Looking forward to buying in at a reasonable price. If it wasn't for COVID, they would likely have hit 100Bn market cap pretty quick which doesn't leave as much room for growth.
Just a 100Bn? Why not make up a bigger number?
Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
101–110 of 153 posts
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#102I recently had the occasion to stay with 4 different Airbnb hosts over the span of under a month, my takeaway was that if I owned any Airbnb stock, I would've sold it immediately. The first two accommodations were huge let downs in terms of cleanliness, despite both advertising Enhanced Clean. The first trip was booked for a month, but we got sick of ants, mice and lack of action after about a week and left early. Th…
I'm sorry for your experience. I don't think people really deserve a right to review a place if they cancel immediately so i do agree with airbnb on this. Reviews are always a sad affair. recently had the first guest for a particular room who left a bad review. He was an old squatter so used to much better value for money and it (coincidentically) just happened that he checked out late because of an airbnb mistake so i had to tell him to go. i think that reflected in the score. is there anything to be done about this? such things are unfortunately just part of life. And i suppose even a two star review is preferable over 'we-dont-know-whether-this-is-a-trap-or-not'.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#103Didn't AirBnB just take out a huge loan on less-than-stellar terms? https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/15/airbnb-ups-its-debt-by-1bn... Not to mention how the company is getting hammered by the coronavirus, in addition to having to face the reality of having used shady tactics to prop up positive reviews over the years. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-ho... This sounds like they're trying to cas…
What do you mean by "shady tactics to prop up positive reviews over the years"? I'm an employee and we have very strict policies around review fairness. If anything, most review-related complaints come from hosts who want to have negative reviews removed due to perceived unfairness. By policy, negative reviews are rarely if ever removed this way much to the chagrin of hosts. Reviews are usually ranked chronologically…
I stayed in a place that had cockroaches and no hot water in the shower. Airbnb eventually let us move to another unit, but we were unable to review the unit that we had originally booked, and which we stayed in for over a week.
Any guest whom Airbnb agrees to re-home based on the conditions of their original unit should be allowed to leave a review for that unit.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#104I recently had the occasion to stay with 4 different Airbnb hosts over the span of under a month, my takeaway was that if I owned any Airbnb stock, I would've sold it immediately. The first two accommodations were huge let downs in terms of cleanliness, despite both advertising Enhanced Clean. The first trip was booked for a month, but we got sick of ants, mice and lack of action after about a week and left early. Th…
I had very similar experiences (unpleasant/unavailable host, squalid quarters and negative reviews being taken down) on Airbnb.
That is the unspoken rule in a two sided marketplace where one party is given preferential treatment (hosts in Airbnb, restaurants in delivery businesses and so on).
Like you, I too have lost faith in Airbnb reviews. Previously, I would have recommended staying at Airbnb when traveling with extended family but no longer.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't know this was a thing until my friend said he stayed in a guest room of a small country's embassy in SF that the host probably never had permission to rent out.
You haven't lived until you find out your host lied about the address so it wouldn't tip off their landlord, who forbid it in their lease
Had this very experience happen to me a few years back. Took a cab to the advertised address. Door locked. So I call the host and the host gives us a different address.
Catch a taxi to the other address and report it to Airbnb along with a request for cab refund (Airbnb just ignored the request). Host just started listing in a different address afterwards.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#106Why does Airbnb have no competitors? The site itself is not a huge value add. Their search is not fantastic. Uber has Lyft, Airbnb has ... vrbo??? no major competitors?
Could you expand on what's wrong with their search ?
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#107Not an employee but overall I am quite bullish on Airbnb as ironically they will be the definition of a what a post-covid travel company will become. Couple points in their favour: 1. Work from home becomes work from anywhere: The WFH trend is here to stay and will grow. If you have an option why not stay anywhere in world and work vs. close by home? I expect we will see a big % of WFH markets be global travelers. Pr…
Covid is going away in 6-12 months. I wouldn’t stake a long term business proposal on it.
We’re certainly not going to control it in the US with anything short of a vaccine. And that’s an extremely aggressive timeline even assuming that long term protective immunity is possible, that one of the current vaccine candidates is safe and effective, that we can make enough of it, and that people will take it.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#108I recently had the occasion to stay with 4 different Airbnb hosts over the span of under a month, my takeaway was that if I owned any Airbnb stock, I would've sold it immediately. The first two accommodations were huge let downs in terms of cleanliness, despite both advertising Enhanced Clean. The first trip was booked for a month, but we got sick of ants, mice and lack of action after about a week and left early. Th…
Same. Sometimes I use Airbnb and it's a mixed bag. Same thing happened with me once a year ago: I left a bad review for the host, the host a bad review to me, both have been removed.
so much for trust. Why not completely remove reviews and manually inspect each property with some regularity? Might as well do that since they're completely fake.
Sure, there'll be less properties but the quality will go up so much which translates into higher retention and $.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thriving business model while the slow cooker of regulations don't catch up to them. There are reports of some touristic cities starting to cap Airbnb rentals, or just outright outlawing them. It's for good measure, Airbnbs in Barcelona, Lisboa and a number of other European cities have priced out the local population, investors buying 4-10 apartments on the same house to rent out as short-term rentals. Airbnb create…
Illegal taxis and rental housing (whether short or long term) have been around forever though. And they weren't just a fringe thing. College students and immigrant groups may predominantly use them in many places. If there's a current increase in such things, I'd blame it on the factors and regulations restricting the legal supply of these things rather than on airbnb/uber.
Illegal child pornography, terrorism radicalisation and other modern issues have also been around forever, it doesn't mean that the scale and leverage of the internet haven't made it worse, at least in tooling.
The same applies to illegal taxis and housing, yes, they were problems before but you didn't have a centralised global network of rentals (many illegal) connecting to the market of people looking for accommodation. The scale is the problem here.
Re: Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August
#110Strange timing. I thought they’re in deep trouble thanks to covid