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Airbnb's impact on cities

theguardian.com

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Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#101

Post by Lucadg »

icebraining wrote: post #57
personlurking wrote: post #25

It's not only Airbnb in Europe, but also Erasmus (twice a year they make finding housing very difficult), Uniplaces (like Airbnb but for EU students), local classifieds sites (which now just double as Airbnb and Uniplaces listings) and being known as an affordable city (like here, in Lisbon, which is being called "the new Berlin" as well as the new "startup capital city"). Over the past 3 years, rental prices here ha…

As someone who rents out rooms in Lisbon (not on AirBnB), I can assure you the minimum is not 300/month, nor are those rare. A five minute search finds multiple available rooms for I do agree there is cause for concern, but the knee-jerk attacks on AirBnB is silly. For example, there's not a single word in that article regarding the concerns of landlords in making long term rentals. When it takes two years , hundreds…

same in Italy. Nobody wants to rent long term anymore and lose the apartment to someone who can't pay but can stay for a year or two. I personally met owners who had to pay gas, electricity and water to a tenant who didn't pay rent for 3 years. As soon as she left they went on Airbnb and didn't look back. Managing an Airbnb is not simple many people would prefer a long term tenant but it's just too risky.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#102

Post by Apocryphon »

hyperbovine wrote: post #26
joelrunyon wrote: post #4

I'm staying longer term in BCN for a month and a half and accidentally ended up at an outdoor concert last night before realizing that it was protesting tourists. "Tourism kills the city" was the slogan on the signs around the area. In 2 weeks, I've seen at least 2 demonstrations like this and it seems to be picking up from previous years that I've been here. Things are a little more crowded and I feel like every day…

Take it with a grain of salt: the Catalans will find any excuse to protest. I've lived all over the world and nothing even comes close to the number of street demonstrations I witnessed during my time in Barcelona.

Have you lived in South Korea? They've also got a very strong protest culture for a first world nation.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#103

Post by goblin89 »

Obviously this must be an impact of increased mobility and globalization forcing previously isolated economies to compete in larger market, with Airbnb merely riding the wave.

Dwellers of comparatively more well-off cities probably aren’t complaining about tourists driving them out, in other words. In Seoul, for example, monthly rate for a studio on Airbnb right now seems close to what a local would pay for a similar option found via old-school real estate agency[0].

[0] If they could get away without depositing some $xxxxx upfront. Based on experience of a friend who in 2014–2015 rented a studio found via an agency.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#104

Post by yummyfajitas »

cm3 wrote: post #65
YokoZar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tourists are seen as a way to generate revenue for a city while not incurring the sorts of costs in services that residents do. Similar motivations cause cities to build office buildings without corresponding homes. Empirically it seems like cities value tourists over residents -- if cities actually wanted residents, they'd approve construction of housing for them.

> Tourists are seen as a way to generate revenue for a city while not incurring the sorts of costs in services that residents do. How does that work? Don't tourists use the same infrastructure?

Tourists don't usually use schools or social services. This page suggests those make up 50% of the budget:

http://gothamist.com/2013/04/11/interactive_chart_nycs_budge...

(I'm assuming "debt" and "pensions" are allocated proportionally.)

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#105

Post by khattam »

dang wrote: post #94
khattam wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what I got from the article. I would suggest you to read it but that breaks the guidelines. Even the original title reads "From Berlin to Barcelona; will Airbnb ruin our most loved cities?". If anything, you should ban the article.

I'm sorry! I misread you. I thought "Try harder next time" was a swipe at another user, which it wasn't. (But https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11979795 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11963888 , the other comments I had in mind, did break the site guidelines, so I still need to ask you not to do that.) That title is indeed bad, but I've explained why we haven't banned the article here: https://news.ycomb…

OK, understood. Thank you.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#106

Post by nawitus »

Bombthecat wrote: post #9

The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I just can raise the rent? Right, no one would and no one will. Without the state intervening we will have a lot of new york cities around the globe.

Another question is "why shouldn't I create new houses and apartments and create more profit"? This is true whether or not that person/company already owns apartments in that place. The market is global.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#107

Post by kgwgk »

dang wrote: post #92
kgwgk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with the original title? Would the subtitle "Airbnb has become so successful that hotels are losing business and tourist sites face being ruined" be acceptable?

"Ruin" is hyperbolic and "ruin our most-loved" is over the top.

Ok, your site, your rules. But I'm surprised to see that that title in another submission in the top page has been changed from "Reasons not to use Facebook" (the title of the document in the sense) to the less neutral and more hyperbolic "Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook" (which is the ).

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#108

Post by hackuser »

> analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025.

In a world of 7-8 billion people (and where most people live with and travel with others, so there are many fewer households and travel groups), these numbers seem more than a little unlikely.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#109

Post by hackuser »

trusche wrote: post #7

Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments, and it's a fair question to ask if AirBnB is partially to blame. From [1]: > The average rental value of a two-bed apartment in the city centre at €2,000 per month, less a management fee, would equate to the apartment being occupied for just 120 nights of the year through Airbnb. > Investors have confirmed that if correct…

> Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments, and it's a fair question to ask if AirBnB is partially to blame

Perhaps we should see a pattern: The 'sharing economy' shifts power and wealth to those who own the assets, for which there is now greater demand and, due to resulting increased value, which are more costly to acquire.

Re: Airbnb's impact on cities

#110

Post by Techowl »

Surely the projections cited in this article aren't accurate.

> Already operating in 191 countries and 34,000 cities, analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025.

If the population of the world is about 8.2 billion in 2025, which is the UN's expectation [0], that'd mean one Airbnb booking a night per eight humans on Earth. Perhaps they mean yearly, not nightly?

[0] http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-bill...

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