The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#71

Post by gamblor956 » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #25

dehrmann wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that I wish someone would break is hotel/tourism tax. It's a tax that locals rarely pay, but visitors pay all the time, and since visitors don't vote where they visit, it's a form or taxation without representation.

> it's a form or taxation without representation. Immigrants, even permanent residents, pay all the taxes and have none of the representation. Felons too (while in prison and up to 2 years after). I have a feeling “taxation without representation” stopped being an applicable argument as soon as USA won the independence war.

Immigrants and permanent residents have representation, as do felons.

Congresspeople represent all the residents of their district, not just the citizens. While non-citizens are not allowed to vote on their choice of representative, they are allowed to call their local congressperson and express their opinions on upcoming legislation, and can volunteer in political campaigns. Permanent residents are also allowed to donate money to political campaigns.

At least in CA and NY, non-citizens do regularly take advantage of their rights within the US political system.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#72

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

karzeem wrote: post #34

matchbok wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform actively harms communities. Don't be selfish.

It harms communities by allowing housing inventory to flow to where the demand is most intense?

There are externalities, though, to running a hotel, which is why we have taxes and rules to mitigate those things. These people are trying to bypass these mitigations, and push the externalities back on the populace. That is not ok.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#73

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

jimrhods23 wrote: post #13

I don't really thing what this guy did was a bad thing: He had positive reviews, multiple maids to cleanup after guests, and willingly broke leases and lost money when there were complaints.

Sure, the people renting from him loved it; the neighbors, however, had to suffer. The reason we have hotel regulations is to help mitigate the externalities that hotel operations put on the nearby community. This guy was bypassing all of those.

There are more people involved in the transaction than just the renter and the rentee.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#74

Post by notmyaccount » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #68

notmyaccount wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean declaring a property to be short term rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. AirBnb definitely solves a problem and generally at a much cheaper price. We need to update our laws to let it do that in a sustainable manner. Edit: Corrected rentable to short-term rentable

I mean declaring a property to be rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. Simply false. These are the steps involved in "declaring" your property to be rentable: Step 1a: If you rent your place, ask your landlord for permission. Step 1b: If you live in a condo building, ask your condo assoc…

Totally my bad. I used the wrong word rentable, whereas I meant to write short-term rentals.

For example, if I own a single-family home, my ability to rent it out is restricted by zoning rules. I would have to look up the Certificate of Occupancy and potentially make changes if I intended to rent my place out. It could even mean involving an architect because the building would have to meet the structural requirements for a rooming house. There are lots of redtapes.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#75

Post by karzeem » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #57

karzeem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dense, multi-use blocks are part of the magic of New York. And there are hotels comingled with residential buildings all over the city. I'm not saying tenants should be free to violate their agreements with landlords, but these uses of Airbnb are solving a problem that city laws have created (an extreme lack of housing and hotel supply). I blame those city laws as a root cause. Putting supply on Airbnb is just water…

These people didn't just "commingle" hotels alongside other buildings; they implanted hotels into apartment buildings . That is definitely not a norm in NYC.

I'm with you that if they were doing that in violation of their lease, then it's wrong.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#76

Post by zaroth » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

Having stayed in AirBnB-type listings when traveling with my family, it’s clear to me that there is a huge market need for short term home rentals, and we should figure out how to do this without stomping on neighbors or pricing out locals in the process.

There are a lot of positive externalities to families and larger groups coming to a city and spending their money.

When I need 3 adjoining bedrooms and a space that will take dogs, a hotel is going to cost an absolute fortune in comparison or be actually impossible to find.

Here’s to hoping there’s a happy medium to be found with the right combination of technology and regulation.

For example, what about a condo bylaws which granted the right to rent a unit but with a 20% per night fee which goes to reducing condo fees for the rest of the building. There’s a reasonable number which covers the externality.

As far as housing stock is concerned, that’s perhaps a trickier problem. I think it’s probably easier to quantify how many units are not available for a local rental and harder to quantify the economic positive value of the rental to locals, and so it’s an easy scapegoat for property prices which were probably overly high to begin with.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#77

Post by brianwawok » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 10:44 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #76

Having stayed in AirBnB-type listings when traveling with my family, it’s clear to me that there is a huge market need for short term home rentals, and we should figure out how to do this without stomping on neighbors or pricing out locals in the process. There are a lot of positive externalities to families and larger groups coming to a city and spending their money. When I need 3 adjoining bedrooms and a space that…

How though? What is the proposal to not hit NIMBYism?

I am generally very liberal with what I think homeowners should be allowed to do. But an apartment or condo next to, or above mine with a rotating crew of guests? I shouldn't need to put up with that unless I agree to it in writing before starting my lease.

There IS existing space marked out for hotels. If it were a profitable business, why has no one starting build hotel 'houses' to rent for visitors?

The reason is IMO price, it would be very expensive to rent out a hotel "house". The reason the AirBnB is cheap is that you are making others eat your negative externalities (i.e. the guys under you get to deal with 2am stomping).

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#78

Post by brandonmenc » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 11:02 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #76

Having stayed in AirBnB-type listings when traveling with my family, it’s clear to me that there is a huge market need for short term home rentals, and we should figure out how to do this without stomping on neighbors or pricing out locals in the process. There are a lot of positive externalities to families and larger groups coming to a city and spending their money. When I need 3 adjoining bedrooms and a space that…

> When I need 3 adjoining bedrooms and a space that will take dogs, a hotel is going to cost an absolute fortune in comparison or be actually impossible to find.

Board your dogs at home.

It's impossible to penalize dog owners for not cleaning up after themselves when they're skipping town in a few days.

This is why zoning laws prohibit renting in residential areas - because you can't threaten people who don't live there into good behavior, because they're not around long enough to actually be punished.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#79

Post by dillondoyle » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 11:11 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #77

zaroth wrote: post #76

Having stayed in AirBnB-type listings when traveling with my family, it’s clear to me that there is a huge market need for short term home rentals, and we should figure out how to do this without stomping on neighbors or pricing out locals in the process. There are a lot of positive externalities to families and larger groups coming to a city and spending their money. When I need 3 adjoining bedrooms and a space that…

How though? What is the proposal to not hit NIMBYism? I am generally very liberal with what I think homeowners should be allowed to do. But an apartment or condo next to, or above mine with a rotating crew of guests? I shouldn't need to put up with that unless I agree to it in writing before starting my lease. There IS existing space marked out for hotels. If it were a profitable business, why has no one starting bui…

Plus I'm sure there are a lot of regulations for hotels in a city like NYC that probably cost a lot of money.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#80

Post by greenyoda » Sat, Feb 23, 2019, 11:17 PM UTC

notmyaccount wrote: post #42

notahacker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced the people with resources to make $20m in hotel revenues from 18 shell corporations are the little guy being stamped on and the neighbours being buzzed by people wanting hotel service are the Big Bad Corporation here...

I am not saying that they should go on breaking the laws. The laws are clear. But at certain times, the laws have been deliberately lobbied to create a hindrance for any new players in the market. Like in this case, applying for a permit to rent out apartments should have been much easier than the current cumbersome process is. Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,5…

> Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,587 yellow cabs in the city of 8.5 million people.

Before Uber, yellow medallion cabs were certainly not the only taxis available in NYC - they're just the only ones that can be legally hailed from the street. There have always been lots of car service companies in NYC that you can call to request a taxi. Some of these even offer online booking.