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NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

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Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#141

Post by greghinch »

Diamons wrote: post #70
greghinch wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds more like your own personal paranoia than any sort of rational argument agains Airbnb. The fact that you might have visitors from all over the world passing through the area only enriches the culture and worldliness. To assume that a bunch of tourists paying $150 or more a night will result in increased crime sounds baseless

I don't think there has to be a rational argument against AirBnB. I could create a business telling people that I'll tell you how to get rich, charge them $10,000 and then tell them "Work hard and look for opportunity." and you could say that's horrible and whatever else but there's no rational argument against it. Living standards isn't something you can rationally argue. I don't care about visitors passing through…

> I don't think there has to be a rational argument against AirBnB.

You may not think so, but I certainly hope laws are made by rational arguments.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#142

Post by yebyen »

jbooth wrote: post #116
yebyen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I am a resident of Rochester and I understood the title intuitively. Rochester is far (6 hours+) from The City. I was from Buffalo before that, even farther away. I am used to hearing about odd laws that only apply in NYC (the boroughs), from special conditions on a learners' permit license, to bans on 16+oz fountain drinks, when I hear "now illegal in New York" I tend to think naturally, it must apply only…

I wouldn't go as far as second-class citizens, NYC is less than half the population and, correspondingly, less than half of the districts. There are a lot of NYC-specific taxes and tolls collected. Hell, Republicans controlled the state legislature until a year ago or so (and you know they weren't from NYC). If I had to guess (I used to be in politics), your dad spends a lot of time complaining about property taxes -…

I am pretty sure he's more interested in payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, welfare dollars, Obamacare. I won't pretend I've read the ledgers, but when he texted me yesterday to say '49 states left', I hadn't heard about the devastation in Oklahoma and I started scanning the internet tubes to find the news that Texas finally seceeded over Obamacare.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#144

Post by greghinch »

brown9-2 wrote: post #135
dev_jim wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's your own property, go right ahead. Yep, this is the problem with services like AirBnB and Uber. It's embraces a purely selfish attitude in individuals with blatant disregard for the rest of the community.

How does Uber harm the community?

Seriously. Just the other night I had an Uber ride from a guy, he had previously spent years working as a single taxi operator. Within the past year on Uber, he's been able to expand out on his own, and now owns 6 additional cars which he leases to other Uber drivers. He's also training all of them on how to do the same thing, and one of them is soon going to likely strike out on his own with 2 cars to start. These are small, independent business people, who would not have these opportunities otherwise.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#145

Post by greghinch »

aegiso wrote: post #88
radiusq wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is completely shallow and void of reason.. > You can't, for example, run a tannery in your apartment Why not? Whats your argument? >What's more, as a resident (and especially if I were an owner) I wouldn't want my building being a de facto hotel. If I owned a building then I set the rules/laws. This is about property rights, not about what you think is right or wrong. If I want to turn my home into a tr…

It was less an argument than a statement of fact. These are the laws. If you want to argue what fundamental rights should or shouldn't be afforded to a property owner, HN probably isn't the place. This stuff has a long and complicated political history, which I humbly encourage you to learn more about.

Laws which are not set in stone. The point is that services like Airbnb can be the impetus for changing the law to make more sense for modern times. When these laws were created, something like Airbnb was impossible, so how can you think they took the concept into account when crafting them?

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#146

Post by jbooth »

yebyen wrote: post #142
jbooth wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't go as far as second-class citizens, NYC is less than half the population and, correspondingly, less than half of the districts. There are a lot of NYC-specific taxes and tolls collected. Hell, Republicans controlled the state legislature until a year ago or so (and you know they weren't from NYC). If I had to guess (I used to be in politics), your dad spends a lot of time complaining about property taxes -…

I am pretty sure he's more interested in payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, welfare dollars, Obamacare. I won't pretend I've read the ledgers, but when he texted me yesterday to say '49 states left', I hadn't heard about the devastation in Oklahoma and I started scanning the internet tubes to find the news that Texas finally seceeded over Obamacare.

Well, those are federal issues, so it sounds like his problem is the fact that Obama's president rather than anything to do with new york state. I'd also hypothesize that he was much less upset about these issues in December 2008 than he became starting in late January 2009.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#147

Post by anxx »

rwhitman wrote: post #114
tomkarlo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fire codes and taxes for a hotel are much more onerous than for a residential apartment building. Presumably landlords who are doing illegal conversions are flouting both, plus also violating zoning rules by converting a residential building into something else. (I believe NY zoning has specific "hotel districts".)

I think it has a lot to do with residential rental inventory as well. Rent control. There is such limited available apartment rental inventory that to take units off the market, carve them up and sell them as hotel stays completely skews the real estate market and drives up the rent. If every landlord did that no one would have a place to live

I kind of find myself being more sympathetic to landlords in this case. Yes, if everyone did that there wouldn't be any space to live, but looking for short-term subleasers is also a lot more risky. They need to be found, first of all - you're competing with every other of their residence choices - and after that, they have a greater risk of damaging your property. But if after this pro/con analysis, it is economically better for you to do short-term leasing - I think you should be able to.

Also hotel safety laws do not exist in a vacuum. AirBnb renters should be properly informed that the building they are entering has passed building inspection codes, but cannot guarantee hotel-level hygiene and fire code safety. Once fully informed, if the renter still chooses AirBnb, it's their call. People can sleep over at their friends' houses, or at strangers' houses without exchange of money anyway - the fact that money does change hands doesn't change the facts about the parties involved.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#148

Post by k-mcgrady »

AirBnB will need to evolve their service to deal with this. They are going to face this problem many times more I'm sure.

The only way I can see around it would be working with individual cities and adapting the service within those cities so that it works better for everyone.

There are many negative externalities caused by AirBnB (personally I wouldn't want my neighbours changing weekly and having access to my building and mailbox) but there are also positive ones (filling vacant properties, boosting the local economy).

When it comes to big cities like New York, Paris, London etc. AirBnb should spend the money to carry out analysis of how the service could work best for everyone and work with local authorities.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#149

Post by gozmike »

I had a really sketchy experience as a guest this winter that made me worry about AirBnB.

I spent a few months living in the Haight with a delightful German woman who supported her photography career by renting her spare rooms in a gorgeous clean apartment.

For a while, the arrangement worked out pretty well. That is, until I ran into one of her neighbours in the stairwell. I made friendly conversation with him and he asked if I was staying at her place through AirBnB. I thought nothing of it at the time.

That night, while greeting my "landlady", I told her I met the neighbour. Her heart sank and she chastised me for talking to her neighbours (I had been living at her place for a month or so!). Turns out that many renters agreements in SF prevent the tenant from earning a profit on their rental.

Long story short, the neighbour I spoke to ended up not being so nice to her and is causing significant problems for her. She may lose her rent-controlled apartment (and thus her livelihood) all because I chatted with a neighbour in the stairwell.

Re: NY official: Airbnb stay illegal; host fined $2,400

#150

Post by bdcravens »

rsingel wrote: post #107

So Business Insider is summarizing a post from Fast Company, which itself is summarizing a post from CNet, which did actual reporting and has the text of the decision. I wish OPs would take the time to actually figure this out before submitting links. You want good journalism? Then support it by promoting the original work, not the get-rick-quick aggregation. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57585377-93/ny-official-a…

How many stories on Tumblr have their been the past few days? Never mind the articles on Jobs and Swartz when they passed. Take something and repurpose it for our own benefit .. hey, isn't that the basis of AirBnB's business model? :-)
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