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I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

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Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#271

Post by icebraining »

jessedhillon wrote: post #260
westicle wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy in question stayed in the apartment himself and let friends stay for free. So he's off the hook; short-term rental wasn't the sole use of the property. Easy!

This entire line of argumentation relies on the fact that there is (maybe) not a clear distinction between hotel and not-hotel. Engineer-ish types take this to mean that the line is arbitrary and therefore irrelevant, concerns addressed by that distinction are invalid, and efforts to circumvent/exploit it are victories in the battle against analog logic. Other people understand that fuzzy definitions do not mean that…

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is preventing people like OP from doing what he's doing just because some guests might be a nuisance. What about we fine the house owner over those guests instead?

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#272

Post by whyenot »

brk wrote: post #88
woofyman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's breaking the contract with the owners association that he agreed to on purchase. It lowers everybody else's property values and prevents them from selling their unit.

Where'd you get a copy of the contract he signed?

http://valenciahoa.com/admin/uploads/r&r.pdf

Section VIII:

"Short term leases (leases with terms less than 30 days) are prohibited."

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#273

Post by crbnw00ts »

maxwell wrote: post #224
JackFr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, travel agents were an obsolete industry. Hotels are not obsolete, AirBnB is 'disrupting' the industry by ignoring local laws and regulations. It may be that these regulations exist to protect an obsolete business model but it also might not. When your path is blocked by a fence before you tear it down, its a good idea to understand why it was put up in the first place.

I worked in hospitality for 5 years, and right now I'm staying at a hotel in downtown Vegas, a few miles from the author's Airbnb place. Hotels are obsolete. It's not the business model, short-term housing and hospitality certainly have no risk of obsolescence ever, it's the industry. Service sucks, rooms suck, tech really sucks. You have awkward kids in bad suits and clip-on ties at the front desk who're trained to…

A quick list of gripes is a pretty unconvincing argument that hotels are "doomed". There is no guarantee that any of those things would be better at an AirBnB. Likewise, a corresponding list of gripes could be assembled for AirBnB-like services. Neither type of service seems "doomed", although the AirBnB-type stuff is probably on shakier ground at the moment, merely due to the legal gray areas.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#274

Post by encoderer »

mbreese wrote: post #244
benatkin wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I worked for the HOA and I saw this I would try to figure out if anyone knows I saw it. If not, I would ignore it. It's technically against the rules but OP seems to be doing a good job of managing it, and I doubt I could apply a higher standard to the rest of the units. I'd wait for a resident to bring the issue to me, which would hopefully never happen. If I managed a ritzier condo complex I'd probably do someth…

It's probably an insurance coverage issue, so ignoring it wouldn't be a good idea. Especially if the insurance company feels that you should have known about it.

Wait, why does my insurance company care about my HOA rules?

You've clearly got a bit of a nanny mentality about this. Maybe that's unfair.. But you have strongly criticized this and posted rebuttals to anybody disagreeing with you. All on the grounds of "this is probably bad, don't make your HOA [or govt, or insurance company]" mad at you.

I have to confess I feel a bit of... revulsion... in your advocacy of docile compliance. It must be the rebellious streak in me. But it's something I bet others here can relate to. I'm more of a "ask for forgiveness rather than permission" type of guy.

All that said, I won't be rushing out to buy a condo to rent on AirBnB. But I also would never sit on HN and try to argue against it because of HOA.

Though I also think you're totally within your rights, to be clear.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#275

Post by westicle »

jessedhillon wrote: post #260
westicle wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy in question stayed in the apartment himself and let friends stay for free. So he's off the hook; short-term rental wasn't the sole use of the property. Easy!

This entire line of argumentation relies on the fact that there is (maybe) not a clear distinction between hotel and not-hotel. Engineer-ish types take this to mean that the line is arbitrary and therefore irrelevant, concerns addressed by that distinction are invalid, and efforts to circumvent/exploit it are victories in the battle against analog logic. Other people understand that fuzzy definitions do not mean that…

I think we agree on this point.

My post was in response to the parent, which suggested that any property "solely" used for short-term leases should be regulated.

I was not suggesting that was a useful or appropriate test. Leaving aside the question of whether regulation is necessary, a "dominant purpose" or even "substantial purpose" test would lead to less absurdity.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#276

Post by anigbrowl »

mindcrime wrote: post #263
omonra wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument presumes that an extended-stay hotel needs to be licensed. I don't buy it.

Your argument presumes that an extended-stay hotel needs to be licensed. I don't buy it. Neither do I. This is not something the State needs to be involved in at all.

State involvement is probably preferable to angry neighbors taking matters into their own hands.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#277

Post by fancyketchup »

icebraining wrote: post #271
jessedhillon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire line of argumentation relies on the fact that there is (maybe) not a clear distinction between hotel and not-hotel. Engineer-ish types take this to mean that the line is arbitrary and therefore irrelevant, concerns addressed by that distinction are invalid, and efforts to circumvent/exploit it are victories in the battle against analog logic. Other people understand that fuzzy definitions do not mean that…

Throwing out the baby with the bathwater is preventing people like OP from doing what he's doing just because some guests might be a nuisance. What about we fine the house owner over those guests instead?

My guess is that the fine is either a slap on the wrist (so the house owner just chalks it up to business expense) or so sever that the house owner stops doing short-term rentals entirely. I've not used AirBNB, but I assume that the house owner doesn't really know anything about the renters most of the time.

One solution might be to pass the fine onto the renters, but that leads to another problem: "Quiet" renters would probably be more put off by the possibility of an extra surprise charge than "Party" renters. The latter category probably ignore the penalty clause when booking the apartment and then try to avoid paying the fine after the fact. So now your set of renters is mostly loud partiers and the problem is even worse.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#278

Post by mtalantikite »

jongold wrote: post #185
jcdavis wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it makes you feel any better (I'm sure it won't), folks in San Francisco and New York face similar. Las Vegas is somewhat unique in having low housing prices coupled with a huge tourist market which makes such a setup workable.

Well, it makes me see the appeal of the Vegas tech scene ;)

but then you'd have to live in Vegas...

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#279

Post by drob »

jseliger wrote: post #231
brightsize wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was visiting Berlin last winter, I stayed at Airbnb flats and it seemed like a lot of the owners were doing exactly this. In fact, to your point, the city was, IIRC, about to forbid vacation rentals in certain neighborhoods. Berlin is rapidly gentrifying, there's a R.E. bubble going on, poorer people are being pushed out of the city, and this kind of thing intensifies that trend. I've no idea if cities in the…

Berlin is rapidly gentrifying, there's a R.E. bubble going on, poorer people are being pushed out of the city This is true in lots of fun cities, primarily because it's so hard to build new housing stock—which is a Bad Thing, as Matthew Yglesias describes in The Rent is Too Damn High . Britain is suffering from a variant of the "no building" problem too: http://www.buzzfeed.com/dlknowles/britains-dysfunctional-pro...…

It's not quite that simple. Building up can ruin the character of the neighborhood, which is often a big part of the allure.

I do think we're chronically underbuilding in a lot of places (SF being an extreme example), but the existence of steel and elevators is not a panacea for the "gentrification problem".

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