Airbnb raises violent crime rates in cities as residents are pushed out • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by derbOac » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:06 PM UTC

zucker42 wrote: post #25

handmodel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention it - and I can't find it anywhere - but in any neighborhood what is the highest proportion of units that are short-term rentals. Five percent? Ten percent in the super touristy areas? I have no idea and even before the other flaws in the study I am skeptical than anything short of 20% would make an impact on any major attribute of an area. I see one stat in the paper that "40% of buildings…

With regards to your "alternate theory" here's a relevant line in the paper. > To further test the direction of causality for the results, we use a lag/lead analysis in the spirit of Granger [33, 34]. This method is used when the sample includes multiple years and uses both lead and lagged versions of the treatment variable (τ can be both positive and negative). I don't have enough experience in econometrics/statisti…

Those types of analyses are informative, but have problems related to the appropriate timescale for the causal processes involved, and can't rule out certain types of processes.

For example, that type of analysis might suggest that the direct crime -> airbnb increase link is unlikely. However, it's possible that there's some other process that's more like simultaneous perceived neighborhood quality change -> airbnb increase and neighborhood quality change -> crime increase (basically third variable change).

Reading this paper I was persuaded that tourism per se is maybe not the causal factor (although not convinced because their measures -- reviews -- were a little odd). However, I'm less convinced that airbnb rental per se is the causal factor. Maybe more closely related to whatever the causal factor(s) is(are) but not necessarily it.

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

#42

Post by trident5000 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

vetinari wrote: post #35

trident5000 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im good with that idea on investment properties. Though I have no issue with people having vacation homes. Theres a natural limit to how many vacation homes someone can have without a revenue source on the asset.

And that limit is enforced by upkeep costs. Owning homes isn't free, you know. It is a physically depreciating asset, that you have to take care of, whether you use it actively or not. Doing so costs money, so depth of your wallet puts a firm limit on the amount of properties you are capable to take care of.

Yep thats what I was getting at. Taxes and insurance alone put in a nice dent every year.

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

#43

Post by dorchadas » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

cracker_jacks wrote: post #39

DoubleDerper wrote: post #21

The AirBnb "effect" has directly led to increased home prices. A home turning a profit thus becomes more important than how its guests impact a neighborhood and community. Ignoring or spinning the social costs is a primary goal of Airbnb's PR machine. It has made many neighborhoods more transitory (i.e. less homesteading, more short term rentals). Acknowledge the social costs to community and it's not surprising to r…

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.

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

#44

Post by colechristensen » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

analyst74 wrote: post #38

From micro economic levels, it makes sense, short term rental in many cases are more lucrative, thus prevalence of AirBnB can push out long term residents. But from a macro level, that would mean the city is getting more tourists, more business and job opportunities for its residents, ultimately leading to a more prosperous populace, right? Or are there other forces at play preventing locals from benefiting from more…

People earning money by collecting rent on real estate really aren’t contributing much of anything to anybody, more of a tax on the rest of us by directly taking our income or raising prices on the real estate which will do so otherwise.

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

#45

Post by trident5000 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

cracker_jacks wrote: post #39

DoubleDerper wrote: post #21

The AirBnb "effect" has directly led to increased home prices. A home turning a profit thus becomes more important than how its guests impact a neighborhood and community. Ignoring or spinning the social costs is a primary goal of Airbnb's PR machine. It has made many neighborhoods more transitory (i.e. less homesteading, more short term rentals). Acknowledge the social costs to community and it's not surprising to r…

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

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.

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

#46

Post by disabled » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #28

trident5000 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had anti-hoarding measures on masks but dont seem to have them on homes. Every additional income property you own (and used as such) should have an escalating hoarding penalty.

These penalties are never high enough to actually discourage the behavior. It's better to just ban accumulating more than X homes, where X could be as low as 1.

The penalties can be effective if you are a citizen of the country that you are purchasing the home in.

Also, for American citizens, they almost always have US annual income taxes, which are taxed on worldwide income. The taxation situation becomes tremendously more complicated if you own a home (or homes) abroad.

So, interestingly, Americans may hoard homes stateside but rarely so abroad.

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

#47

Post by stickfigure » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:10 PM UTC

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.

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

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

#48

Post by vetinari » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:13 PM UTC

trident5000 wrote: post #42

vetinari wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that limit is enforced by upkeep costs. Owning homes isn't free, you know. It is a physically depreciating asset, that you have to take care of, whether you use it actively or not. Doing so costs money, so depth of your wallet puts a firm limit on the amount of properties you are capable to take care of.

Yep thats what I was getting at. Taxes and insurance alone put in a nice dent every year.

> Taxes and insurance alone put in a nice dent every year.

Just make sure you know what are you doing. For rental properties, these things will be paid by the tenant in the rent, and for those wanting to get their own property, it will push it even further out of reach.

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

#49

Post by wyre » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

analyst74 wrote: post #38

From micro economic levels, it makes sense, short term rental in many cases are more lucrative, thus prevalence of AirBnB can push out long term residents. But from a macro level, that would mean the city is getting more tourists, more business and job opportunities for its residents, ultimately leading to a more prosperous populace, right? Or are there other forces at play preventing locals from benefiting from more…

Tourism generally increases minimum wage jobs which aren’t able to pay for increasing rents in the places they live.

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

#50

Post by jimbob45 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

DoubleDerper wrote: post #21

The AirBnb "effect" has directly led to increased home prices. A home turning a profit thus becomes more important than how its guests impact a neighborhood and community. Ignoring or spinning the social costs is a primary goal of Airbnb's PR machine. It has made many neighborhoods more transitory (i.e. less homesteading, more short term rentals). Acknowledge the social costs to community and it's not surprising to r…

I’ve tried to tell this to people and I get blank stares every time.

If you take an AirBNB house off the AirBNB market and put it up for sale, it’s like you just built a house for that community. Even better, the market for houses dips lower because of the increased supply.

I really wish rental housing was banned. There is no real gain in productivity from allowing rental housing other than some scummy landlord who lives three states away getting a bit richer off of the dime of the actual residents in the city.