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Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

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Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#331

Post by Dylan16807 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #315
stickfigure wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unreasonable to expect AirBNB to enforce your HOA rules. That's a private contract between you and your neighbors.

It's reasonable for AirBnB to verify that their hosts are in compliance with the law. I am a landlord: I let a single house, to a family. New regulations came in on 1st September, requiring the property to be registered. I already had a valid gas safety certificate, expiring in 2 months, and an electrical safety certificate good for two more years. Registration also required an energy performance certificate, which I…

> local regs ban holiday lets in homes that are suitable for residential use.

Is that the same as banning holiday lets in homes entirely? What does a house or proper apartment that's not suitable for residential use look like?

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#332

Post by datavirtue »

fruit2020 wrote: post #111
specproc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels are great. They create jobs, they don't distort property markets in the same way as AirBnB, and you get breakfast!

They are sometimes too small if you go with young kids and want to spend a week or so.

There are tons of professionally managed rental companies that have been in operation for decades where you can rent houses. Same price as the "internet" grifters without any bullshit whatsoever.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#333

Post by mcguire »

scarby2 wrote: post #243
dorchadas wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it'll force them to go to places that are actually planned to accommodate them. Tourists are included in city planning, believe it or not, but they're not expected to be taking up the actual residential places of the city. That's why areas are zoned for hotels and there's regulation around them.

> Tourists are included in city planning The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels. There's a huge demand for what AirBnB provides (Serviced and short term accommodation). Hotels are inadequate for longer stays or where you just want the comforts of home, a good middle ground is the "serviced apartment" concept found in some places (e…

Technically, the reason AirBnB exists is that if you aren't paying for most of the "serviced" part, including obeying the city planning and safety regulations, you can rent a property for less than an actual hotel and still make a lot of money.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#334

Post by mcguire »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #318
wcarron wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a good middle ground is the "serviced apartment" concept found in some places (entire apartment blocks reserved for short term rentals) You mean a hotel? Hotels are not inadequate for longer stays. If someone desires the comforts of a home, they can move there and actually rent/buy a home. > The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels…

Most hotel rooms don't have kitchens. It's not unreasonable to want a kitchen if you're staying somewhere for a week or two. But expecting those people to buy or lease a home is unreasonable. Short-term rental of homes is the solution to this.

It's called a residential hotel, and they're all over the place where business travelers stay by the day, week, or month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment_hotel

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#335

Post by lostlogin »

slivanes wrote: post #287
thepasswordis wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you charge guests in your home $100/night to stay there?

I wonder if this is a chicken/egg thing? Host are charging this silly fee because guests were not cleaning up after themselves? Like at a cafe, it's socially accepted that you put away (bus) your finished utensils.

Just making sure I’m understanding you, at cafes where you live you clear your own dishes?

I haven’t encountered this before.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#336

Post by archagon »

ghaff wrote: post #272
jamiegreen wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You mean a hotel? Hotels are not inadequate for longer stays. If someone desires the comforts of a home, they can move there and actually rent/buy a home. What about a middle ground. If I go somewhere for 2-4 weeks? For that length of time I kind of want a proper kitchen, which I won't get in a hotel, but obviously it is not long enough to actually rent/buy a home.

>What about a middle ground. If I go somewhere for 2-4 weeks? For that length of time I kind of want a proper kitchen, which I won't get in a hotel, but obviously it is not long enough to actually rent/buy a home. Not everywhere but at least in the US suite hotels with small kitchens are pretty common. Most of the big chains have one or more suite hotel brands. (Though honestly I not infrequently travel for 2-3 weeks…

Yeah, for exorbitant amounts of money.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#337

Post by archagon »

dorchadas wrote: post #307
scarby2 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tourists are included in city planning The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels. There's a huge demand for what AirBnB provides (Serviced and short term accommodation). Hotels are inadequate for longer stays or where you just want the comforts of home, a good middle ground is the "serviced apartment" concept found in some places (e…

No, they are accounted for. The issue is entitlement on the side of tourists -- thinking they should have access to all the local amenities and stuff they do at home, while on vacation. This was a problem, but it was never a huge problem, from how I understand it, before AirBnB. Basically AirBnB changed the expectations for tourists, at the harm of the local communities. > however there are times when you want an ent…

If a local wants to open their home to me, even if it’s a second home, why should that make me feel “entitled” to enjoy a taste of local life? (Ignoring Airbnb slumlords, which should probably be fought with regulation and/or Airbnb policy changes.)

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#338

Post by yCombLinks »

ghaff wrote: post #222
mancerayder wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a real demand, but at one point the cost becomes too steep. The cleaning and service fees are being universally complained about. It definitely reduced some demand, especially since some of it seemed to have started recently - last year ? For long weekends, it becomes a very bad deal: the overhead of big service fees that are usually more than 1 day's rental, then you tack on the cleaning which can be 125-225…

>There's a demand for all sorts of consumer items in the world but people hit their limits. That's the thing with a lot of VC-subsidized services. There are a lot of services that consumers would be happy to, well, consume if they were cheap enough. Drivers, personal chefs, weekly housekeepers, lawn services, laundry pickup, etc. Even people with an upper middle class income are pretty selective about that sort of th…

With 3 kids every meal at a restaurant is closer to $50 than $10, it adds up fast. Then getting 3 kids to sit down and not embarrass you! And then one isn't hungry! I love what airBnB could be. What it is right now sucks. The kitchen / whole house is a big deal. Just walking outside for a few minutes at a real house is a big relaxer that's a lot less manageable at a hotel.

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#339

Post by mcguire »

datavirtue wrote: post #297
drc500free wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These always remind me of the Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. Like the most innocuous thing ever becomes terrible at scale. Amazon, Uber, AirBnB, Facebook all seemed like reasonable to great ideas and were really neat at smaller scale. And once they grew they started wreaking havoc in new and unexpected ways. It’s a good thought experiment for any startup - how could this cool thing that people like dest…

Exactly, I was so optimistic that the only path was one of human enlightenment because of the internet's ability to scale up the distribution of information and allow groups to collaborate instantly. It all went horribly wrong.

Human's gonna human. :-)

Re: Illegal host, electric shocks, slugs, leaks and no support – How Airbnb failed

#340

Post by HWR_14 »

bell-cot wrote: post #158
stewx wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no good reason AirBnb could not offer proper support. Showing contempt for your customers like this is a choice.

Might you tell us about any large, modern, fast-growing businesses which happily limit profits, so they can pay for high-quality customer support? Yes, it's "a choice". Sadly, it's an overwhelmingly popular choice.

> any large, modern, fast-growing businesses which happily limit profits, so they can pay for high-quality customer support?

Famously, Chewy. Amazon (used to?) have a reputation for being very pro consumer. Zappos.

Obviously, those are all companies that grew because if I knew of fast growing businesses that were sustainable and likely to succeed I would be investing other people's money fulltime.

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