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Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

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11–20 of 118 posts

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#11

It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't appear to be any incoming federal support. Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this…

This would not be a bad thing. Airbnb has been driving up the cost of housing in many cities.

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#12

It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't appear to be any incoming federal support. Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this…

As someone that would like to buy a house one day, I welcome this. People owning multiple houses to rent out to vacationers that people would like to actually live in doesn't upset me at all.

If people buying houses to rent on Airbnb artificially inflated the housing market, it's just a necessary correction and federal support would be a mistake.

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#13

It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't appear to be any incoming federal support. Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this…

Isn't it equally frightening how Airbnb has contributed to the rise of real estate prices and rents?

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#14

It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't appear to be any incoming federal support. Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this…

They would just switch to VRBO or a similar service.

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#15

It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't appear to be any incoming federal support. Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this…

I was thinking this the other day, it is a special type of vendor lock-in.

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#16

It's kind of frightening to think of the broader economic impact it would have on the whole real estate market if Airbnb went belly up. Aren't there a ton of cases where people are mortgaging multiple homes and paying them off with the revenue they generate? That cash just dried up over night and there doesn't appear to be any incoming federal support. Edit: Look, I'm all for affordable housing, but when viewing this…

As someone that would like to buy a house one day, I welcome this. People owning multiple houses to rent out to vacationers that people would like to actually live in doesn't upset me at all. If people buying houses to rent on Airbnb artificially inflated the housing market, it's just a necessary correction and federal support would be a mistake.

hear hear! fuck those greedy fuckers!

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#17
post #8
post #2

How? What are they spending their money on? They need to put people on leave and "pause" their business as quickly as possible!

They’re losing revenue due to the massive amount of recently cancellations.

They're honoring a massive amount of refunds. There's also a lot of logistical work to be done for hosts which will probably be expensive.

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#18
post #3

Weren't they already losing money prior to this? Seems like a lot of companies are attributing losses to the Coronavirus masking the actual problem behind it all.

They lost close to $300M last quarter. And those were the good times.

Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus

#19
Why should Airbnb be making losses at this point?

Are they refunding booking fees to customers while paying hosts?

Traditional hotels lose money because of huge amount of, costs (both fixed and variable) associated with running a hotel.

shouldn't Airbnb be making so much money at this point?

Edit: "...at this point?" not in reference to the current pandemic, rather at this point of how far Airbnb has come and how they've become a household name all over the world.

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