Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments • Hacker News Board

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#231

Post by _zoltan_ » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:13 PM UTC

zrn900 wrote: post #209

SeanAnderson wrote: post #25

Barcelona has a population of ~1.7 million. The metro area surrounding is ~5.7 million. The metro area grew by ~100k in the past four years. They are freeing up ~10,000 houses over the next four years with this legislation. Barcelona built ~15,000 new properties between 2011 and 2020. The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the…

> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth. The population growth is largely due to rich foreigners moving into the city: "I was born and raised in Barcelona, no longer live there however. I didn't remember how bad it was until I went to visit my family last summer. Me and some friends w…

welcome to the real world, I guess, for these people? if your city is cheap by global standards then wealth will move in. it's quite simple really.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#232

Post by distances » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:15 PM UTC

fh973 wrote: post #217

distances wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helsinki is currently an interesting case, technically having oversupply of apartments. It's because the rising interest rates cratered the buyers' budgets -- the result is a mild downward trend in prices, definitely no crash. Building companies sit on a large supply on finished unsold apartments but steadfastly refuse to lower prices even a bit. New construction has halted completely. Seems like the construction sec…

Building companies don't own the apartments, banks do. Lower effective prices means writing off debt.

Not in Finland. Each housing complex is a separate company, and when you buy an apartment you actually buy a share in the company. Until sold to the buyers, the housing company is usually owned by the construction company. Banks of course provide funding, but the construction company is the one left holding the bag if the apartments don't sell.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#233

Post by Carrok » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:16 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #165

kachapopopow wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the "airbnb" areas drive normal citizens out which during off-seasons drains foot traffic making local shops go out of business which further complicates the problem. Not to mention that most tourists don't even sit around the local area, but rather go to the city attractions. Airbnb and resident housing areas are just not compatible, they have different needs and require different infrastructure. H…

The problem with hotel rooms is that they’re more expensive, get much more expensive per additional person, and don’t have the amenities of an appartement. If I’m somewhere with a group for longer than three days, we want to be able to hang somewhere and cook our own food. The only other thing that offers this feature set is private rooms in hostels, and those are both rare and nearly always fully booked. I’m not say…

AirBnBs have also started increasing rates based on extra people.

Maybe it's just me, but when I'm on vacation the last thing I want to spend my time doing is dishes. I'd also rather explore where I'm visiting than sitting in some random person's house.

Give me a hotel room with turn down service over an AirBnB every time.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#234

Post by r00fus » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:17 PM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #157

mjhay wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They recognize it exists. I'm even hearing podcast ads from Marriot or similar touting how much more reliable they are. AirBnBs I've stayed in the past few years have all been janky, weird, and not really any cheaper than hotels. I don't have to do chores at hotels, and I can always get (and return) the key promptly. I've also been told on several occasions not to let anyone else in the building know I was an AirBnB…

> AirBnBs I've stayed in the past few years have all been janky, weird, and not really any cheaper than hotels And yet, you stay in them.

If you have a family of 5 or more, hotel rooms suck - either someone sleeps on the floor or you have to find a "suite" that accommodates that. Or multiple rooms.

The major travel sites all push you to multiple rooms - but lots of hotels now don't have "adjoining room" access (compared to say 30 years ago), and in one case, our 2 rooms were on different floors because of check-in time.

The travel sites are picking up on this and competing with airbnb as well. Typically my experience with those rented homes is a) cheaper than airbnb and b) better service. However, I'm sure they are the same type of superhost company that would be banned in Barcelona.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#235

Post by anthonypasq » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:17 PM UTC

deutschepost wrote: post #40

HDThoreaun wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels suck. I want a hotel with no staff. Thats airbnb

If people would just rent out their flats when they are not living there that would be fine. But people and corporations buy up housing and put them on Airbnb for above market prices. Suddenly you have no more place to live for the locals who have to work in the city. And a very high priced hotel room for the tourists.

how is this functionally any different from a hotel? Do you complain that new hotel builds take housing away from locals, because presumably that hotel could have been residential housing instead?

