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Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

nytimes.com

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Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#141

Post by andy_ppp »

whimsicalism wrote: post #81
iandanforth wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I've had the opposite experience would you be willing to share how you pick places? I rent: "Whole places", with a strong bias towards detached buildings, that rate 4.7 or higher on their scale, and have glowing reviews that mention how nice the host is. These are almost always $90/night or more, with an average of $120/night.

This is basically how I rent and I've also had great experiences. I have rented a "non-Whole place" and I would say that was a pretty bad experience. Our room was supposed to be the only Airbnb, but two nights in, they rented out a room with a frosted glass separator next to us as "420 friendly" and the couple that moved in proceeded to have quite loud sex. We gave them pretty scathing reviews, which I am not wont to…

And how did you review the room?

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#142

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jpalmer wrote: post #31

Market cap now exceeds top 5 US hotel chains combined. How much can it grow from here?

Airbnb has more rooms, as rafiki6 said, but without the disadvantage of having to own all those rooms. And maintain them. And pay taxes on them, and mortgages.

It's like saying that Google has a higher market cap than the top five content-based web sites. Sure, but... that kind of misses the point, doesn't it?

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#143

Post by andy_ppp »

dorchadas wrote: post #133
whimsicalism wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find I get a much more real sense of the city living in one of its (non-hotel zoned) neighborhoods in a real house.

The issue is that when you do this via AirBnB you're actively participating in driving out the people who actually need to live there and who make up the city and give it part of its character.

And driving up the price of rent for those living there too...

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#144

Post by AnimalMuppet »

patothon wrote: post #73
polote wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 60-100 staff? Sorry but that's very naïve. Think about how many core services this takes: I agree, but the engineering department could be handled with less than 50 people. Most of the work they do is linked to operation stuff and not engineering

the parent explained how it was impossible to get to that low of a number: -finance -payment -HR -management -verification of hosts / properties -scam detection and moderation -legal -dispute arbitration -programming -infrastructure -projects -building management for properties like HQ they own -customer service -etc. This represent so many people.

polote said "engineering". You responded by listing a bunch of non-engineering jobs that need done. OK, but you're arguing with something that is not what polote said.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#145

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

madaxe_again wrote: post #89
VectorLock wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How often do you hear it for Airbnb? I've heard a lot of potential hosts not do airbnb for worry of things like guests having massive parties, making drugs, destroying things, etc.

I’ve been running two airbnbs for two years, with over 1000 nights hosted, and I’ve had none of those things. The worst that’s happened is a guest broke a chair, which they apologised over and paid for. People are generally decent.

Some evidence of that would be that AirBnb has been growing for almost 15 years. If people were not generally decent, the business would never have scaled to this level.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#146

Post by csomar »

andy_ppp wrote: post #42
grailed wrote: post #8

I hear a lot of talk surrounding their "moat" and many skeptics are questioning whether or not they will be able to maintain their competitive advantage. However, it feels like Airbnb has solved a truly hard problem: how to make people trust your service. People are using this app to go stay in random people's homes. How often do you hear people talk about being murdered in uber? I still hear it. How often do you hea…

I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with Airbnb and hosts who are basically trying to rinse as much money as possible for as little effort as possible. I’m not sure after a long journey I want to wonder around the Edinburgh fringe again, trying to decipher Scottish, while the wind is going crazy and there are millions of people floating around just to get keys. I think Airbnb is great if there are 15 of you sharing…

I never used AirBnB for that reason: The hotel was mostly the same price. But I guess if I were with 2-3 friends, the equation will change. AirBnB is bad deal if you are traveling alone.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#147

Post by treis »

giarc wrote: post #129
treis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For some reason, I just feel this price is too high for them and that it will fall in the coming 2-3 months. They've got a lot going for them they are: A verb now like Google or Zoom. The dominant player in a global 2 sided market Potential major competitors (i.e. AirBnB by Marriott) are blocked by legal complications They're going to be very profitable for a long time. A 100billion valuation is a tall order as it i…

Becoming a verb can be hit or miss. Take for example Kleenex. If I say to you, "can you grab me a box of Kleenex at the store" you don't instinctively buy Kleenex brand, you buy whatever is on sale/stands out/is your regular brand.

Kleenex has been the leader in their segment for a century now and has half the market.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#148

Post by ghufran_syed »

I pretty much stopped using Airbnb after getting a bad review from a host for “not tidying up” - what exactly is the large cleaning fee for? So paying almost hotel prices for less than hotel level service seems like a pretty bad deal. Particularly when the host wants you to also jump through hoops to avoid getting busted by the homeowners or tenants association...

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#149

Post by vmarsy »

subsubzero wrote: post #132

Some of my experiences with airbnb, always a guest not an owner: Bads - Had a really bad house with cabinet doors torn off the cabinets, trash in the garage, place was a total dump. Stayed one day and got the rest of my money back. Another place had a bad mouse infestation, this was dealt with by the owner but it was still pretty shocking as I have never lived or stayed in a place that had a single mouse my entire li…

> Ugly - Alot of owners now are pulling a perfectly legal scam of listing a place at a certain price point and then charging an extremely high cleaning fee. When booking it, you are then shocked by the extreme fees, one place (5 days stay) was charging $400 for their cleaning fee.

I'm not sure I follow here, the cleaning fee is announced before you confirm the booking isn't it? In a way it's similar to airlines having cheap tickets to then adding seat-choosing fee, bagage fee, etc. The initial low price is slightly deceptive to appear cheaper on aggregators, isn't it?

Here the "scam" is they use same deceptive practice to appear cheaper on the Airbnb map?

For any serious booking, people explore their options and open a few tabs of different listings to pick, since they have to check other things (smoker/non-smoker, pets/no pets, etc). The cleaning fee for the trip is listed there.

Some owners prefer long term stays, so putting a flat higher cleaning fee is a good mechanism to incentivise longer stays imo, as yes, cleaning is time consuming.

Maybe the Map itself could improve to show the total price for the trip instead of base-rate-per-night.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#150

Post by IshKebab »

subsubzero wrote: post #132

Some of my experiences with airbnb, always a guest not an owner: Bads - Had a really bad house with cabinet doors torn off the cabinets, trash in the garage, place was a total dump. Stayed one day and got the rest of my money back. Another place had a bad mouse infestation, this was dealt with by the owner but it was still pretty shocking as I have never lived or stayed in a place that had a single mouse my entire li…

Yeah the particularly annoying thing about the cleaning fee is that it isn't included in refunds. They advertise a 50% refund if you can't go on short notice. But actually it doesn't include the first night or the cleaning fee so it's more like 10-20% in practice.
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