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Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

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Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#51

Post by MrPowers »

zwirbl wrote: post #39
sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

I fully agree with most criticisms, but fees for the final cleaning of the room (usually only once per 1 or 2 week stay) are oftentimes separate from the room (or apartment) price, but they have to be advertised

When you searched Airbnb for prices they wouldn't include cleaning or additional services. For my first few years using Airbnb, this wasn't a problem, but then folks began hacking the search algorithm and charging huge cleaning fees to get included in more searches. You'd select a place for $500 and find it was $700 when checking out. I started going back to hotels cause they were cheaper than Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#52

Post by [deleted] »

zwirbl wrote: post #39
sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

I fully agree with most criticisms, but fees for the final cleaning of the room (usually only once per 1 or 2 week stay) are oftentimes separate from the room (or apartment) price, but they have to be advertised

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#53

Post by davidf18 »

mathattack wrote: post #21

This seems counter-productive. Housing costs are up because of AirBnB. I’m not thrilled, but that’s the market. The market needs to reprice. Folks who bet on the market would get rich if the bet paid off. Let them sell their places, and someone else can rent them out in the future. Call me callous but I don’t feel the need to bail out someone who charged me $500/night on a place with a $3000 monthly payment. I entere…

Actually housing costs are up not because of AirBnb but poor regulation of AirBnb's. Hosts in NYC, where I live, are required to live on premises while their spare room(s) are rented out. They are not allowed to buy other properties.

That should be a universal regulation in all cities that AirBnb operates and that would help to fix the higher housing costs from AirBnb.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#54

Post by Nasrudith »

sleavey wrote: post #20
kozhevnikov wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other articles of this topic mentioned this titbit: > The financial situation is especially dire for megahosts, some of whom bought up dozens of properties and built short-term-rental empires that made up their main source of income (about one-third of Airbnb hosts have more than 25 properties, according to the analytics site AirDNA). https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-asking-renters-to-don...

The attitude of many people towards property is incredible. People expect house prices to rise and rise and somehow think they've been wronged by society/government policy/acts of god if the bubble bursts and they lose money. I've been called out by many ordinarily level headed people for saying that owning property is a risky investment.

It isn't just property but also jobs and industries. Look at the vastly disproportionate amount of tears for coal miners. That feeling seems to apply to any way to make a living that they react hostility to being told is risky. Because everything is an investment and everything is a risk including not taking one.

I suspect it has to do with Calvinism essentially and the religious fixation of work as righteous and a guarantee such that anything going wrong is "bad things happening to good people" and a fundamental sign that things Aren't Right and Someone is to blame.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#55

Post by foldr »

sleavey wrote: post #20
kozhevnikov wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other articles of this topic mentioned this titbit: > The financial situation is especially dire for megahosts, some of whom bought up dozens of properties and built short-term-rental empires that made up their main source of income (about one-third of Airbnb hosts have more than 25 properties, according to the analytics site AirDNA). https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-asking-renters-to-don...

The attitude of many people towards property is incredible. People expect house prices to rise and rise and somehow think they've been wronged by society/government policy/acts of god if the bubble bursts and they lose money. I've been called out by many ordinarily level headed people for saying that owning property is a risky investment.

100% this. Buying and renting a property (even just one) is a business venture. It is no more guaranteed to make you a profit than, say, opening a restaurant or starting your own plumbing business. Yet one frequently hears landlords talking as if something must obviously be wrong with the system if they are not making a profit.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#56

Post by spuz »

randomsearch wrote: post #41
spuz wrote: post #32

I really wonder how much pressure AirBnB must be feeling from hosts in order to go through with this idea. There's no way that they have done thinking it would not have some downsides. I really would like to know how they calculated that going through with this idea would be a better option than doing nothing.

My thoughts too. But why does Airbnb care? Presumably the landlords will just come back or be replaced, and it’s not like they have shown concern for ethics in a long time.

Yeah exactly. Either they have been incredibly naive by thinking this would be seen as a purely positive gesture, or there is some business angle that we're not seeing.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#57

Post by zwily »

foota wrote: post #49
claudeganon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is baked into their room rates? It’s predatory to advertise a lower rate and then inflate it after the fact with all kinds of tacked on fees. People (rightfully) go nuts at hotels that try to do this.

I personally would rather hotels separate a per cleaning fee and allow me to choose not to have it done every day.

Lucky for you, hotels don’t clean every day anymore because of covid. They didn’t drop prices though. In fact Marriott added a new covid cleaning fee!

Some places will clean every 4 days, some won’t clean at all during your stay. I suspect this may be the new normal, even post-covid.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#59

Post by bkor »

jliptzin wrote: post #29
sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

Not disagreeing with you except about the cleaning fee. Hotels usually clean every room every day and have an on-site cleaning staff. The marginal cost to clean one room is pretty low, and it happens every day while you’re there, so it’s baked into the price. On Airbnb, typically your place is cleaned once after you leave whether you stayed one night or two weeks, and it’s more expensive than just cleaning a hotel ro…

> Not disagreeing with you except about the cleaning fee.

Having different fees is fine. What is troublesome is that AirBNB doesn't immediately show the total price (including all surcharges). I think recently they finally were forced to do that in the EU (before that I used a browser addon). That the initial price includes all the additional surcharges has been mandatory for quite a while due to companies using this to trick customers (e.g. advertising 200 EUR for renting 1 week; practically you need to pay 700 EUR).

Note that various companies still try to skirt that bit (surcharges only shown at a later stage). E.g. mandatory "booking fees" and so on.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#60

Post by Kaze404 »

foota wrote: post #49
claudeganon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is baked into their room rates? It’s predatory to advertise a lower rate and then inflate it after the fact with all kinds of tacked on fees. People (rightfully) go nuts at hotels that try to do this.

I personally would rather hotels separate a per cleaning fee and allow me to choose not to have it done every day.

What does that change for the hotel at the end of the day? Cleaning a room that's been dirty for a week is the same (if not more) effort than cleaning it every day, considering they can't just hire staff for one day of the week.
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