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The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

nytimes.com

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Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#51

Post by notmyaccount »

duxup wrote: post #8
notmyaccount wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all the hotel, taxi, etc. owners group up to create a cartel to keep the status quo and not to disrupt the market, then that is also not exactly good. The choice of a community does not necessarily mean that it is the right choice.

Is what you're proposing, actually the case as far as hotels goes?

I mean declaring a property to be short term rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market.

AirBnb definitely solves a problem and generally at a much cheaper price. We need to update our laws to let it do that in a sustainable manner.

Edit: Corrected rentable to short-term rentable

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#52

Post by jacques_chester »

jseliger wrote: post #38
massivecali wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said for all foreign realestate investment where homes sit empty. (Granted that could be solved by a vacancy tax.) But people already buy places and rent them out as income property. This puts a burden on renters and increases the incentives for builders to only construct larger apartments and homes. It raises the price for everyone and poor single people suffer the most. Im not following how airbnb…

If only there were some way, a technology, even, of increasing the total number of units on a given plot of land, such that those who want to live in a city or visit a city wouldn't have to compete so vigorously for livable housing units. Alas, we can only dream that such a technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_frame

Is your argument that tall buildings are not built in NYC?

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#53

Post by karzeem »

tptacek wrote: post #36
karzeem wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It harms communities by allowing housing inventory to flow to where the demand is most intense?

No, it harms communities by turning apartments into hotels. Hotels have externalities, which is why they're zoned.

Dense, multi-use blocks are part of the magic of New York. And there are hotels comingled with residential buildings all over the city. I'm not saying tenants should be free to violate their agreements with landlords, but these uses of Airbnb are solving a problem that city laws have created (an extreme lack of housing and hotel supply). I blame those city laws as a root cause. Putting supply on Airbnb is just water moving around obstacles the laws have created.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#54

Post by close04 »

jimrhods23 wrote: post #13

I don't really thing what this guy did was a bad thing: He had positive reviews, multiple maids to cleanup after guests, and willingly broke leases and lost money when there were complaints.

It's simple, he broke the law/city regulations that are there for a reason. I'll quote the relevant bit from the article:

> New York regulations are supposed to keep apartments from being pulled out of an already-tight rental market to cater to the tourist trade. They specify that it is illegal to rent an entire apartment in most buildings for fewer than 30 days unless the permanent tenant is present while the renter is there.

For one guy to make millions there are many city inhabitants that have to face ever increasing rents. And this harms the city because it increases unrest and puts off people from moving in.

And the issue is also on a more "micro" scale. Imagine living in a building where several apartments are dedicated to Airbnb style renting full time. You would probably not enjoy renting or owning the other apartments there.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#55

Post by ryanmarsh »

“We’re not criminals,” he said at his lawyer’s office, while puffing from a Juul he kept in a black leather pouch fastened to a chain around his neck. He shrugged: “I don’t own a yacht or a big penthouse.”

So you’re only a criminal if the haul is large?

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#56

Post by notmyaccount »

jacques_chester wrote: post #50
notmyaccount wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying that they should go on breaking the laws. The laws are clear. But at certain times, the laws have been deliberately lobbied to create a hindrance for any new players in the market. Like in this case, applying for a permit to rent out apartments should have been much easier than the current cumbersome process is. Like NY Taxi Medallions. Before Uber, Lyft or other ride-sharing apps, there was only 13,5…

Breaking the law because you find it morally repugnant is one thing. Breaking the law for a buck is a very different thing.

Haha. I mean yes I kinda agree with what you said.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#57

Post by tptacek »

karzeem wrote: post #53
tptacek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it harms communities by turning apartments into hotels. Hotels have externalities, which is why they're zoned.

Dense, multi-use blocks are part of the magic of New York. And there are hotels comingled with residential buildings all over the city. I'm not saying tenants should be free to violate their agreements with landlords, but these uses of Airbnb are solving a problem that city laws have created (an extreme lack of housing and hotel supply). I blame those city laws as a root cause. Putting supply on Airbnb is just water…

These people didn't just "commingle" hotels alongside other buildings; they implanted hotels into apartment buildings. That is definitely not a norm in NYC.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#58

Post by jacques_chester »

jimrhods23 wrote: post #49
jacques_chester wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the description it appears that he and his partners (a) broke the law (b) broke his contracts with AirBnB and (c) took extraordinary measures to conceal (a) and (b) from legal scrutiny. Those are all, by and large, "bad things".

He violated new york regulations and an end user agreement. Nobody was hurt and from the sounds of it, he worked very hard to please his customers. There will be fines involved, because NYC wants their cut of the profits. I still don't consider what they did as 'bad things'.

> Nobody was hurt

First: You don't know that. In fact the neighbours would disagree.

Second: laws are intended to be preventative. Some of them are to prevent the bad outcome (manslaughter is illegal), some of them to prevent things that commonly lead to a bad outcome (campfires in my bedroom are illegal). If I build a campfire in my room and this time it doesn't destroy my building, that doesn't excuse me in law or ethics. I still did a dangerous thing, knowingly and recklessly.

> There will be fines involved, because NYC wants their cut of the profits.

There are fines involved because NYC operates, even its own gloriously half-arsed way, under the rule of law.

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#59

Post by rootusrootus »

notmyaccount wrote: post #43
rootusrootus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If not the community itself, who do you propose gets to determine what the right choice is?

You have to look at the overall benefit, not just the benefit of the local community. I gave certain examples why the community choice might be due to their own selfish reasons in the reply to comment above yours.

I am still confused what exactly you propose. Who gets to determine overall benefit? Don't we have communities for this exact reason to begin with?

Re: The Rise and Fall of a Multimillion-Dollar Airbnb Scheme

#60

Post by duxup »

notmyaccount wrote: post #51
duxup wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is what you're proposing, actually the case as far as hotels goes?

I mean declaring a property to be short term rentable is much harder than it ought to be. This is what the hotel association NYC has spent years lobbying for. So something new like AirBnB cannot harm their market. AirBnb definitely solves a problem and generally at a much cheaper price. We need to update our laws to let it do that in a sustainable manner. Edit: Corrected rentable to short-term rentable

Well renting, and a hotel type "renting" are way way different.

I'm not really sure there is a "problem" here. It's the locals who get to decide if their laws need updating or not. I'm willing to be a ton of Airbnb guests is not what the locals want.

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