> My research has found as many as 90% of Airbnb guests have said they were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their stays.
For a perspective on the other 10%... checkout:
What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
41–50 of 105 posts
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
If vacancy rates are high enough they create downward pressure on rent.
Yes, assuming AirBnb isn't more profitable than decreasing prices.
That may happen in a vanishingly small subset of instances, perhaps in developing economies where the housing stock of a desirable destination hadn't already been augmented by dedicated hotel space—since visitors would be so profitable. My guess it that any situation like that would be relatively short term, but could be handled with special case moratoriums.
Maybe I'm missing something but I have a hard time thinking of a situation where this would be anything other than a short term issue.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#43To put it bluntly, I don't like competing with the entire rest of the world for housing in my city, and I'm pretty sure most other people don't either.
> my city Your city? Interesting way to frame it. Maybe you were born where you currently live or maybe you moved there last year. Either way it doesn't really matter. Why do you feel the need to keep other people out of the city you currently live? The reasons that you live where you live are the same reasons other people want to live and visit. Why deny someone that ability to move or visit only because you got the…
Because of taxes. OP likely has been paying taxes all his life, his parents likely paying taxes all their life, and so on... in a way, the city belongs more to the OP than not.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#44I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero. I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling lik…
Neighbours should have a hotline to Airbnb that they can call to report disruptive guests.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#45It seems like there is a perfectly reasonable middle ground here — where households have the flexibility to rent out part of their primary residence, on a limited basis (either temporal or just part of the house), subject to clear and evenly enforced regulations. This is a pre-internet idea (e.g., casas particulares in Cuba in the 1990s) that becomes way easier/safer/better with a web-based platform. Personally, I fi…
The biggest difficulty here is enforcement. You can create laws based around how frequently a residence is rented or whether it's the full residence rented or merely part of the residence but then you need to actually enforce those laws. Is enforcement based around income taxes from the renter? Or reporting from Airbnb itself of what's available on the site? Do local governments have to setup a small team or even an entire agency to watch this stuff? Cities need to budget for this enforcement. This stuff is hard.
Even if every popular tourist city immediately passed legislation to limit Airbnb practices it could be years or decades before they figure out the details of making that policy into reality.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#46How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / work / visit? It seems to me that AirBNB isn't to blame for the overall lack of housing (and temporary housing aka hostel/hotel) options, rather it's just the most visible brand name competing for the limited supply. Cities can ban it if they want, but I'd rather…
Wait, how would this solve ANY of the problems mentioned in the article? Most of the issues they talked about were simply caused by having a bunch of tourists living with the people (in fact, 'over tourism' was one of the mentioned problems, along with harassment and loudness from guests).
Building more places for these tourists to stay isn't going to solve the problem of having too many tourists in a city.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#47Airbnb is a zero sum game - what tourists win, locals lose. Two of my coworkers are currently being forced to look for a new place to live in a tight housing market because their current landlord can make more money renting on Airbnb. I've stayed in Airbnbs in the past (and appreciated the convenience), but I no longer will.
In Norway despite rising Airbnb hotel revenues increased. On a recent conference I talked with PhD students and they told me that without AirBnb they would not attend as travel expenses would be outside their travel budget.
Just having a meal in Norway blew up my travel budget ;)
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#48To put it bluntly, I don't like competing with the entire rest of the world for housing in my city, and I'm pretty sure most other people don't either.
> my city Your city? Interesting way to frame it. Maybe you were born where you currently live or maybe you moved there last year. Either way it doesn't really matter. Why do you feel the need to keep other people out of the city you currently live? The reasons that you live where you live are the same reasons other people want to live and visit. Why deny someone that ability to move or visit only because you got the…
Residents get preferential price treatment to visitors because they provide societal stability. It's the same reason why state residents get preferential tuition pricing to out of state residents.
You give discounted state tuition because you don't want a state full of low-skilled dummies. You give residents an edge over tourists so you don't have a shortage of people to put out fires, cook food and remove garbage.
It's not hard.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#49Levy taxes on the rentals.
Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood
#50I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero. I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling lik…
Yeah, I'm an AirBnB customer as well and I use it mostly for business travel because affordable hotels are usually located in the crappy parts of town, have nothing around them, and are generally not comfortable. In contrast I can book an AirBnB at 1 to 2 star rates and get a place that's within walking distance of coffee shops and running trails and stuff to do when I'm not working.
I generally don't stumble home drunk at 3 AM, but I sympathize with the neighbors of people who do.