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Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

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Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#131

Post by ab5tract »

mdorazio wrote: post #38
cstejerean wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then your neighbors should put that in their HOA rules. The city is getting involved to protect hotels not "neighbors".

That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it. There are a baotload of regulations on hotels for very good reasons, as other commenters have pointed out. If you turn your home into a de facto hotel then those same regulations should apply to you as well. To me, Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too - they want the rental income, but not the downsides of adhering to short-term ren…

"Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too" -- in fact, considering that the whole company was founded by two bros who couldn't afford their own rent, this is a perfect summation of what Airbnb does. And now that it exists, rents are even more unaffordable than before.

Commenters who want to ignore externalities are Randians with no actual sense of human society. All they see are rules that are in their own personal way, naturally some tyranny or another. Democracy itself is a blight in their eyes, and a business plan should always trump community concerns.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#132

Post by Naritai »

meric wrote: post #126
collyw wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that Airbnb is doing the opposite. Using residential housing for tourists, reducing the supply, when perfectly good hotels are available.

The hotels's profitability will reduce, and the marginally profitable ones will be converted into apartments, increasing residential supply.

To avoid being laughed out of the room, you'll have to prove that the growth in residences due to hotel closures is greater than the loss of residences due to AirBNB.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#133

Post by tedmiston »

dap wrote: post #86
tedmiston wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To substitute a p2p car sharing service in place of car rental agency completely changes the meaning... Driving a vehicle (your own or renting someone else's) is an activity requiring a license for the agency to validate. I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.

> I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast. This was the third Google hit for "are hotels licensed": http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirea... Restaurants, too: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp Anyway, it's a completely bogus assumption that licensing is only about ensuring competence.

I said [of the guest]: "to sleep and eat breakfast"

Not [of the host]: to provide a place to sleep and serve breakfast.

The article's analogy uses rental agency customer.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#134

Post by tedmiston »

mangeletti wrote: post #70
tedmiston wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To substitute a p2p car sharing service in place of car rental agency completely changes the meaning... Driving a vehicle (your own or renting someone else's) is an activity requiring a license for the agency to validate. I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.

It's the hosts they're talking about, not the guests, which would need licenses. I'm fairly sure you have to have a license to serve breakfast as a business. You also have to be inspected by the health department. Same goes for running a hotel. That stuff all costs money, and it's not up to a private business (AirBnB) to determine how to enforce such laws, even though their existence does change the landscape.

It seems my phrasing was unclear. With "to sleep and eat breakfast", my intent was: a customer to sleep somewhere and eat breakfast there (as the end user), not for a business to serve that customer.

I made this point to the article's literal analogy of the car rental agency's need to validate a consumer to drive a car (as the end user). There is no license needed to sleep and breakfast.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#135

Post by DanBC »

spikels wrote: post #91
holografix wrote: post #76

Can'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…

Sharing may not be the best name but there is clearly value to be gained by using valuable assets like cars, housing and spare time more intensively. What's fundamentally wrong with this?

It's not "spare" housing. People who buy apartments for use with AirBnB are reducing the housing stock available to people who want long term rents or to buy to live.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#136

Post by mangeletti »

tedmiston wrote: post #134
mangeletti wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the hosts they're talking about, not the guests, which would need licenses. I'm fairly sure you have to have a license to serve breakfast as a business. You also have to be inspected by the health department. Same goes for running a hotel. That stuff all costs money, and it's not up to a private business (AirBnB) to determine how to enforce such laws, even though their existence does change the landscape.

It seems my phrasing was unclear. With "to sleep and eat breakfast", my intent was: a customer to sleep somewhere and eat breakfast there (as the end user), not for a business to serve that customer. I made this point to the article's literal analogy of the car rental agency's need to validate a consumer to drive a car (as the end user). There is no license needed to sleep and breakfast.

You're phrasing was clear. The person making the analogy was comparing the drivers to the hosts.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#137

Post by meric »

Naritai wrote: post #132
meric wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hotels's profitability will reduce, and the marginally profitable ones will be converted into apartments, increasing residential supply.

To avoid being laughed out of the room, you'll have to prove that the growth in residences due to hotel closures is greater than the loss of residences due to AirBNB.

Let me clarify, the increase in housing supply is a reaction towards an increase in AirBNB's and may not cancel out the decrease in housing supply due to those AirBNB's. I made the comment to say the decrease in long term residences is not as great as the number of residences allocated as AirBNB's.

One hotel converted into condominiums create 1100 residences,[1] out of [1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/waldorf-astoria-hotel-to-be...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11992112

[3] http://nypost.com/2015/05/11/council-plan-would-limit-changi...

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#138

Post by collyw »

meric wrote: post #137
Naritai wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To avoid being laughed out of the room, you'll have to prove that the growth in residences due to hotel closures is greater than the loss of residences due to AirBNB.

Let me clarify, the increase in housing supply is a reaction towards an increase in AirBNB's and may not cancel out the decrease in housing supply due to those AirBNB's. I made the comment to say the decrease in long term residences is not as great as the number of residences allocated as AirBNB's. One hotel converted into condominiums create 1100 residences,[1] out of [1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/waldorf-ast…

Yet, this study says that NY housing stock is down 10% down to Airbnb.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/27/airbnb-new-y...

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#139

Post by swehner »

ggreer wrote: post #30
swehner wrote: post #4

First amendment, for sure. I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-regi... ) So "their" "free speech rights" are "vio…

It's nothing so silly. As a counterpoint to the Examiner's piece, please read Airbnb's post about the proposed law: https://www.airbnbaction.com/an-update-for-our-community-in-... Basically, the city wants to hold Airbnb responsible for user-generated content. The city also wants Airbnb to hand over users' personal information. Both the EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology think that these requirements viola…

I read it. Quite wordy. Not much difference. To call ads "user-generated content" is a bit of a stretch, no? After all, "AirBNB" is much a party to the transaction.

Re: Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules

#140

Post by kofejnik »

DanBC wrote: post #135
spikels wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing may not be the best name but there is clearly value to be gained by using valuable assets like cars, housing and spare time more intensively. What's fundamentally wrong with this?

It's not "spare" housing. People who buy apartments for use with AirBnB are reducing the housing stock available to people who want long term rents or to buy to live.

and this is wrong exactly why? My buying groceries reduces groceries available to other people.
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