this place. I think I've seen eight (?) bed'n'breakfasts cack it just watching real estate listings. it ends up being awkward because usually you've got an innkeep who knows they need four or five rooms to make the economics work out so they build a massive addition that doesn't really make sense for a homeowner and unless you have a bunch of burnout college students around, you end up with a big HELOC and a lot of space to heat and nothing to show for it.
I hate AirBnB. They are the reason people cannot afford living in tel Aviv anymore. The same is happening in Berlin. A friend of mine that lives in a soon to be gentrified neighborhood in tel Aviv can't pay her rent anymore during the covid19 situation because she relied on subletting one room in her apartment via AirBnB. People were fine paying the high prices because they could rely on AirBnB to pay the rent. And now they are fucked. Maybe their problem. I wouldn't want to rely on a company like airbnb to make ends meet. Or should I?
Even my best airbnb experience was weird at best. The bad ones were horrible. One time I rented a closet with a loft bed in it. Another time I got one of four mattresses in a living room in a house across from a coffin factory that was probably a zoning violation. Just a garbage platform. I have no sympathy for these people
I suspect this will end somewhere around 70% of the AirBnB rentals listed. And those properties will suddenly come up for sale. In prime locations. At fire-sale prices. If I was someone with $2m waiting to be spent, I'd get it out in cash today, and go on a real estate buying spree in about a month...
Air B&B at this scale is probably dead but I think it’s wishful thinking that the model is going away. What’s going to happen is these hosts will go bankrupt then some entity with access to 0-1% borrowing rates will swoop up and establish some sort of corporate consolidated air b&b hotel lite.
I've been running an airbnb apartment for about 4 years. But last year, I felt my profits margins were shrinking - either because of my not perfect reviews, or the fact that everyone and their mom got an airbnb. I'm glad i have called it quits last September and gave back the apartment! I mean, i would have been fine either way - long term rental units in my neighbourhood fly out like hot cakes. But being a host is basically being a glorified cleaning lady. The money started out good, but at some point I started questioning how much I wanted to do someone else's laundry every 3 days. And having dealt with airBNB over the year, they really suck and fight tooth and nail to not give you back any money ever for damage caused by guests. Quality has really gone down as a user too.
My wife is a big fan of bed and breakfasts. They have their charms - you show up, you meet the innkeeper, they tell you a little about the town, they ask if their idea for breakfast will work for you. You've probably already chatted with them over email; they've maybe arranged a keydrop for you, maybe they've told you that Suki will be letting you in because they're at a dog show or something. IN the morning you eat someone else's food, they're happy to provide you with the recipe, and they chat about what the hell you're doing with your day. They are full of recommendations and generally a shit-ton of local pride and they will happily give you all the gossip that Fodor's will not. A concierge will say "yes let me set that up for you" when you say you want to go hiking. A B&B host will say "lone cone is lovely this time of year and the weather's perfect for it - I'll need to arrange a water taxi and get tribal permission give me a sec" and then they'll come top up your coffee. The principal drawback of B&Bs is that they're geared towards old people. AirBnB saw this and said "what if we did this without any of the personal touch, let everyone skip all the regulation and licensing and skimmed off the top?" It's had the effect of raising a generation that has no fucking idea what's available. More importantly, it's raised a generation of hosts that know there's no fucking point in hosting and that operating an illegal inn basically has to be done defensively. My first experience with AirBnB was a host demanding some sort of fucking essay about how I wouldn't trash the place and I was like "you have my credit card, you have my driver's license, the app has every goddamn thing about me, fuckin' Mariott isn't going to require an essay" and that was fucking that. I mean, I can't really blame the guy - AirBnB might have all that info but fuckin' hell they aren't going to give it to him. So really, they're the middleman that does no decent middle-manning. And they should perish in flames.