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Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

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Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#251

Post by Sir_Substance »

matwood wrote: post #225
Sir_Substance wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're simply demonstrating NIMBYism. I signed a 12 month rental agreement for an apartment in Reykjavik in 2015. About a month after I moved in, the apartment above me was sold to an ABnBer, and for the rest of the year I had a rotating troop of loud holidayers cycling through. I took to sleeping with earplugs every night, and still often was kept up until 1 or 2 on a weeknight. Needless to say, I moved the second…

Did/does your building have the equivalent of an HOA? I know my neighborhood has banned short term rentals. The neighboring town zoned an area for short term rentals, forced registration with the city, and added some fees. It turned all of the legit short term rental owners effectively into enforcement of rentals outside the zone so they can control supply. It worked out pretty well and seemed to be a good balance of…

>Did/does your building have the equivalent of an HOA? I know my neighborhood has banned short term rentals.

Part of the problem is that landlords are able to charge so much more for AirBnB here that none of the landlords really want to rule out the possibility of getting in on the gravy themselves, hence the stat about half the rental market being on Airbnb.

Most buildings have an owners association of some kind, but it doesn't have the power that HOA's seem to have according to the Internet. As far as I know (and I'm not very knowledgeable on this), if there was any kind of major disagreement, such as some owners trying to stop others from doing short term rentals, ultimately it would have to end up in court to force someones hand.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#252

Post by zimablue »

jliptzin wrote: post #147
santoshalper wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, like Uber, for customers it is a massive improvement over the alternative. I am taking my family to Atlanta next week for my son's birthday. Using AirBNB (or equivalent service) saved me well over $1500 for the trip - we would have needed three hotel rooms but rented a house instead. As an added bonus, instead of all that money going to a large corporation, it will go to an individual. The level of myopia he…

Not really. I used to use AirBnB, but I went back to hotels. It's worth the extra money. Let me know how it works out for you and your family when you get there and the host is nowhere to be found and doesn't pick up his phone for 3 hours because he forgot, or you realize at 1am on a Saturday you forgot to take the key to the front door with you and there's nothing you can do about it until 10am, or afterwards when y…

This has actually happened to me (host not there) but

a: we just booked a cheap shitty room for the night b: AirBnB responded well and ensured we were taken care of in terms of refunds/reviews c: it was partly our fault I think because we didn't contact them in the week before we turned up, in future I'd always double check and confirm the plan.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#253

Post by return0 »

sisyphusprotege wrote: post #65
throwaway413 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's definitely killing it, that's for sure - owns none of them, simply partners with old, small apt complex owners that have extra units for rent. Spends all his time traveling the world while his "business partner" takes care of cleaning and maintenance.

If he owns nothing and provides so little value, I would bet its only a matter of time until he is cut out of the pie.

Why so? Do the owners provide any value?

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#254

Post by zimablue »

gordaco wrote: post #205
closeparen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The externalities are... what exactly? Too much foot traffic to your door? That's hardly analogous to toxic waste dumping. (Assuming you are talking about single room rather than whole home rentals. Whole home rentals certainly do have the toxic effect of lowering housing supply in cities starved for rentals).

The main externality is driving the price up and shrinking the pool of homes for actual residents who need to rent a place to live. This is already happening in some parts of the world. For example, people from Barcelona are starting to protest (see [1], and [2] by the way. In Spanish, sorry!). In my city, Málaga, it's starting to happen as well. I personally know a person who had to move out because the landlord wan…

I don't think that you can actually call increasing property prices a negative externality. It's a natural consequence of making that tourism more efficient. It's like someone invented a way to turn fruit into gold and you're complaining that it drives the price of fruit up. Well, OK that has some bad effects but they're almost by definition (like, how economics works) less than the positive effects of now having more gold.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#255

Post by vmarsy »

> Some 58 percent of all offers on Airbnb in Germany are entire apartments or even apartment blocks - meaning professional landlords are effectively the core of Airbnb's business.

Someone working a full time job, who owns a primary residence as well as a secondary one for vacation. Does renting that secondary location means they are "a professional landlord" ? If someone who owns an apartment but is going abroad for a bit for vacation/work and have a family member take care of renting the place on AirBnB, are they "professional landlords" ?

