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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

#351

Post by warmwaffles »

ghaff wrote: post #343
rdl wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love hotels (specifically, Starwood and Inter-Continental, especially in Asia), and spend about 50-100 nights/year in hotels. I infrequently use VRBO to rent a house somewhere without great hotels (and have tried AirBnB but outside SF, never worked out really well), but otherwise, the hotel experience is basically awesome for me. There is one set of tweaks I'd like to do (maybe to make a brand-within-a-brand for We…

Yep. I haven't done much with AirBnB and its ilk but I do often try to go the B&B route rather than the-big-chain-hotel (or even the smaller not-so-chain-hotel) route. But, as you say, especially for business travel, a lot of the time I just want something predictable that meets a certain standard. I don't want to be concerned that if my plans change and I don't get in until 9 that there won't be anyone there to let…

If the only thing that is causing you grief is the check-in check-out process, it is worth noting that some owners do try to streamline this process as much as possible. I for one try to keep contact with the person down to a minimum. Because you guys are right, I don't want to talk to anyone after 12 hours of travel.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#352

Post by zanny »

umsm wrote: post #204
zanny wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(2) only because they are members of larger organizations that can strong arm prices down. (1) I'd rather the aggregate recommendations of a million people than the personal opinion of just one in most of these situations - you want the statistical mean experience, because a travel agent can be given special treatment or just have had a lucky streak placing clients in an otherwise seedy place. (3) Hopefully another t…

(2) Yay! The client wins! :) On a more serious note: That is how internet companies continue to stay in business: automate, lower prices, increase competition, etc. Agents just beat them at their game. (1) How many online reviews are fake? How many are written out of spite? There is a level of trust you have to give someone: either an online reviewer or a person. (3) Having a human to work with is usually better serv…

> (1) How many online reviews are fake? How many are written out of spite? There is a level of trust you have to give someone: either an online reviewer or a person.

That is why I quantify pretty explicitly a million - I'd never consider any sampling below, say, a hundred reviews, and even then you have to accept the inherent inertial bias that anyone content with their experience won't review it, and disproportionately people will complain about a negative one than praise a great stay. You need enough aggregate results to smother false reviews or non-systemic bias.

> (3) Having a human to work with is usually better service than not. But it really depends on the situation.

It is really situational, but one critical aspect of the information age is a litmus test on every human service position on whether or not actually having gassy meat on one end of the transaction is really worth the comparatively huge costs of keeping said meat bag alive and happy. And it is a personal test - which is why most industries that have been displaced by the Internet still exist to serve the population that values that interaction.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#353

Post by shiftpgdn »

clarkm wrote: post #264
delinka wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. It's still in the state of Nevada and in a county. An "unincorporated" town isn't lawless.

Why probably? Even some incorporated areas don't have zoning laws. For example, Houston. That's right, Houston doesn't have any zoning laws.

Yes it does. Houston has tons of zoing laws. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/11/30/the_myth_of_z...

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#354

Post by jseliger »

drob wrote: post #279
jseliger wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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 don't think I've ever seen an example of this reflected in prices. Do you know of any, or of any studies of this phenomenon?

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#355

Post by jblow »

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…

Airbnb is for people with more time than money. Hotels are for people with more money than time (they do not want to spend time chatting to arraange a booking, or to set up social proof for themselves on yet another social network just so that people will consider them).

My one Airbnb experience was massively negative because I value my time.

Hotels are not remotely doomed. Demand for them may go down, though.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#356

Post by wavefunction »

mahyarm wrote: post #223
wavefunction wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HAHA, take that ole Blighty! But really, the whole idea that AirBNB should be able to ignore established zoning is another example of why I consider the "sharing" economy to be the "taking" economy. Sharing space peacefully is exactly what zoning is aimed at.

Zoning is still a contested topic, it has been blamed for enabling much of the NIMBYism in America for example. Another one is creating huge traffic and commuting situations that don't need to be there by putting business in one zone, housing in another and forcing people to move between the two every day. It makes such things as shopkeeper residences where the shop is on the first floor and the family who manages it…

My bustling city (one of those "top US cities to move to that isn't the Bay Area or NYC") has tons of first-floor commercial, second floor residential developments, including a fair number of "row houses" zoned commercial first floor residential second and third floors where both the commercial space and residential areas are owned by the same owner. There's a huge push to build high density in this city that was formerly pretty much all low-density ten years ago.

These are all new builds in the past 8 years.

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#358

Post by mr1976 »

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…

> The fence is coming down. Hotels are doomed.

doubt it.

1. Corporate business and negotiated rates (a large % of business) 2. Groups (unless you cram 20 - 40 people in an airbnb room?) - this includes conferences, conventions, aircrew, functions, tour groups) (another large % of the business)

This assumes we're talking about city hotels with a normal(ish) business mix, but individual travellers often don't make up the largest portion of business for the hotel (this really does vary, but outside of pure tourist and transit areas it's roughly accurate). Add into the mix the zoning and health & safety requirements, and I'm not sure you could call "doomed" just yet.

There is scope for (ahem) disruption in booking and distribution, which we already see - but the physical product is probably going to be around for some time. Sometimes, you just need a big building with lots of rooms...

Re: I Bought An Apartment To Rent Out On Airbnb

#359

Post by riggins »

jseliger wrote: post #234
hammerzeit wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easily. I know at least two people clearing $100k/year by being 'airbnb slumlords.' Real estate agents are keeping apartments off the market and renting them out as hotels. Airbnb is clearly forcing a convergence between hotel prices and rents. This doesn't just mean forcing hotel prices down, it also means forcing rents up. I wish the tech community could stop reflexively defending airbnb and engage with the questio…

Airbnb is clearly forcing a convergence between hotel prices and rents. This doesn't just mean forcing hotel prices down, it also means forcing rents up. I responded to this issue here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6657242 , but the short answer is to build more units. Building the Second Ave Subway, extending express bus service, and doing similar things would also be helpful.

I agree that the way to deal with increasing rents is to build new buildings. In fact, I think that is probably Bloomberg's greatest accomplishment. He made it much easier to develop new buildings which led to a boom in development.
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