Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
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Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#2As an outsider to the USA housing market (that seems to be very heavily regulated), could someone explain the significance of what is alleged here? More to the point, why are multi-listings of whole houses a bad thing?
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#3hmm, the company who break thru by deceptive practice of craiglist's advertising of apartments to rent that never existed in the first place (but redirected to their website), with the owner who has been on top most wanted FBI list for being a top spammer in the USA... gee this news is really shocking!
I mean.. how could they??
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#4To be fair, the fact that this was a New York City only thing could relate to NYC's particular subletting issues and housing laws.
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#5As an outsider to the USA housing market (that seems to be very heavily regulated), could someone explain the significance of what is alleged here? More to the point, why are multi-listings of whole houses a bad thing?
I think it's because it suggests that professional landlords / developers are using the platform to sidestep rent control laws, as opposed to regular people just renting out their homes while they are away on vacation.
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#6Devils advocate: Suppose your stats are biased by a % of bad listings (fake, bad, etc.) that violate some rule. Would you want to include them in your numbers?
If having the correct statistics (i.e. excluding these bad listings) was important for regulatory or marketing purposes, then fixing this before the report is part of the fiduciary duty of the firm with its shareholders, so no surprise here.
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#7The implication is that people are illegally listing multiple properties that they own or rent, but this analysis doesn't rule out the cases where someone hires a professional property manager to list their place on AirBnB while they're on vacation or away. That property manager will have multiple "whole home" listings but there's nothing illegal about it.
But we shouldn't expect an unbiased analysis from a site like insideairbnb.com, which is a partisan anti-airbnb advocacy project.
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#8As an outsider to the USA housing market (that seems to be very heavily regulated), could someone explain the significance of what is alleged here? More to the point, why are multi-listings of whole houses a bad thing?
I think it's because it suggests that professional landlords / developers are using the platform to sidestep rent control laws, as opposed to regular people just renting out their homes while they are away on vacation.
And so what if they are? Have them pay the proper taxes then. Win-win for the property owner and the city.
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#9The implication is that people are illegally listing multiple properties that they own or rent, but this analysis doesn't rule out the cases where someone hires a professional property manager to list their place on AirBnB while they're on vacation or away. That property manager will have multiple "whole home" listings but there's nothing illegal about it. But we shouldn't expect an unbiased analysis from a site like…
A huge number of rental tenants in NYC are not legally able to sublet. Hiring someone else to do it does not absolve them.
Re: Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot
#10As an outsider to the USA housing market (that seems to be very heavily regulated), could someone explain the significance of what is alleged here? More to the point, why are multi-listings of whole houses a bad thing?
I think it's because it suggests that professional landlords / developers are using the platform to sidestep rent control laws, as opposed to regular people just renting out their homes while they are away on vacation.
To expand on this somewhat, Airbnb likes to pretend their business is about the unregulated and largely legal practice of people renting out an extra room, or perhaps every once in a while their whole vacant home for a short period of time when they happen not to be home. What everyone suspects but struggles to prove without access to the data is that most of their business is people renting out apartments they don't live in but instead rent out full time. This potentially runs afoul of many laws, in some cities rent control rules may be the main issue, in others they may be considered an unlicensed hotel which could violate tax or zoning laws.