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A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

nytimes.com

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Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#21

Post by gcb »

tomkarlo wrote: post #5
rm999 wrote: post #3

Five figure fines are completely unreasonable, the fault lies with NYC and the hotels who lobbied for these laws. Short-term housing is really bad for a city whose economy benefits so much from tourism; tiny hotel rooms start at 250/night. Airbnb is a really optimal solution. My neighbor is an airbnb apartment. At first it bothered me that new people were staying there every week, but I realized the benefits. The peo…

Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way -- because they're ducking the rules…

Most houses and apartments adhere to fire safety just fine. Comercial ones are required based on the volume of people you are serving. If you keep the rental under the reasonable number of people that the apartment was designed for, this is nothing other than a bad excuse for a law that is using your tax money to pay for people to enforce something that adds no value to society, in fact, removes from it.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#22

Post by citricsquid »

rm999 wrote: post #3

Five figure fines are completely unreasonable, the fault lies with NYC and the hotels who lobbied for these laws. Short-term housing is really bad for a city whose economy benefits so much from tourism; tiny hotel rooms start at 250/night. Airbnb is a really optimal solution. My neighbor is an airbnb apartment. At first it bothered me that new people were staying there every week, but I realized the benefits. The peo…

    Five figure fines are completely unreasonable
Don't fines exist to create some real tangible downside to engaging in the behaviour? If the fine was $1,000 then there'd be a financial incentive to get around the laws. Much like with using public transport without paying, if the fine is 5x cost and you're only getting caught every 30 times it works out much cheaper.

There's also got to be a real cost to the local government to keep checking up on the people that have been previously caught, a fine large enough to put a serious dent in the finances of the person responsible should be large enough to cover the costs associated with investigations and court cases.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#23

Post by tjic »

bilbo0s wrote: post #14
tomkarlo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way -- because they're ducking the rules…

"...If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way..." This is exactly what happens in Paris. Housing market there is skewed due to exactly this behavior. People buy apartments and sit on them to rent them out short term. Over time it created a situation where people who I would classify as "worki…

> This is exactly what happens in Paris. Housing market there is skewed due to exactly this behavior.

Under any sane market, untapped demand creates its own supply.

Big cities, though, have big governments that forbid new construction. This works very well for those who already own property (they have their rental prices driven up), and works very well for the politicians (who get donations from the existing property owners) but works poorly for everyone else.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#24

Post by tjic »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #9

They should know which cities they've had issues with and let their user know so they can stay informed. Having their users post warnings about particular cities would benefit everybody. Nothing is going to change unless a large class action suit is brought against Airbnb. I can tell you right now their site disclaimer won't help them in a court of law.

> They should

why?

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#25

Post by Permit »

trauco wrote: post #7
Turing_Machine wrote: post #4

So AirBnB is supposed to know the laws of every single city/town/village/condo or home owner's association, or does this guy think New York is "special"?

Answer from the article: "Perhaps it isn’t reasonable to expect the company, which believes it’s worth at least $2 billion according to a TechCrunch report on its latest fund-raising efforts, to track down every zoning law in tiny vacation hamlets. But it can certainly make the rules clear in urban areas where it knows that people like Mr. Warren could easily end up in hot water."

If Airbnb started providing warnings about laws in various cities, wouldn't the lack of a warning for another area suggest there were no legal issues there?

This seems like something you can't half-ass.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#26

Post by anigbrowl »

baddox wrote: post #18
tomkarlo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way -- because they're ducking the rules…

> Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. That sounds very naive, and is extremely difficult to believe, unless hotels played no role in advocating the regulations. Besides, if that were the purpose, then why not ask the Airbnb renter and occupa…

He's saying regulations are there for hotels, consumers, and residents. It's not an either/or proposition.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#27

Post by jcdavis »

woah wrote: post #11

I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these types of regulations. I'm assuming it's to maintain some sort of control and regulation over those who would establish unlicensed hotels on a commercial scale? For the welfare of the guests I suppose? I imagine in a world before the internet, this kind of thing was actually quite necessary. It would have been much harder to know any sort of…

I live in SF and I have no issue with landlords evicting tenants who were being AirBnB hosts. Realize that:

1) The housing market in SF is crazy right now (obviously this is hardly their fault)

2) There are thousands of available AirBnB rooms available in SF. A quick search far out returns over 2700 - thats 2700 (or more) rooms that people could be living in.

3) San Francisco has very strict rent control (whether or not that is a good thing is out of the scope of this comment), so in many cases tenants are reaping far more money from Airbnb then they pay in rent because their rent effectively hasn't increased, ever. This is absurdly disfunctional.

4) Regardless of laws, short term rentals are already against more or less against every lease agreement or HOA agreement.

I really couldn't care less about the hotel industry.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#28

Post by tomkarlo »

tjic wrote: post #20
tomkarlo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers and residents as well by setting standards for safety, etc. and helping pay for the services provided to guests by the municipality. If you take AirBNB to its logical conclusion, you end up with landlords renting apartments on AirBNB instead of to actual residents, because they can make more that way -- because they're ducking the rules…

> Lodging laws aren't there just to protect hotels. They exist to protect consumers Asserted without evidence.

Show me how commercial fire codes / building codes protect hotels but not consumers.

(Edited from "instead of" to "but not", since the original assertion was that they only help hotel owners.)

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#29

Post by goodcanadian »

The rules serve a lot of purposes:

1. To protect hotel owners and operators.

2. To protect consumers. They are guaranteed that the hotel has proper insurance, for example.

3. To protect neighbours. You can't open up a hotel in the house next door for much the same reasons that you can't open a pub or an aluminum smelter.

4. And yes, there is some rent seeking behaviour. I'll just mention transient accommodation taxes.

You may agree or disagree with the various laws to various degrees, but you must admit that they exist for a reason. By all means discuss reforms that can be made, but please stop with the "these laws are stupid" or "serve no purpose" sort of sentiments.

Re: A Warning for Airbnb Hosts

#30

Post by [deleted] »

woah wrote: post #11

I'm wondering if anyone can illuminate us on the ostensible purpose of these types of regulations. I'm assuming it's to maintain some sort of control and regulation over those who would establish unlicensed hotels on a commercial scale? For the welfare of the guests I suppose? I imagine in a world before the internet, this kind of thing was actually quite necessary. It would have been much harder to know any sort of…

[deleted]
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