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Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

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Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#91

Post by ducster696 »

randomsearch wrote: post #41
spuz wrote: post #32

I really wonder how much pressure AirBnB must be feeling from hosts in order to go through with this idea. There's no way that they have done thinking it would not have some downsides. I really would like to know how they calculated that going through with this idea would be a better option than doing nothing.

My thoughts too. But why does Airbnb care? Presumably the landlords will just come back or be replaced, and it’s not like they have shown concern for ethics in a long time.

My only thought would be if they collapse it could potentially be actual homeowners that would purchase the house instead of investors ending with less airbnb properties.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#92

Post by mchusma »

mathattack wrote: post #21

This seems counter-productive. Housing costs are up because of AirBnB. I’m not thrilled, but that’s the market. The market needs to reprice. Folks who bet on the market would get rich if the bet paid off. Let them sell their places, and someone else can rent them out in the future. Call me callous but I don’t feel the need to bail out someone who charged me $500/night on a place with a $3000 monthly payment. I entere…

Housing costs are not up because of Airbnb, they are up because of government regulation. If we wanted housing to cost to buy a house in the US to be $100k average, we could do it almost overnight by lifting regulations unrelated to safety. With existing automation tech (produce like industry instead of custom each time) we could get it to $50k. In 10 years we could make housing affordable if we had the societal will.

I think you can make many arguments that being more expensive is worth it (more free parking is an example of what is included in the price of a home today), but there is no technical reason homes cannot be very inexpensive. You can also argue it's a "feature not a bug" from existing homeowners, who work to reduce supply (zoning, NIMBY, etc).

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#93

Post by bagacrap »

Nasrudith wrote: post #54
sleavey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attitude of many people towards property is incredible. People expect house prices to rise and rise and somehow think they've been wronged by society/government policy/acts of god if the bubble bursts and they lose money. I've been called out by many ordinarily level headed people for saying that owning property is a risky investment.

It isn't just property but also jobs and industries. Look at the vastly disproportionate amount of tears for coal miners. That feeling seems to apply to any way to make a living that they react hostility to being told is risky. Because everything is an investment and everything is a risk including not taking one. I suspect it has to do with Calvinism essentially and the religious fixation of work as righteous and a g…

I'd rather live in a society that held work as righteous rather than idleness. It seems to be a problem currently that we're paying many workers more to stay home than they'd normally make on the job, and their personal attitudes towards work are not enough to overcome this inverse monetary incentive. As Musk put it, the economy is not just a free flowing cornucopia of "stuff" that everyone has to squabble over. You gotta make "stuff".

Coal miners, to switch careers, probably have to uproot their lives, move to another state, and take a much lower paying job. It seems obvious why they'd resent being told to do that. Lucky for me software is going pretty good, but if you told me I had to go install solar panels on a roof in Scottsdale tomorrow I might be upset.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#94

Post by treebornfrog »

tirpen wrote: post #38
treebornfrog wrote: post #3

I suspect that a lot of people jumped on the airbnb hype train and thought they could be a landlord of multiple properties and probably got leveraged. Now they're in trouble as their income dries up.

> Now they're in trouble as their income dries up. Good.

Darwinism at it's finest.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#95

Post by bagacrap »

lorsting wrote: post #73

The world as a whole is fucked up real good if a plea to donate is causing so much drama. Or is it that during these times only the crazy get promoted in front?

There are a lot of worthwhile, needy causes, but a for profit business is not one of them. Especially considering the amount of collateral damage airbnb has caused in various markets. If property owners are forced to sell at a loss, so be it. There's a theme here with various industries, such as airlines (save LUV), where they choose to operate with zero piggy bank/ margin for error, and when shit hits the fan they're immediately bankrupt. Fiscal irresponsibility should not be rewarded with handouts, imo. It does rile me a bit to even hear the suggestion that it should.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#96

Post by claudeganon »

solidasparagus wrote: post #71
claudeganon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look at an Airbnb listing, it will be advertised at a lower, per night rate, but when you go to book, it can jump up as much as 50% with tacked on fees. Hotels don’t do this. I just went on the site and looked at an advertised $80 per night listing. On booking it became $137, with the $40 cleaning and $17 service fees. That’s a $137 room not an $80 one and I doubt it costs $40 to clean it.

Hotels absolutely do this. Most egregiously in Las Vegas with 'resort fees', but try to book any hotel and you will get charged more than the advertised price due to 'taxes and fees'.

I always just prepay through third party sites like Expedia and never have this issue. Sometimes the the advertised rate is for a smaller room than I need, but I’ve learned to check that and the difference is rarely on the order of Airbnb’s fee/price inflation.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#97

Post by PascLeRasc »

sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

Does anyone know of an alternative to Airbnb that's somewhat more ethical/sustainable? I strongly dislike hotels and I've really enjoyed the home feeling of some Airbnbs I've stayed at. If there was some alternative that didn't promote the rental property culture that'd be great.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#98

Post by treebornfrog »

The second order effects are catastrophic too.

Think of all the companies that built their entire business model around helping airbnb owners manage their bookings / rental

For examples,hostmaker, which was heavily advertising in London (transport mainly) has gone bankrupt (1). They raised ~24M (2)

(1) https://hostmaker.com/gb/london/ (2) https://angel.co/company/hostmaker/funding

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#100

Post by ramraj07 »

sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

> how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!?

Because I suppose hotels have to actually clean their rooms well, so the housekeeping expense is probably a significant fraction of the daily charge. But Airbnbs definition of cleaning is at best changing the sheets (if you're lucky) and make sure that there are no streaks in the toilet. So they charge a pittance and get away with it.

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