Kinda surprised that no one is debating jurisdiction here. Why federal and not state courts? Are federal judges more friendly to this type of case?
Isn't it federal law that they are using to defend against this?
Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
111–120 of 171 posts
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#112I love to see individuals and companies step up and fight against the psychopaths that run San Francisco.
100% agree.
The "control them, tax them, make them lick our boots, what can they do?, they can't do anything about it" mentality is heavy in the SF city leadership.
Believe it or not, some people -- lots of people, actually - are 1000% okay with that. Too many in SF, that's for sure.
Campos wants:
- to be seen as someone who helped the City make more money from the fines and registration requirents
- to appease the vast majority of renters in San Francisco who feel that no owner has a right to their property, the City must be in control -- Campos' voting bloc consists of that group
The problem with objectively dictatorial behavior from government is no one has the guts to stand up to them.
EXCEPT AirBnB!!!
GO AIRBNB !!
Britain just told Merkel and Hollande (who are the real string-pullers in the EU) to scrap off and die.
Tyrannical behavior from people "who tell you what to do and you can't do anything about it" usually ends badly for the perps.
See Nicolae Ceausescu for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-XNTVgDW0
Sometimes people who abuse their power do not lose it gracefully.
Many of us are watching what becomes of Maduro in Venezuela. The entire population there is out of food and rioting and eating dogs and cats.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely not. There are significant negative externalities associated with transient populations. For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since antiquity. Skeezy/…
I'm surprised that this argument gets so much traction without any supporting data. It just plays on fear. First, nothing you listed is an externality but rather direct results of poor behavior. An externality would be something like 'decreases property values of neighboring properties' or 'increased rents due to lower supply'. Second, what data do you have that proves these scenarios are more likely in an AirBnB tha…
I know that near the major universities in my region properly values are far lower because they're often rented to groups of students who are rowdy so their neighbours property values are lower since people are reluctant to buy a house that's for sale unless you're willing to either put up with it, or rent it out yourself.
The amount of off-campus housing needs increased dramatically through the 2000s as the universities expanded enrolment so many areas that weren't being rented now were. Many of the long time homeowners who lived in those areas long before student housing came there have been up in arms.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely not. There are significant negative externalities associated with transient populations. For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since antiquity. Skeezy/…
I'm surprised that this argument gets so much traction without any supporting data. It just plays on fear. First, nothing you listed is an externality but rather direct results of poor behavior. An externality would be something like 'decreases property values of neighboring properties' or 'increased rents due to lower supply'. Second, what data do you have that proves these scenarios are more likely in an AirBnB tha…
Decreased property values near hotels, student ghettos, and other nuisance areas are very commonly depressed, and often have elevated police dispatch rates. It's hardly an uncommon phenomenon.
Not all restaurants are roach-infested mold-filled hazards - but we have to treat them all like they potentially are, in the sense that we need to register them and inspect them to prove that they aren't hazards. Marriott and Hilton hotels get inspected all the time and they pass with flying colors because they do all the things they're supposed to do - unlike unregistered fly-by-night flophouses working under the radar.
You've obviously never gotten bedbugs from a neighboring unit or hotel. Trust me, they suck like crazy. You do not want to go bundle everything you own into trash bags, move out for a weekend while you wash everything you own, and have the house fumigated (heated to a crisp). It sucks.
Fraud/money laundering is a form of criminal activity, and (just like hotels) banks are compelled to report on specific types of activities that are likely to be criminal. Hotels don't define this; legislatures do, just as they define (or delegate) what they consider to be suspicious financial activity. The Hilton is not deciding that the guy paying in cash every night with a dozen visitors every night or the guy bringing in a bunch of drain cleaner every day is a suspicious individual, they let the FBI investigate that just like financial crime.