I would assume professional landlord = landlord whose full time job is to take care of the rentals, I don't understand the jump from "this listing is an entire apartment" => "This is a professional landlord"

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#256

Post by AlexandrB »

Jabanga wrote: post #244
bigdubs wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher incidents of noise violations, higher trash output, there are a bunch of factors that make hotel guests / airbnb guests less desirable than a typical tenant.

The same could apply to gender, race, age, and occupation groups. I don't think it's good policy to create laws based on generalisations.

Wow, this is the worst comment I've read on this so far. You're saying that differences in extrinsic incentives (tennant vs. resident) should be treated the same as biological differences when discriminating between good and bad neighbors. Are you kidding?

The equivalent of your statement is saying that a licensed doctor and a stranger who claims to know what he's doing should both be able to perform surgery on you - because we wouldn't want to discriminate.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#257

Post by TeMPOraL »

quuquuquu wrote: post #156
Sir_Substance wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're simply demonstrating NIMBYism. I signed a 12 month rental agreement for an apartment in Reykjavik in 2015. About a month after I moved in, the apartment above me was sold to an ABnBer, and for the rest of the year I had a rotating troop of loud holidayers cycling through. I took to sleeping with earplugs every night, and still often was kept up until 1 or 2 on a weeknight. Needless to say, I moved the second…

You've provided a well-thought-out, evidence-based response, but it seems people are disagreeing with the content. I too agree that there are businesses out there that offload costs onto society. Some people use these services responsibly, enjoy a cost-savings, and will usually ardently defend the merits of the company that provides it. Some number of other people do not use the service responsibly, and through their…

> Where Airbnb differs (...) is that Airbnb is a tech company, I guess.

I disagree. IMO it's different simply because it's new and growing extremely large. All your other examples are old-school things that expand slowly, locally, and that we have plenty of experience in handling. They're also all regulated, and actually follow those regulations.

I think "societal strip-mining" is a very apt description of Uber and AirBnB.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#258

Post by spamizbad »

jliptzin wrote: post #147
santoshalper wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, like Uber, for customers it is a massive improvement over the alternative. I am taking my family to Atlanta next week for my son's birthday. Using AirBNB (or equivalent service) saved me well over $1500 for the trip - we would have needed three hotel rooms but rented a house instead. As an added bonus, instead of all that money going to a large corporation, it will go to an individual. The level of myopia he…

Not really. I used to use AirBnB, but I went back to hotels. It's worth the extra money. Let me know how it works out for you and your family when you get there and the host is nowhere to be found and doesn't pick up his phone for 3 hours because he forgot, or you realize at 1am on a Saturday you forgot to take the key to the front door with you and there's nothing you can do about it until 10am, or afterwards when y…

Wait... AirBnB hosts can require guests to "refresh" their own bedding before they leave?

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#259

Post by quuquuquu »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #257
quuquuquu wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've provided a well-thought-out, evidence-based response, but it seems people are disagreeing with the content. I too agree that there are businesses out there that offload costs onto society. Some people use these services responsibly, enjoy a cost-savings, and will usually ardently defend the merits of the company that provides it. Some number of other people do not use the service responsibly, and through their…

> Where Airbnb differs (...) is that Airbnb is a tech company, I guess. I disagree. IMO it's different simply because it's new and growing extremely large. All your other examples are old-school things that expand slowly, locally, and that we have plenty of experience in handling. They're also all regulated, and actually follow those regulations. I think "societal strip-mining" is a very apt description of Uber and A…

I am inclined to agree!

I think their technology has given them the ability to coordinate laborers with buyers like never before.

It isn't centralized like a casino or brothel, because the workers are geographically dispersed and don't have to show up to a physical building/boss for instructions.

It is more effective than craigslist or a newspaper, because their technology has evolved and is trusted enough to deliver quality service in real-time.

There is a big war on how to regulate/clamp down on this (depends on your view), but it is likely their technology that made the difference compared to other business models.

this doesn't give them a free pass, it just explains why/how it happened maybe ^.^

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#260

Post by legulere »

3pt14159 wrote: post #51

Look, we have a couple problems: low interest rates, large variance in productivity / earnings, really shitty hotels because they're operating on old-world assumptions. One under appreciated thing about apps like Uber and AirBnb is the star rating system. I know I'm a five star tenant. I know I never shit in the sink. I know I never leave a bunch of condoms or cigar butts all over the balcony or hotel room. But the h…

The problem is that there are already regulations, but AirBnBs are skirting them.
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