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Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

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Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#281

Post by Retric »

SeanAnderson wrote: post #155
sangnoir wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The math don't math. It's a drop in the bucket. Since this is HN, I was expecting a little more rigor in proving the math not mathing: how many people can be housed in 15 000[1] + 10 000 houses? How small is the drop and how big is the bucket? From sibling comment, average density is 2.51 people per home * 25k houses which works out to 62 750 housed people out of the 100 000 population growth. If my math is correct…

The 15k houses were built over 10 years, but the 100k growth is over 4 years. So 4/10ths of 15k ~= 9k/47k housed. I think it's fair to say I'm being dramatic by saying it's a drop in the bucket. The action frees up more housing than Barcelona built over the same time period. This is good. However, it's still not a long-term solution. This is a one-time action that when taken, and combined with the housing being built…

They don’t need a long term solution.

The larger context is Spain’s population is flat with declines in the last 24 months and trend likely to continue in the coming decades. Barcelona’s population peaked in 1979 and only recently recovered to the level seen in 1990. So they likely don’t actually need to add significant housing long term. Freeing up AirBnB apartments in the short term looks like a reasonable solution until population decline kicks in and removes the need for extra housing.

https://datacommons.org/place/wikidataId/Q1492?utm_medium=ex...

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#283

Post by doctorpangloss »

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…

Everyone wants to legislate free housing for themselves.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#284

Post by phatfish »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #179
xvaier wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do exist and are increasingly common for new hotel builds, at least where I live. Here is an example of one in Montréal that I stayed in last autumn: https://griffintownhotel.com/en-us/apartments/

These still look [1] like artificial sanitized places. People like AirBnB because most of them have a home like feeling. Random decorations, casual atmosphere, etc. [1] https://griffintownhotel.com/en-us/apartments/comfort

Weird that. Almost as if it should be a home for someone. Not for you to play at being a Barcelona/Montréal/where ever resident for 2 weeks for Insta likes.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#285

Post by lotsoweiners »

bsder wrote: post #262
jupp0r wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course hotels are competing against residential housing. They take up land that could be used for residential housing instead.

Outside of downtown areas in the biggest cities in the US, it is very unlikely that a hotel is built in an area that people would want to build residential housing. Normally hotels are built near either business or tourist areas. Very few people want their residences in the suburban office park areas. Tourist areas tend to be older areas that have strong restrictions on new development--hotels there have to go throug…

> Very few people want their residences in the suburban office park areas.

Not sure what you’re implying here but in the US homes in the suburbs back up to office parks all the time.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#286

Post by doctorpangloss »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #5

Honest question: does this work? It seems to me that this change will have unintended effects and will fail to produce the desired results. AFAIK rent in NYC hasn’t gone down since they changed their short-term rental regulations. I might be naive, but I’d assume that the solution is to build more housing to increase the supply instead of curbing the demand? Genuinely curious about others’ takes on this.

No.

If you want cheaper housing for yourself, live somewhere with cheap housing.

If you are sincere and worried that the lack of cheap housing hurts your community: great. All the more reason to leave.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#287

Post by lamp_book »

JeremyNT wrote: post #154
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…

This reads like the Nirvana Fallacy to me [0]. Will this move solve the problem? No, but what alternative are you comparing it to where it fares so poorly? I suspect even the staunchest proponents of unregulated construction of denser housing would only claim that it mitigates the problems of housing affordability, not that it solves them. This new STR policy could be one of many pieces of the puzzle. [0] https://en.…

Also, of course tourism is the first scapegoat. It’s visible, disliked, and inherently not going to stand up for itself. Take it away and people will be forced to confront that it wasn’t the primary problem. Regardless of how effective it is it’s a necessary first step.

That said cities across the developed world are struggling with housing, even ones that are not popular with tourists. Why it seems no one can build anymore is what is interesting.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#288

Post by kranke155 »

mapcars wrote: post #228
kranke155 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> The tourism industry has a significant impact on Spain’s economy, generating over 70 billion euros in gross value added (GVA) in 2019. This represents a substantial contribution to the country’s GDP and employment, with over 2.5 million people employed in the tourism sector Well maybe you will just tell Spanish government how to replace that?

Im not saying one should ignore it. Just that it’s not a particularly good industry for a country, particularly poor countries.

The pay in tourism is terrible, usually minimum wage, except for the owners of capital, who gain enormous returns on investing in hotels / airbnbs / tourist aimed businesses.

That means it has an awful return for the ones most in need which are the poor. It’s not a distributive industry.

On top of that, it can cause a “resource curse” type phenomenon where great beaches or some other attraction causes enormous amounts of investment in tourist infrastructure leading to a lack of opportunity for other businesses which could thrive with investment. Tourist gives you such great returns on investment it doesn’t make sense to do anything else if you have capital.

Can tourism be A PART of a healthy economy ? Sure. But it shouldn’t be in charge of that economy, in which case I’d say you’re looking at a “resource curse” type economy where only the rich prosper.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#289

Post by doctorpangloss »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #47
doctorpangloss wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone wants lower housing prices, except for the house they currently own.

People who own a home, and don't have plans to move, would benefit from housing prices falling everywhere : property taxes go down, and other prices correlated with housing go down. Two categories where people don't want pricing to go down: If you have plans to move and prices aren't falling everywhere , the proceeds of a sale aren't enough to buy elsewhere. And if your bank owns the home rather than you, falling pri…

> People who own a home, and don't have plans to move, would benefit from housing prices falling everywhere

Right… you go and make that pitch. Run for mayor with it.

Re: Barcelona will eliminate tourist apartments

#290

Post by kranke155 »

robocat wrote: post #237
kranke155 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 man…

The pay in tourism is terrible, usually minimum wage, except for the owners of capital, who gain enormous returns on investing in hotels / airbnbs / tourist aimed businesses. That means it has an awful return for the ones most in need which are the poor. It’s not a distributive industry. On top of that, it can cause a “resource curse” type phenomenon where great beaches or some other attraction causes enormous amounts of investment in tourist infrastructure leading to a lack of opportunity for other businesses which could thrive with investment. Tourist gives you such great returns on investment it doesn’t make sense to do anything else if you have capital
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