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Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

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Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#201

Post by joshuahaglund »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #187
michaelpb wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think people have a very binary view of "criminal enterprises" vs "corporations", like they can only be people who dress in pin-stripe suits and carry tommy guns and say "lookee here, see" a lot, but a tech company can be a criminal enterprise just as much as anything else. Any company that makes money by violating the law, or encouraging it's habitual violation, is a criminal enterprise by definition (at lea…

You mean like Uber? They violated… and people would be pissed to see them go. So companies hope to be the rule breaker that gets too big to fail.

People like Uber because it's cheaper than taxis but I'm hearing complaints that prices are up. Seems the reason it's cheaper than taxis is Uber is subsidizing with investor money and they shifted costs to the drivers, many who are realizing it's not worth it. Seems to me Uber has always been unsustainable (they're billions in the red, spending to capture market share) but they were hoping to have self driving cars to eliminate drivers by now.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#202

Post by cletus »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #149
cletus wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole concept of residential property as an investment must go. Well, not this exactly. I mean when you rent a property, you're renting it from someone else who owns it. That's what residential property is. So there's really only three broad alternatives here: 1. It's owned by governments at some level. I think we can all agree this would largely be a disaster at any sort of scale; 2. They're owned privately. T…

>1. It's owned by governments at some level. I think we can all agree this would largely be a disaster at any sort of scale; Not me! I've heard great things about living in Vienna where about 25% of housing is government owned.

Have you heard of Grenfell Tower?

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#203

Post by Schiendelman »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #67
trident5000 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres no supply because investors are hoarding them. Blackrock is buying out entire neighborhoods and thats really the tip of the iceberg compared to airbnb listings.

I would like to see a strict occupancy tax, or ban the amount of real estate a company/person can own. Oh yea, require all real estate purchases to be American, or have legitimate relitaves residing here. We are selling our land with an to anyone in the world with money. I don't know of any country that makes it so easy for the wealthy to buy land. I would love to know which countries allow real estate purchases like…

What you propose wouldn’t do anything but cause unforeseen problems. Blackrock has bought a few thousand homes; it has no significant impact. But - big companies build housing and sell it; you’d probably screw major homebuilders and limit new supply, making the problem worse.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#204

Post by heavyset_go »

kelnos wrote: post #138
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But AirBnB is clearly used to create illegal hotels and that's the problem. The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal. The incentives aren't difficult: Create an anonymous tip line to report illegal AirBnB operations that violate zoning regulations. Have submitters provide the street address and URL of the AirBnB to make it easy. The person operating the AirBnB (or owner of the house…

> The person submitting the tip about an illegal AirBnB receives 25% of the fine. I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

You can already do this with the IRS and receive 15% to 30% of what is owed[1].

[1] https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#205

Post by Schiendelman »

lghh wrote: post #53
trident5000 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres no supply because investors are hoarding them. Blackrock is buying out entire neighborhoods and thats really the tip of the iceberg compared to airbnb listings.

Why can’t we create enough supply that it’s not worth investors hoarding?

Because we let people tell their neighbors they can’t build more housing, an action that used to be unconstitutional. Now it is, based on one openly racist court case from a hundred years ago.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#206

Post by Jarwain »

jolux wrote: post #154
Jarwain wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why there needs to be a lot of tech involved for a phone line for people to call in tips.

I mean you can have Joe writing it down on a piece of paper, sure. But when it gets to a computer, costs start coming up. It depends on how the software works but the products used tend to be a) ancient and b) often either not configurable enough to support new use cases or so complicated that you have to submit a change request to the vendor to do it for you.

Idk I imagined an excel spreadsheet, which hits the middle ground between paper and some complex govtech application. If it is successful and fines/funding rolls in then maybe upgrade

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#207

Post by heavyset_go »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #150
lr4444lr wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost impossible to enforce. Depts. of Buildings are notoriously slow if the issue is not a clear and present safety hazard. By the time they get out there, the visitor will be long gone. They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end?

> They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end? The property is listed on AirBnB.com, where you get the address and the name of the person operating the AirBnB. They don't need an elaborate sting operation. They just take the link, test book it through the website, confirm the address and name of the oper…

> The property is listed on AirBnB.com, where you get the address and the name of the person operating the AirBnB.

Owners play a shell game and will have property managers list their properties under their names or their employees' names, along with fake addresses that are only revealed via messages after booking.

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#208

Post by cletus »

GuB-42 wrote: post #144
cletus wrote: post #33

A common quote on HN (and one that I firmly believe in) is: > It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. This so applies to AirBnB. It's not salary per se but those that benefit by renting out units or those for whom this has saved them money I've found typically get so defensive about AirBnB to the point of calling detractors NIMBYists and the like. I'…

> Reduces housing supply I am a bit confused about this one. AirBnB does not destroy buildings, and they don't keep places empty, empty buildings make no money. In fact, before it started to be used as pseudo-hotels, it was a way for people to monetize the time they don't spend at home by having a tenant. I mean, before AirBnB, where were travelers staying? Hotels are the obvious answer, but AFAIK hotels still have c…

Your question here seems genuine so I really hate that people use downvotes as "I don't agree with this person" rather than a comment simply being disingenuous, trolling, full of unsubstantiated claims or otherwise low-quality.

So here's an example of what I mean when I say "reduces housing supply" [1]:

> However, since the onset of the coronavirus crisis the tourist leasing market has dried up, and landlords in the sector have reverted to advertising their properties on sites like Daft.ie

> ...

> In contrast, availability in the rental market has bounced, with 41 per cent more properties for rent nationally and 92 per cent more in Dublin.

So by "reducing housing supply" I mean there are less units to rent or buy because existing supply has been taken off those markets to become illegal hotels.

[1]: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/pandemic-reveals...

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#209

Post by simfree »

kelnos wrote: post #138
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But AirBnB is clearly used to create illegal hotels and that's the problem. The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal. The incentives aren't difficult: Create an anonymous tip line to report illegal AirBnB operations that violate zoning regulations. Have submitters provide the street address and URL of the AirBnB to make it easy. The person operating the AirBnB (or owner of the house…

> The person submitting the tip about an illegal AirBnB receives 25% of the fine. I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

This good samaritan compensation model works well in New York to catch illicitly idling commercial vehicles. How are illicit short term rentals significantly different?

Re: Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out

#210

Post by dogorman »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #150
lr4444lr wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is almost impossible to enforce. Depts. of Buildings are notoriously slow if the issue is not a clear and present safety hazard. By the time they get out there, the visitor will be long gone. They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end?

> They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end? The property is listed on AirBnB.com, where you get the address and the name of the person operating the AirBnB. They don't need an elaborate sting operation. They just take the link, test book it through the website, confirm the address and name of the oper…

If they did this right it could be more lucrative for lazy revenue seeking cops than hiding behind overpasses waiting for speeders.
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