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#236

Post by johnp314 » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:18 PM UTC

silverpepsi wrote: post #183

jorvi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with hotel rooms is that they’re more expensive, get much more expensive per additional person, and don’t have the amenities of an appartement. If I’m somewhere with a group for longer than three days, we want to be able to hang somewhere and cook our own food. The only other thing that offers this feature set is private rooms in hostels, and those are both rare and nearly always fully booked. I’m not say…

"we want to be able to hang somewhere" ...just saying because I'm sorry I can't contain myself: This is exactly the use case Airbnb doesn't solve. I fly half-way across the world to meet my parents on vacation and almost without fail the only Airbnb I can find (or all the ones I can find) have a strict rule against guests. Hence I can't have my parents over 10 minutes to drink tea because if the owner, big brother, f…

I have never run into this alleged issue. In fact, we have several times booked AirBnB homes in the town of my youth and hosted Thanksgiving Dinner for my elderly mom and siblings who are themselves visiting and staying in AirBnB's. Yes, we asked the hosts before booking if we could cook and host a Thanksgiving Dinner and received their OK.

I truly love AirBnB and have stayed in them in most all my business and pleasure travels to Europe, Canada, Israel and across the USA.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#237

Post by robocat » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:18 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #180

jll29 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only hope this does not replace one problem with another: Because Spain's high unemployment, in particular youth unemployment and the construction sector, actions that reduce tourism lead to fewer jobs and less income flowing into the city. I'm not against the measure (last time in Barcelona I was in a hotel and my friends rented an AirBnB apartment instead; they had fun and I had to move hotel rooms because the gu…

Tourism is a shit industry. You could mostly annihilate it and replace it with productive things most of the time.

In New Zealand, Tourism gross operating surplus (profit) looks to be about 20% from graph in https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/tourism-satel...

As a share of the total number of people employed in New Zealand, direct tourism employment was 6.7 percent.

I think the main problem with tourism is that it is a luxury service and tourism income shrinks when the world economy stinks. The other issue is that many tourists are rude and unthankful, so it can be unpleasant working in a service industry, being a servant to well-off tourists.

New Zealand needs export income. Some of our product exports are worse for New Zealand than tourism (some farming particularly has negative effects and can have poor profits).

I wonder if part of the reason why Barcelona has population growth is because it has tourism income and jobs? Remove tourism and what happens next?

And it sucks in New Zealand that some of the most beautiful places are crowded and almost owned by tourists. Literally owned by tourists when we let foreigners buy property here and our current government wants to allow that again.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#238

Post by barrkel » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

ck45 wrote: post #138

christkv wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain is the one the de densest countries if not the densest country in Europe. Most people live in flats in dense cities.

No, it’s not, it’s number 27. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_and_population_of_Europ...

That's the wrong metric.

Spain seems to have planning laws that force density. Small agricultural towns in the middle of nowhere have people living cheek by jowl in apartments and townhouses, with an abrupt cutoff once you hit the town boundary.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#239

Post by racional » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

SeanAnderson wrote: post #25

Barcelona has a population of ~1.7 million. The metro area surrounding is ~5.7 million. The metro area grew by ~100k in the past four years. They are freeing up ~10,000 houses over the next four years with this legislation. Barcelona built ~15,000 new properties between 2011 and 2020. The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the…

The entire impact of AirBnB + all housing built in the last decade does not offset the last half decade of population growth.

Your retort here simply isn't logical.

10k doesn't fully offset 100k but it's a significant chunk of it, and when supply gets so compressed as to become inelastic, a 10k amelioration (that is also prevented from creeping up to 15k or 20k within a few years) can be quite significant. Plus certain districts are obviously impacted disproportionately compared to others by not just the reduction in housing available but the sheer foot traffic and other blight that comes along with a lopsided rise in tourist accommodations.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#240

Post by anthonypasq » Fri, Jun 21, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

zrn900 wrote: post #221

JackYoustra wrote: post #19

People will do literally anything over building enough housing to make everyone happy

Spain is not the US. Barcelona had been building a lot of housing. Its not enough as they get converted to airbnbs or get scooped up by rich foreigners or foreign investment funds.

Real estate is only a good investment vehicle because the western world refuses to build shit. why on earth would you expect investors be enticed to buy a fundamentally depreciating asset instead of equities?