Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market • Hacker News Board

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#101

Post by tomkarlo » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #100

jseliger wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the article I linked to above: "Meanwhile, San Francisco—one of the most expensive cities in the United States—added just 418 new housing units in 2011, the fewest since 1993. What’s more, 149 existing units were removed, leading to a nearly nonexistent increase in housing supply." So: No.

That's a 1-year measure, which has a lot of fluctuations; something like a 10-year measure, showing a general trend, is more interesting to me. Clicking through a few times to http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2012/05/17/after-a-lull-s... , 2011 is apparently an anomaly, and around 20-25k new units (net) were added over the past decade. In addition, 2k new units were approved in 2011. Still not too high, admittedly…

During that same decade, the population of SF grew by about 60,000. 25K net new units in a city with 60K net new residents (and one of the lowest percentages of children in the country) is effectively no growth in housing stock.

Additionally, a lot of those 25K units are not market-rate housing (they're for low-income) which means that for market-rate housing, the numbers would look even worse since most of the new residents are not eligible for low-income housing.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#102

Post by moreorless » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

vijayr wrote: post #37

tptacek wrote: post #10

Much of the criticism of Airbnb in this article seems to stem from renters "subletting" their apartments to vacationers. Why does Airbnb allow renters to list their apartments on Airbnb at all? In virtually no case does a renter have a lease that permits Airbnb-style listings; the boilerplate lease that virtually everyone works from requires landlord approval for each subletter. It seems unconscionable to rent an apa…

All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes. In one place I went, they wanted 450$ for "application fee and credit chec…

"All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes."

Way to go on painting every single landlord as greedy bastards who care about nothing other than squeezing every single penny out of the tenant based on your own personal limited experience. Don't be so quick to generalize that all landlords are slumlords. For every story of landlord abuse, there is one for tenants who take advantage of the system as well.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#103

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 8:36 PM UTC

moreorless wrote: post #102

vijayr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes. In one place I went, they wanted 450$ for "application fee and credit chec…

"All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes." Way to go on painting every single landlord as greedy bastards who care…

> For every story of landlord abuse, there is one for tenants who take advantage of the system as well.

And there are occasional stories of landlords being awesome, too - ours let us use her wifi while we waited for our net to be hooked up, for instance.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#104

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 8:36 PM UTC

moreorless wrote: post #102

vijayr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes. In one place I went, they wanted 450$ for "application fee and credit chec…

"All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes." Way to go on painting every single landlord as greedy bastards who care…

[deleted]

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#105

Post by airbnbtrouble » Tue, Jun 12, 2012, 11:57 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

tptacek wrote: post #10

Much of the criticism of Airbnb in this article seems to stem from renters "subletting" their apartments to vacationers. Why does Airbnb allow renters to list their apartments on Airbnb at all? In virtually no case does a renter have a lease that permits Airbnb-style listings; the boilerplate lease that virtually everyone works from requires landlord approval for each subletter. It seems unconscionable to rent an apa…

"Breaking that agreement for profit is unethical." Of course it is. There was another story about a tenant in NY getting sued after his landlord started renting out apartments. But it is also true that your lease could allow you to sublet with an AirBnB type arrangement, so for AirBnB they probably have you sign up saying "Yes, I am allowed to do this." and leave it up to the participants to be legal and if they aren…

Airbnb is getting me kicked out of my NYC apartment.

I just received a notice of termination from my landlord in the mail. It states that I am violating my lease by using my apartment as a hotel/bed and breakfast and that I have two weeks to move out. As evidence, they included my airbnb posting and the two reviews I received from the two people who stayed in my apartment (one for two nights and one for five nights). The apartment is not rent stabilized and I have lived here for two years, always paying my rent on time. I don't know if it is legal that they are trying to kick me out of my apartment with two weeks notice, and I don't know if they can use my airbnb posting as proof. I'm going to see a lawyer this week.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#106

Post by primigenus » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 1:44 AM UTC

runako wrote: post #59

primigenus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They headed out to see the keynote at 9am and I think they'll deal with the problem afterwards. Priorities, and all that ;-) If I find out what happened and it's relevant I'll report back.

Smart guys. :-) Would love an update if you remember. Thanks!

They got in touch with AirBnB; AirBnB sent out a message to nearby hosts asking for emergency assistance, and a friendly host in the area was able to pick them up and give them a place to stay for the rest of the week. It looks like they may have to pay some fees and extra for the difference in value of the location, but overall it's better than sleeping on a bench in a park!

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#107

Post by merc1985 » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 7:29 PM UTC

I also just had an issue with AirBnb. I live in a NYC cooperative apartment. We do NOT allow short-term rentals (It's actually a NYS law, minimum of 30 days). The person renting out their apartment owns it. I had spoken to AirBnb about this issue, asking them to remove the listing. They feel that this is an issue between our building and the owner of the individual apartment. However I asked AirBnb why they allow apartment rentals in a state where the law does not allow it. AirBnb stated that the lessor signs an agreement and therefore the onus is on them. However, I feel the law is implicit and AirBnb is aware of this law, then entering a contract with prior knowledge of the contract already being invalid makes AirBnb culpable. You dont enter contracts knowing the contract is already void. It's amazing that AirBnb's entire business model pretty much hinges on this contract cop-out. It has yet to be seen if my building decides to include AirBnb as a defendant in a lawsuit against this owner as we work to evict them. The main reason why toursts need to stay in hotels is also as follows: 1) no background check - allows opportunity of crime. Example: pedophile renting a house or apartment near children. Or someone wanting to rob a specific apartment or group of apartments. How do you gain access to the building? $120 bucks, one night. 2) Fire Code: hotels have sprinklers and proper signage for fire in places where people are not as familiar with the surroundings. This puts the guests at risk. 3) Fire hazard: Guests are unfamiliar with the stove, or jet lagged or smoke a cigarette etc. Risk of fire is greater. 4) Noise: guests decide to have a party or blast music. Or they are just up late b/c they are on vacation. 5) Vermin: guests arent going to be as clean. B/c, hey that's what the cleaning deposit is for. This can attract vermin. Then there's the chance the guests bring bed bugs with them.

And yes, I agree it does take away units that would otherwise have been used for long-term renting, robbing the rental market of stock. NYC has about a 1% vacancy rate as it is.

AirBnb is going to see a huge litigation storm coming its way if it doesnt take more of a proactive approach where local law does not allow such rentals.