Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 224 posts

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#161

Post by baby »

alexandec wrote: post #33

I've had bad experiences with multiple Airbnbs including: - showing up at night with the key not in the agreed location, and not being able to contact the owner until the next day - showing up and someone else was already in the unit - a webcam was plugged in and placed on the bedside table with no warning - conditions in the unit were significantly worse than those shown in the photos All these listings had great re…

> Airbnb needs to make some real changes or they will lose further trust among customers.

On the other hand I only stay at Airbnbs when I travel, and have been for as long as I can remember, and I've never had these issues.

My biggest issue is that they lie about the prices per night.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#162

Post by robocat »

cgurke wrote: post #86

In Croatia and a few other places, there are a lot of fake Airbnb listings. You can instant book them but they are not available and the host never answers. I once was stranded in a really dark and empty area of town because of this. The host provided a fake number even... These fake hosts are still active, I can see the green dot indicating they are online if I look into the chat logs. Airbnb did not pay for the hot…

I stayed 1 stay in Croatia, 2 in Bosnia & Herzegovina (1 Sarajevo) - they were all great (1 was epic). Was a few years ago though...

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#163

Post by baby »

I'll preface this by saying that AirBnb lies about its prices/night, and that really suck.

Having said that, I really really don't understand the other criticisms against AirBnb here. I travel a lot, for leisure and work, and I constantly stay at AirBnbs and have been for years.

Here is how it compares with hotels for me:

* I usually can't remember any hotel room I've stayed at (unless it's the marina bay sands), whereas I remember every single AirBnB I've stayed at.

* When I stay in an airbnb for tourism, I feel like I lived a bit in the city, never get that feeling with a hotel.

* Pick up never has lines, and is often pretty straight forward (they have more and more of these locks for self-checkin)

* The location is always better for the price, I've heard people saying otherwise, but I've travelled all over the world with AirBnB and always found a better place for cheaper. The bay area was pretty hard, but I switched to a room at someone's place (instead of the whole place) and I ended up staying in insanely nice places. (I definitely recommend trying this, it's always much nicer and I seldom run into the people living there.)

* AirBnBs have a kitchen

* I overall find hotels to be dirty. There's something about them that I really don't like. Unless the hotel costs a LOT of money (again, Marina bay sands So yeah, I don't buy the AirBnB has failed thing, because I'm a heavy user.

I might be wrong, but I hope not because AirBnB going bankrupt would be a real bummer IMO.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#164

Post by drstewart »

baby wrote: post #163

I'll preface this by saying that AirBnb lies about its prices/night, and that really suck. Having said that, I really really don't understand the other criticisms against AirBnb here. I travel a lot, for leisure and work, and I constantly stay at AirBnbs and have been for years. Here is how it compares with hotels for me: * I usually can't remember any hotel room I've stayed at (unless it's the marina bay sands), whe…

This is exactly my feeling too. There are still cases where I prefer hotels (business travel), but they just don't compare to Airbnb for vacations. Especially so if you have a group of people instead of 1 or 2.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#165

Post by mjrbrennan »

ohbleek wrote: post #136

AirBnB failed. I don't even check it out anymore when I travel because a hotel typically costs about the same due to the fees charged by the hosts. I would choose a hotel over AirBnB until the price difference is 15-20% lower in favor of AirBnB because there are too many unknowns with AirBnB and the novelty has worn off entirely. Plus since so many listings are owned by some company or person renting out multiple loc…

I always see this view about hotels being cheaper but this has never been the case for me. I use Airbnbs all the time because they are cheaper (though I do like hotels better in a lot of cases). For example I am planning a road trip through CA, NV, UT, AZ and not once has a hotel room been cheaper than an Airbnb.

Also the case in Australia where I live, the hotels are super expensive, easily > 150 a night for pretty low level.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#166

Post by drstewart »

teej wrote: post #143
exhilaration wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What AirBnB has over hotels is locations inside neighborhoods. Take Montreal for example, the hotels are clustered downtown, which is fine if that's what you're looking for. But by staying in an AirBnB you get a local experience, in a local neighborhood. It's like this all over the world.

This is exactly what’s terrible about Airbnb. A listing in a residential neighborhood creates negative externalities on that community.

That's a failure of urban planning, not Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#167

Post by unlinked_dll »

austhrow743 wrote: post #134
unlinked_dll wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short term rentals to tourists isn't occupancy, it's occupation. Sorry for the hyperbole I just thought that was good wordplay. These rentals drive up rents for the people in the community and remove housing stock from the market, making it more expensive and less likely for people to purchase their home and build equity. Rent is non recoverable unlike a mortgage, even if you ultimately take a loss. Flooding the hous…

Seeing housing as a vehicle for wealth building is what leads to policies that increase or maintain housing prices. People don't need to put their money in to housing to build equity, they can just build equity. You know, save. Put it in diversified assets not chuck it all in to one asset and then leverage debt to chuck even more in to that asset. Home ownership is how the system keeps the common man down. It should…

As a home buyer you aren't making the choice between a diversified set of assets without leverage and one highly leveraged asset. You're spending money for another month of shelter while making the decision to keep it when you've paid for it long enough.

A lot of people would love to pump their savings into a diverse portfolio with little debt. Unfortunately we still have to pay rent. Personally if I do the math on it, putting savings into equities to save up for a 20% down payment on a mortgage is by far the most sound plan I can have because it optimizes my returns for my income.

And even without talking about returns, in terms of utility I don't want to raise a family in my expensive and tiny apartment - basically I don't want to save up so I can buy a nice house when I retire, I want to buy a nice house to build my life in then sell it when I retire. You've got the incentives completely flipped in my opinion.

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#168

Post by ahupp »

I'm surprised to see the pessimism here. For a family of 5 AirBnB is far better than hotels. I'd much rather get a whole house than cram everyone into a single hotel room. And I can't remember the last time I had a bad experience. Maybe the "whole house, multi-bedroom" segment is different from the typical AirBnB experience?

Re: Airbnb’s loss nearly doubles in fourth quarter, before virus

#169

Post by kortilla »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #82
alexandec wrote: post #33

I've had bad experiences with multiple Airbnbs including: - showing up at night with the key not in the agreed location, and not being able to contact the owner until the next day - showing up and someone else was already in the unit - a webcam was plugged in and placed on the bedside table with no warning - conditions in the unit were significantly worse than those shown in the photos All these listings had great re…

This is, of course, the whole point of consumer protection. The trend of all these "regulation arbitrage" startups seems to be to show consumers why the regulation existed in the first place.

Well except Uber/Lyft were great examples of why taxi cabs absolutely shouldn’t have had any protection.
Post reply on HN