Airbnb dominated by professional landlords • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#331

Post by wdb » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 6:29 AM UTC

jaclaz wrote: post #204

komaromy wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you should take into account the cut that a hotel chain extracts from each franchise to make a fair comparison. I don't have a good sense of how much that is.

Yes, I was hypothizing local owned (not chain) hotels, but you are right, anyway nowadays there will be the 15 % or higher fee that booking.com or similar charge, at least for the bookings that went through them. If you reduce the "before" of (let's say that the chain/franchise fee is lower and that not all bookings (thankfully) go through booking.com or similar, by 10% of 120,000,000 in the "before" i.e. 12,000,000…

Half the time when I called the hotel chain for a room reservation they offered a lower price then Booking.com. Think Hilton or IHG

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#332

Post by inimino » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 9:13 AM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #280

tptacek wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly, as anyone who has used Airbnb knows. Your renter rating on Airbnb is meaningless. If you somehow got a bad one, you'd just create a new profile. I've created new profiles for Airbnb rentals simply because I couldn't be arsed to remember which email address I'd used, and had no problems.

I can only speak for myself and the 5-6 people I know who rent their properties on these platforms; we don't rent to new profiles. Clearly some people do rent to new profiles. There are fools everywhere, but they won't be fools for long. It will only take a few bad experiences, and then they'll learn.

So... just another example of how the AirBnB system offloads risk onto the unsuspecting, then?

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#333

Post by user5994461 » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 9:21 AM UTC

saimiam wrote: post #313

user5994461 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living off renting is 100% foolproof with 3 properties. You don't have to pay rent when you own your property. I don't know if you said "houses" on purpose. Houses are going for more than 0.5 income.

How can you rent out 3 properties while living in one of them?

Assume that someone who rent 3 properties also have a place they live in.

Can be a 4th property. Can be that 1 of the rental is simply an independent floor in their 4 stories house.

Either way, if you own at least 3 properties you can have enough income to live.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#334

Post by Markoff » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 9:44 AM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #94

cletus wrote: post #17

Put me in the camp that's very anti-AirBnB as a resident who doesn't want where I lived turned into a hotel. I live in NYC. It's a problem. None of this is a surprise, so much so that AirBnB seems to be aware of this and is acting in a way that's, at best, ethically challenged and, at worst, illegal eg deleting listings before giving data to the state of NY that "shows" most hosts only have one unit [1]. If people wa…

Put me in the camp that's very anti-AirBnB as a resident who doesn't want where I lived turned into a hotel. I live in NYC. It's a problem. The real problem here is not Airbnb, which is a symptom; it's zoning, which forbids market-clearing prices and a sufficient number of units to satisfy demand for living in and visiting the city. For more on this, see e.g. Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High : https://www.am…

solution to this issue is not using substitute company which will break laws instead of you, but voting for representatives who will change laws the way you want

apparently you are in minority if it's not happening and it doesn't justify breaking the law

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#335

Post by Rjevski » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 12:06 PM UTC

FridgeSeal wrote: post #321

Rjevski wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which I couldn't care less about as long as they improve my daily life. I can book and pay an Uber in two clicks and it arrives on time. Why should I care about an idiot politician not getting their pockets filled because Uber aren't complying with regulations forcing them to fill his pockets?

Right sure, because the regulations are only there for a politician to fill their pockets and for no other reasons, and fuck consumer protections let's just let corporations do whatever they want because "fuck you I've got mine, and I got it on time".

Well if Uber doesn't provide consumer protection then you're not forced to use them. But personally I'd rather take the risk and give up my customer protection (and be fine 99% of the time) than deal with a conventional taxi. Judging by Uber's popularity it looks like I'm not alone.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#336

Post by IanDrake » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 1:03 PM UTC

inimino wrote: post #332

IanDrake wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself and the 5-6 people I know who rent their properties on these platforms; we don't rent to new profiles. Clearly some people do rent to new profiles. There are fools everywhere, but they won't be fools for long. It will only take a few bad experiences, and then they'll learn.

So... just another example of how the AirBnB system offloads risk onto the unsuspecting, then?

Seriously?

On one hand everyone is pissed that people are buying properties just to rent on airbnb (and home away, flipkey, vbro, etc...) and on the other hand we need to protect these same people from themselves?

You can't protect the predator and its prey.

If you want fewer people buying up properties for short term rentals you should want the weaker ones to have bad experiences and tell all their friends.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#337

Post by IanDrake » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 1:12 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #293

IanDrake wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak for myself and the 5-6 people I know who rent their properties on these platforms; we don't rent to new profiles. Clearly some people do rent to new profiles. There are fools everywhere, but they won't be fools for long. It will only take a few bad experiences, and then they'll learn.

You are not most people on Airbnb. I've rented pretty amazing places on fresh profiles. And really, it's not as if the idea that online rating systems are unhelpful is new to anyone.

From a single renter's point of view, you have a big pool of places. You'll find one that doesn't mind your new profile. I get that.

From a single host's point of view, you have 0% chance of renting with me or the hosts like me.

So we're looking at this from different views. I get that people with new profiles CAN find a place, even a nice place. Please get that they won't find it with cautious hosts that are careful about their visitors.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#338

Post by pyroinferno » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #97

OldSchoolJohnny wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who is experiencing the implications of a super low rental vacancy rate, I think most people in my situation are with me when we say shut it down, entirely, in any city with a low tenancy vacancy rate. It's hurting society at large to the benefit of a precious few.

I think most people in my situation are with me when we say shut it down, entirely, in any city with a low tenancy vacancy rate. It's hurting society at large to the benefit of a precious few. You know, I've heard about some crazy cutting-edge technologies like steel frames and elevators that can allow us to raise the vacancy rate by increasing the total number of usable units in a given metro area.

"Everything must be like a commieblock!"

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#339

Post by southphillyman » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

At least these professional landlords own the properties and thus have some sort of stake in the matter. A friend of mine some how managed to rent multiple apartments at the same time and then rented them all out via AirBnb. He lived with his girlfriend, so he was essentially a professional landlord who didn't own any property.

I like AirBnb but with time it's warts are being exposed. After being racially profiled multiple times, having a host cancel on me at the last minute and sending my money back via Western Union, and other annoyances I now consider hotels about 50% of the time after almost exclusively doing AirBnb.

Re: Airbnb dominated by professional landlords

#340

Post by anindha » Mon, Aug 07, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #110

reza_n wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It converts long term housing stock into short term housing, which benefits tourists with cheaper prices and increases the price for residents since both are competing for the same units. Basically, tourists are getting a free ride on the backs of residents. Its always been the other way around, tourists pay extra taxes and fees which go back to the city (and residents) and entrepreneurs build hotels which once again…

The economic response to this (and I'm not saying I agree...I don't have a horse in this race either way) is that a tourist's willingness to pay for accommodation exceeds a resident's, and so they should get the apartment. And the apartment owner can turn around and capture this surplus by renting out their accommodations to tourists on AirBnB. The market price for housing is artificially low in most municipalities b…

If a neighborhood catered only to tourists and Airbnb visitors it would slowly turn into Times Square (NY) or Union Square (SF). This would not be a stationary equilibrium.