I watched Airbnb places ruin Nashville. I feel for the employees of Airbnb, but Im not exactly sad to see this .
Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
61–70 of 118 posts
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Airbnb was never profitable (I think) Do you have any sources for this?
AirBnB first announced profitability in 2018, followed by 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/airbnb-sa... That said, I'm not sure how many asterisks are attached to the definition of profitable. Likewise, the fact that a company that holds no substantial assets while operating in the face of most regulations only became profitable in 2018, while clearly being the market leader, makes me wonder w…
No they didn't. Literally the first sentence of your Bloomberg link includes "based on a common measure that excludes some expenses."
They made an EBITDA (operating) profit. They were not a profitable company.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they be making lots of money when their business is tanking? Their reservations have more than halved, so that's a huge drop in revenue without much if a drop in costs (unless they fire half their workforce and walk away from half of their office leases).
I don't mean making money during this very pandemic. Rather, making money overall. What are they doing besides providing intermediary service all around (most of) the world throughh their website. I presumed they would be profitable by now, just as Facebook was profitable before IPO. Not saying they should be as profitable as Facebook but they should be profitable from taking a cut off every booking.
They're just doing what almost all VC-funded private tech companies do: Spend massive amounts of money to grow faster than if you limited yourself to what could be accomplished while maintaining profitability.
And the comparison to Facebook isn't really fair; not everyone can be a Facebook. They're an exceptional success story. Airbnb isn't.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Airbnb isn't rent seeking. They're providing a valuable service to tourists. I find it very hard to see how short term rentals should be illegal.
Hotels are a regulated industry for a reason and Airbnb is completely flouting the rules. No one wants to be a next-door neighbor to an Airbnb'ed apartment, and hotels are a more efficient use of real estate for housing a given number of tourists. So yeah, they're helping out tourists, but they're harming all the people in the city who live there and need a place to live. If you're primarily a tourist then Airbnb is…
Rentals have been a thing since people have been travelers. It's easy to point a finger at Airbnb, but a lack of affordable housing existed long before they were around. You could argue that hotels are using space that could be used for housing locals, too. Is Airbnb a factor in prices going up, yes. Is Airbnb the only factor, clearly no.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? We ban accounts that do this, and have had to ask you before.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
>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 net-net : is n't both the same?
Airbnb turns housing into hotels. Typically those are zoned differently, potentially subsidizing housing for locals at the cost of driving up prices for travelers.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#67It'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…
> 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. Oh I (living in Munich) hope for AirBnB going belly up. This will free a LOT of apartments back to normal rental markets. The rental markets won't be "hit" at all, the landlords will only lose the difference between "30 days of rent at AirBnB prices" and "30 days of rent at market…
> the difference between "30 days of rent at AirBnB prices" and "30 days of rent at market value".
Unfortunately this is huge - it's why rents have shot up in many cities.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#68Why don't they borrow given we're at 0 percent rates?
I suppose the serious answer is it depends on (a) can businesses borrow at 0% (actually no, not even banks can, the fed rate is not 0). And (b) if they could borrow at 0% what would the term be? The fed rate is only an overnight rate so it requires constant refinancing. If AirBNB could borrow for 20 years at 0% it might make sense, but in terms of how it able to borrow in reality, probably not so much.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#69It'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…
Airbnb would be “going up” if rentals cratered, losing it doesn’t have that many second-order effects. Vacation properties are going to get slaughtered for the next 2 years because no one wants to vacation.
Re: Airbnb Racks Up Hundreds of Millions in Losses Due to Coronavirus
#70How? What are they spending their money on? They need to put people on leave and "pause" their business as quickly as possible!
They've massively overbuilt their product, and I'm sure wasted millions in the process.
I recently booked and I had to actively avoid CTAs for things I wanted nothing to do with: tours, food offers, I don't even know. Finding a place to rent practically meant looking below the fold.
Also, pretty sure they developed their own fonts and I shudder to think what they paid for the new utero-logo.