AirBnb is a terrible, terrible company. Most of their money comes from corporate-owned mini-hotels yet they advertise as a mom and pop shop. At every turn their solution is to sue small towns and cities so they can continue to extract wealth from our neighborhoods. Disgusting.
What is a corporate owned mini-hotel? I am a fairly frequent Airbnb consumer and I have yet to stay somewhere that wasn't mom and pop.
Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
41–50 of 362 posts
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#42I think AirBnb is a wonderful, wonderful company. I don't want to stay in a hotel, and I don't want all of the hotel problems, including price. I value Airbnb's competition and think they are trying to do the best they can. Looking back at my history, 39 interactions across the country and not a single problem.
My beef is that it’s yet another case of outsiders pressuring local politics.
The McDonaldization of our neighborhoods continues.
Outsiders feeling owed a “piece of the action” makes it harder for people to live and work in these communities.
They demand more and more concessions to keep their profits going up, sapping attention and resources, and most importantly, time for discussing the needs of the locals.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#43Edit, it was shut down because my local area has a rule against bed and breakfasts that aren't located on a main road. Our Airbnb got shut down after a year by the local government. It wasn't a safety thing, it was a competition thing. Our Red Roof Inn charges 60 a night, but we charged 80 a night. Our reviews could make me tear up. People saying they had the best stay of their life. Asking them what they wanted for…
Guests may have loved it, but did the neighbors love it? Did the people looking for long-term rental housing who found it difficult to find long-term rentals love it? Did the people looking to get into home-ownership only to find that residential real-estate prices were increasing now that residential properties were semi-commercial properties love it?
> Did the people looking for long-term rental housing who found it difficult to find long-term rentals love it?
This is just passing the buck. If AirBnB is driving up rents you have a supply problem, not an AirBnB problem.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#44AirBnb is a terrible, terrible company. Most of their money comes from corporate-owned mini-hotels yet they advertise as a mom and pop shop. At every turn their solution is to sue small towns and cities so they can continue to extract wealth from our neighborhoods. Disgusting.
What is a corporate owned mini-hotel? I am a fairly frequent Airbnb consumer and I have yet to stay somewhere that wasn't mom and pop.
I think the "corporate-owned" piece is a misnomer. I think what they mean to say is that they are commercial operations, rather than individuals making use of extra space that they already had in their homes.
If someone buys or rents a property that is bigger than they need, for the sole purpose of AirBnB-ing the extra space, that is a commercial mini-hotel.
In some jurisdictions this is probably a good thing, where you don't have the tourism volume to warrant building a proper hotel but where there is demand for tourism accomodations; in other jurisdictions it represents a wantonly inefficient use of real estate resources.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is a corporate owned mini-hotel? I am a fairly frequent Airbnb consumer and I have yet to stay somewhere that wasn't mom and pop.
There are a few mini-hotels - properties with more than one room. How many are corporate owned is undetermined. This guy is just bitter about something, perhaps rightfully so. Or maybe just vote manipulation.
There are a few mini-hotels
More than a few. Check out AirBnB listing in Miami Beach, for example.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#46Edit, it was shut down because my local area has a rule against bed and breakfasts that aren't located on a main road. Our Airbnb got shut down after a year by the local government. It wasn't a safety thing, it was a competition thing. Our Red Roof Inn charges 60 a night, but we charged 80 a night. Our reviews could make me tear up. People saying they had the best stay of their life. Asking them what they wanted for…
There are many cities in Europe where AirBnB and similar services are a plague for locals. I'm sure it's great for tourists though.
First we couldn't buy and we were forced to rent because wealthy folks would buy the real estate in bulk to rent it and/or use it as a speculative investment, driving prices up and making it unafordable. Now they don't even bother to rent it long-term to locals, they're better off putting it on AirBnB for tourists at a much higher rate. Try renting a flat long-term in Lisbon these days and tell me how it goes.
I obviously don't know your situation and maybe there was some overreach in your case but in some cities government meddling is absolutely necessary lest the place turns into a Disneyland resort for wealthy tourists.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot of cities where apartments have become AirBnBs, caused great disruption to their neighbours, and driven up rents. This has resulted in people demanding that Something Be Done.
Are people using airbnbs as apartments? I don't see how it drives rent up. There's a finite amount of tourism/visitors so they should only be competing with hotels. What am I missing here? Edit: downvoted for asking a question you disagree with? What is this reddit?
AirBnB hosts in many cities are buying up apartments (or landlords who used to rent long-term are switching units to short-term rentals), reducing the supply and thus driving up prices for the remaining units.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#48To be sure, these aren’t Airbnb’s taxes, any more than Hilton “pays” taxes for its guests’ hotel stays. Rather, the officials sparring with Airbnb want the company to collect and forward the taxes from guests, much as hotels do. So this is local governments trying to railroad an online information/marketplace/intermediation firm into becoming a tax collector. The local governments can't practically collect the taxes,…
Sales taxes are collected by the business conducting the transaction. AirBnB is that business. I see nothing unreasonable about requiring them to collect said taxes.
If they were Craigslist, where they were actually just a passthrough for transactions conducted entirely outside their platform, then asking them to collect sales taxes would be unreasonable.
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot of cities where apartments have become AirBnBs, caused great disruption to their neighbours, and driven up rents. This has resulted in people demanding that Something Be Done.
Are people using airbnbs as apartments? I don't see how it drives rent up. There's a finite amount of tourism/visitors so they should only be competing with hotels. What am I missing here? Edit: downvoted for asking a question you disagree with? What is this reddit?
> I don't see how it drives rent up.
If entire apartments are made into AirBnbs, there's less apartments in the market which turns the prices up, what's so hard to grasp ?
Re: Airbnb’s ‘Guerrilla War’ Against Local Governments
#50AirBnb is a terrible, terrible company. Most of their money comes from corporate-owned mini-hotels yet they advertise as a mom and pop shop. At every turn their solution is to sue small towns and cities so they can continue to extract wealth from our neighborhoods. Disgusting.
What is a corporate owned mini-hotel? I am a fairly frequent Airbnb consumer and I have yet to stay somewhere that wasn't mom and pop.
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