Sorry to break it to you but the FBI is on to your no-tell-motel dealing scheme. They're not stupid.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised that this argument gets so much traction without any supporting data. It just plays on fear. First, nothing you listed is an externality but rather direct results of poor behavior. An externality would be something like 'decreases property values of neighboring properties' or 'increased rents due to lower supply'. Second, what data do you have that proves these scenarios are more likely in an AirBnB tha…
I know that near the major universities in my region properly values are far lower because they're often rented to groups of students who are rowdy so their neighbours property values are lower since people are reluctant to buy a house that's for sale unless you're willing to either put up with it, or rent it out yourself. The amount of off-campus housing needs increased dramatically through the 2000s as the universi…
Wonderful point. Student housing is a great example of long term rentals with tenants that don't always respect the property or neighbors.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#116Can't help but think of the obvious time and time again with the faux-sharing economy. Sharing is a pathetic use of neural linguistics, you're not sharing, your not doing anyone a kindness, you're making money and you're providing a service. Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive then Airbnb? Few driv…
neural linguistics? Care to elaborate?
He might be thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#117So basically SF wants companies like Airbnb to do their police/enforcement work for them. The city should be going after the unregistered renters themselves. Sure, that's potentially harder, but I can see that it'd be a burden to order a company to do it for them.
Who would pay for all this extra enforcement? My guess is that a large portion of this short term rental income is untaxed. Can't have both sides, no regulation and no tax. I pay my share when I rent a hotel. (Apologies if airbnb renters are paying the appropriate city, state, and federal taxes).
Airbnb takes the appropriate local taxes automatically as part of the booking
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#118Kinda surprised that no one is debating jurisdiction here. Why federal and not state courts? Are federal judges more friendly to this type of case?
Good point. And the Federal court may actually stipulate that by saying "this is not a matter of Constitutional rights -- it is merely a challenge to a local ordinance and must therefore be contested in that jurisdiction."
AirBnB probably knew they'd lose locally, so either they thought "we'll end up appealing anyway, let's go right to the Feds" or "let's make a longshot stab at a 1st Amendment rights claim and avoid the local court."
They stand to lose at either level, because the SCOTUS has already weighed in on "the local government took unlawful control over my real property" -- a rent-controlled NYC landlord's case was turned down by the Justices a couple years back from even being considered in the Supreme Court.
And there are standing regulations already in place for hotels and motels.
AirBnb doesn't have a chance here, really.
The faux taxi services are somehow skating from being held to the bar for being illegal taxi services, but probably not for long.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know that near the major universities in my region properly values are far lower because they're often rented to groups of students who are rowdy so their neighbours property values are lower since people are reluctant to buy a house that's for sale unless you're willing to either put up with it, or rent it out yourself. The amount of off-campus housing needs increased dramatically through the 2000s as the universi…
Wonderful point. Student housing is a great example of long term rentals with tenants that don't always respect the property or neighbors.
They're not exactly long term, though. In my city, they're turned over every 4 months or possibly 8 months. The biggest university has 4 month terms and their co-op programs alternate 4 months on 4 months off.
Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
People who buy housing just to rent out on AirBnB would find it more economical to rent out to a long term renter (because the licensing is actually less onerous), thereby increasing the rental supply and lowering rents.
Am I misunderstanding you? SF's legendary rent control creates a clear incentive for landlords to use a service like Airbnb to continually rent at market rate (though lower occupancy rate) while maintaining control to allocate the unit as they see fit. Renting a unit in sf both freezes rental revenue and removes the owners control to reallocate the unit. Did you mean something else?
Even with rent control it's still better to be a landlord of a long term tenant than follow the licensing restrictions. The license 1) Costs money and 2) limits the number of days you can rent.
#2 is the big issue. Even with rent control, at least you can rent the place out for the whole year. With the license you can only rent the place out for 90 days a year. You must live in the unit the other 275 days of the year. So your rent controlled rate would have to be 25% of market rate for the legal short term rental to make sense, and you'd have to live there when it isn't rented.