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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

#281

Post by kelnos »

dorchadas wrote: post #43
cracker_jacks wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the difficulty of increasing supply has directly led to increased home prices.

And if it wasn't for people turning that supply into AirBnBs to satisfy their short term greed and tourists, there wouldn't be as much of an issue. AirBnB has certainly contributed a lot to the lack of supply in major tourist destinations.

I live in San Francisco, so I know my view of crazy housing markets is skewed, but I guarantee you that housing would be just as expensive here if Airbnb didn't exist.

And let's not assume that anyone who wants to list a property on Airbnb is mainly motivated by greed. Attempting to paint the people on the other side of your argument as evil is a pretty transparently bad argumentation strategy.

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

#282

Post by rightbyte »

wonder_er wrote: post #251
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I still can't tell which is happening: 1. You're trolling us with masterfully-ported prohibition-era enforcement mechanisms 2. You consider yourself a prohibitionist (of alcohol, drugs, or airbnb) and are advocating for prohibition-style responses to AirBnB. 3. You don't consider yourself a prohibitionist, and don't see how your opposition to AirBnB (and recommended enforcement mechanisms) is very similar to prohibit…

Prohibitionist? Enforcing hotel regulations and zoning is not prohibiting hotels.

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

#283

Post by kelnos »

lgessler wrote: post #55
stickfigure wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tourists are people too. This really seems like an extreme version of nativism.

Is it really right to equate a tourist's interest in accommodation with a resident's interest in a strong community?

Where's the threshold of badness here, though? Sure, if 75% of residential units are up for short term rental, it's gonna be really hard for the remaining residents to form a strong community. But if it's more like 5%, or even 10%[0], is that really a big detriment to a "strong community"? That just seems like an easy "no" to me.

[0] And I would expect those units to not be evenly distributed around a city; there will probably be higher concentrations in the more touristy spots where this community stuff matters less, and lower concentrations in the more "sleepy" residential areas.

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

#284

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

kelnos wrote: post #277
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in San Diego (a big tourist town), in recent years our hotel vacancy is rising, and rents are rising as well, as tourists flood into livable dwellings (Airbnbs). Further, hotel taxes used to fund a great deal of the city, but Airbnbs are not subject to the tax, so the city's finances are struggling as well. Personally I'm fine with Airbnbs, and I often stay in them myself when I travel, but if you own more than…

> Further, hotel taxes used to fund a great deal of the city, but Airbnbs are not subject to the tax, so the city's finances are struggling as well. That's really San Diego's fault, though. Many cities and states have classified Airbnbs as hotels for taxation purposes, or created new (taxed) categories specifically for them. For example, Hawaii charges a "transient accommodations tax" of 10.5%, as well as a general e…

Yes, exactly my point.

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

#285

Post by another-dave »

solatic wrote: post #279
oblio wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would your thing even work? You'd have to provide an AirBNB link plus legal tenants have papers.

You set up a fake listing with real outdoor photos and stock indoor photos. Many legal tenants don't have their paperwork on-hand, stuff like deeds is stored in safe-deposit boxes where it's not readily accessible to show police who spontaneously arrive to kick you out.

Doesn't AirBnB require identity verification to use the platform as a letter, let alone to list a property?

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

#286

Post by another-dave »

wonder_er wrote: post #251
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I still can't tell which is happening: 1. You're trolling us with masterfully-ported prohibition-era enforcement mechanisms 2. You consider yourself a prohibitionist (of alcohol, drugs, or airbnb) and are advocating for prohibition-style responses to AirBnB. 3. You don't consider yourself a prohibitionist, and don't see how your opposition to AirBnB (and recommended enforcement mechanisms) is very similar to prohibit…

Local authorities do licence checks on pubs and bars at the moment. If there was someone illegally running a pub out of their own house it would definitely be cracked down on in this way — does that mean that we currently have "prohibition-era enforcement" on alcohol too?

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

#287

Post by another-dave »

wesleywt wrote: post #266
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…

I think criminalising what you do to with your own property is slippery slope to no property ownership.

We already have plenty of laws to regulate what you can do within your own property so it doesn't inconvenience your neighbours — burning rubbish out your back garden, playing loud music in the middle of the night, putting up structures that block daylight coming into their property etc. etc.

I think having zoning laws that say hotels aren't allowed in "this area" but they are allowed in "that area" isn't unreasonable. (Most people have no problems with a long-term resident going away for a weekend and letting their house on AirBnB, it's when you turn a property in a residential neighbourhood into a permanent short-term let that's the issue.)

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

#288

Post by specialist »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #115
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'…

> 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…

"Increased enforcement" is the new "self policing". Clap louder, Tinkerbell is sure to fly.

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

#289

Post by kelnos »

tetromino_ wrote: post #97
BurningFrog wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also plenty of non tourists who can't find regular housing who cram themselves into AirBnbs. It's better than sleeping in your car.

When I moved to New York for a job, I spent over a month in an Airbnb while searching for more permanent accomodations. My roommates in the Airbnb were all in a similar situations, needing a place to stay for 1-6 months. Without the Airbnb, where would we have gone? A hotel? But a hotel with a useable kitchen and good wifi would have been too expensive for any of us renting one of those rooms.

Not sure if NY has this, but when I first moved to the bay area in 2004, I lived for three months in a studio apartment, in a building that catered to shorter-term stays, before finding something more permanent (I was on a 3-month contract and wasn't sure I'd be offered a full-time position). Chatting with the property managers, I learned that my use case was pretty common, as well as people only intending to stay in the area for a few months, as well as your use case of needing some time in the area before finding something more permanent. If we'd had Airbnb back then, it would have almost certainly cost 2-3x what this place cost.

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

#290

Post by greggman3 »

jeromegv wrote: post #213
heavyset_go wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Renting a space at an address and sending your renters to a separate address is a big no-no with Airbnb terms. Easy to detect as Airbnb sends mail to check and confirm where you live. And Airbnb could not caution that game, they would get sued for falsified contracts.

Wrong! (unless they changed policy) It happened to me. AirBnB claimed it was policy to let the listing on AirBnB show the wrong location.

https://blog.greggman.com/blog/yet-more-airbnb-issues/

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