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Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

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Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#461

Post by scarface_74 »

mlrtime wrote: post #401
scarface_74 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s how it should be - a hotel is a business in a commercial zone with professional management, pays taxes and doesn’t negatively affect home affordability

And why shouldn't I be able to rent out my apartment for a week if I go on vacation? This was supposed to be the intent of Airbnb and is still a valuable resource if available.

So should I be able to build a butcher shop right by your apartment and let you deal with the smell?

There are zoning laws for a reasons.

Do you own “your” apartment?

I’m asking because some places consider it an “apartment” if it’s a rental and a “condo” if they are individual buyers and other countries call it an apartment regardless

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#462

Post by scarface_74 »

username332211 wrote: post #433
squokko wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't your neighbors be able to use their powers as voters to lobby their government to pass laws preventing their quiet suburban street from being used as a distributed hotel?

Your framing is such a good defense of the arbitrary and thoughtless use and abuse of political power. "Use your power as a voter", what could go wrong? Why shouldn't our neighbors use their powers as voters to keep their peaceful suburban street from being used as housing for migrants, minorities and other undesirables? I'd bet that'll affect housing desirability far more than short term rentals. Why shouldn't they…

So, you think there is an equivalence between migrants and minorities who are long term renters who had to pay a deposit, got a background check and credit check compared to short term Airbnb “guests”?

Are you okay with a meat packing plant in your neighborhood?

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#463

Post by klinquist »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #403
klinquist wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 beds (comprising of 4 different sizes of beds/sheets) make it quite wasteful if a bed is not used. It already takes ~5 hours to clean the home.

Ewww…hosts like you are the reason Airbnb gets a bad rap. I don’t think any reputable hotel would find it ok to not clean the sheets on both queen beds in a room if only one “looked” used. Logistics of cleaning should be built into your pricing and scheduling and not be a chore or something the guests have to think about.

I have a 4.99 rating with almost 100 stays, which seems to be telling me I don’t have a bad rap. In the end, it is my cleaners’ responsibility to leave my house ready for the next guest.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#464

Post by ceejayoz »

geon wrote: post #454
extraduder_ire wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're referring to estimating what restaurant food "should" cost, based on what it is. Rule of thumb I heard years ago was aiming to sell for about 3x what your ingredients cost you plus tax, but that may have increased since.

You should raise prices until you are not quite sold out. If you are at max capacity, you are by definition not charging enough.

There's a lot more to it than that.

Such an approach can give you a long-term unsustainable clientele.

Such an approach can lose you the marketing cachet of being sold out for months.

etc.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#465

Post by ghaff »

brazzy wrote: post #416
ghaff wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm living in a house anyway. I'm not paying myself. Appliances last decades. It would cost me money to drive to a restaurant. With rare exceptions (e.g. high end kitchen you don't use much and eating out really cheaply) there's no world where the costs of preparing meals at home are higher than eating out every meal.

The point is that many people expect them to be priced similarly because they think of the ingredients as the main costs (because those are the only costs they actually see when cooking for themselves), which they are not.

I'm not sure many people actually think that restaurants are or should be as cheap as eating at home except maybe some fast food loss leaders.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#466

Post by lupire »

geon wrote: post #454
extraduder_ire wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're referring to estimating what restaurant food "should" cost, based on what it is. Rule of thumb I heard years ago was aiming to sell for about 3x what your ingredients cost you plus tax, but that may have increased since.

You should raise prices until you are not quite sold out. If you are at max capacity, you are by definition not charging enough.

Almost no restaurant is ever sold out.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#467

Post by ghaff »

klausa wrote: post #414
TulliusCicero wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suite hotels have all that except maybe the washing machine and are often pretty comparable in price to "regular" hotel rooms. I have not found this to be the case at all. Getting a suite with a kitchen usually involves paying a large premium to a regular hotel room.

They don't mean upgrading to a suite at a "regular" hotel; there are chains specializing in renting out "home-style" rooms ("extended-stay" is the industry term, I believe), and I've seen them referred to suite hotels sometimes. The biggest chains have these sub-brands in the space, based off three minutes of googling/wikiing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Inn_by_Marriott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stayb…

Right. Residence Inn is one of my goto brands. Not always certainly but I tend to be staying at mid-rangeish hotels anyway and Residence is usually in that band, especially outside of downtowns.

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#469

Post by nytesky »

bombcar wrote: post #21
endisneigh wrote: post #17

In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. Back to the topic - removing listings isn’t a sufficient enough punishment imho. And how would you even prove it from the guests side? Take a picture I suppose? But how do you stop bad actors? Not sure what the correct solution is. Someone who wants to spy can purchase a spy camera which is very abundant these days.

AirBNB "when it started" was quite likely to find you quirky and cheap options. Now it's commoditized and a business, and the quirky and cheap options are few and far between. Part of the degradation is both the company, the sellers, and the buyers - back in the very beginning it wasn't well known and most of the customers were well behaved - I'm not sure that's entirely the case now, as the customer base has grown.

I mean this is the zeitgeist for AirBnb, the first word of the SNL sketch is BLAND.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw

Re: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

#470

Post by wodenokoto »

unethical_ban wrote: post #393
bombcar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the above makes total sense (to me) when you realize that people don't know how to price rentals at all - just like the average person doesn't know how to price restaurant food. When you know truly how to price (and cost!) something, you know when and where you can offer discounts. If cost to acquire a tenant is $2k, then the discount to preserve a good tenant should be about $2k per tenant turnover time .

Almost like Uber was marketed, AirBnB was not initially sold as a "make primary income off this". It was a way for people with excess assets (spare car and some time, spare room in a big house, etc) to make some money and the companies were the broker. Turning Airbnb into a full-blown rental market with people and LLCs buying houses just for AirBnB was the downfall. At least, that's my interpretation.

You got it the wrong way around. The goal for both was to offer full time incomes and compete with taxis/hotels.

The “offer a spare room” and “pick up someone going the same way as you” narratives were about skirting regulations.

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