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Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

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Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#51

Post by invisible »

tptacek wrote: post #45
x1 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Houses can be rented and apartments can be owned. Think of all the different local laws that might apply to someone that owns a condo, rents an apartment, owns a house, owns a townhome or rents any of these. Hell, even a HOA might have something to say about it. Then again you might rent from a person who doesn't care if you sub-rent out. Having AirBNB try to determine if every single renter/homeowner has the rights…

I understand that there's some ambiguity to the term, but for most people in the US, the word for an apartment that is owned by occupants who do not own the rest of the building is "condominium". Also, you should note that most condominiums have even stricter rules for usage of the building; these are legally binding agreements that attach to the mortgage of the condo. It is very, very easy for Airbnb to attempt to d…

  very, very easy...attempt to determine
Yes, they can attempt at determining the ownership but a condominium can also be rented out by the individual landlord legally (as in my case twice at two different residents). A lease is a unique binding contract that varies even within an apartment/condo complex.

The hosts do agree to the terms of service, but I suppose if they want to make it less agreeable to hosts they could scare them away with a big red warning when signing up.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#52

Post by brandnewlow »

tptacek wrote: post #25
netcan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: Why does Airbnb need to deal with this at all? I mean, if these apartments were being advertised on craigslist or local classifieds would you think they need to deal with it?

The classifieds don't provide comprehensive listings of short-term vacation rentals. But I'm not saying Airbnb "needs" to deal with it. I'm saying they "should" decline listings from people who don't own their property absent some documentation of consent from the landlord of that property.

The problem, I suspect, is that people who own their homes are much harder for Airbnb to work with than people who are renting. Airbnb grew quickly by removing friction and making it very easy for people to list space and by providing the bare minimum support to people who list places. That was "good enough" for renters because they don't own the homes and don't care as much. Homeowners might expect a level of service that would tie up a lot of resources and hurt scaling.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#53

Post by fennecfoxen »

vijayr wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #10

Much of the criticism of Airbnb in this article seems to stem from renters "subletting" their apartments to vacationers. Why does Airbnb allow renters to list their apartments on Airbnb at all? In virtually no case does a renter have a lease that permits Airbnb-style listings; the boilerplate lease that virtually everyone works from requires landlord approval for each subletter. It seems unconscionable to rent an apa…

All of this is true, it is unethical and illegal. But it is also true, that in cities like San Francisco and NYC (especially SF-Co) rents are absurdly high, and landlords care nothing other than making the most of it. My previous two landlords forced me to pay only cash for rent, and I know many other landlords do the same, and cheat on taxes. In one place I went, they wanted 450$ for "application fee and credit chec…

Usually the places that want $450ish, it's a single check that they'll hold onto and, iff they decide to give you the apartment, they'll actually take it (otherwise they return the check). That way they're guaranteed that you're a serious applicant (or they get a consolation sum if you're not). It's sort of a like a security deposit on your application.

I don't care for it myself.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#54

Post by TylerE »

ThomPete wrote: post #48
jaems33 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there are places on Craigslist you probably could've found cheaper in Chinatown of all places. But studio apartments in general are expensive in a place like Secondly, Airbnb does have plenty of shared places in Queens and Brooklyn that go for less than seventy bucks a day, and studios that would be closer to 2k.

The thing is. right now I am looking at a 1BR appartment completely modern building, rooftop, open kitchen the works for 3600USD. There are many places on AirBnB that have simply pumped up the prices to make a living and since there is not negative feedback mechanism everyone just charges more and more. Craigslist yeah i tried that, i enden up with mostly scams and bait and switch guys.

It's called capitalism. You're paying for the convenience of not having to wait to move in, not having to sign a long-term lease, etc. Of course you should expect to pay more than someone who puts up with those downsides.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#55

Post by netcan »

tptacek wrote: post #25
netcan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: Why does Airbnb need to deal with this at all? I mean, if these apartments were being advertised on craigslist or local classifieds would you think they need to deal with it?

The classifieds don't provide comprehensive listings of short-term vacation rentals. But I'm not saying Airbnb "needs" to deal with it. I'm saying they "should" decline listings from people who don't own their property absent some documentation of consent from the landlord of that property.

I'm not going to pretend I understand all the issues here but would you really want to be half pregnant here? I mean their users are violating all sorts of little laws in thousands of jurisdictions (all the cities/towns/counties/provinces/etc.) all over the world. In some cases this is bad form in some cases that's how BNBs work. I have a sort of feeling that it's better to take the "not my job" approach here rather than doing a half-assed job.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#56

Post by slug »

jusben1369 wrote: post #44

Weird no one mentions insurance. That's the biggest issue of all I would think. Landlords have insurance for legitimate tenants.

They do? The last time I read a lease mentioning an insurance was only to pay a hotel in case of fire/flooding, anything else you are on your own.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#57

Post by cube13 »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #34
ditojim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are talking about homeowners who own a 2nd home and in many cases, have bought it expecting to rent it out at least part of the time. they went into that purchase with the mindset of sharing with strangers. i would be very interested in using airbnb if i owned a vacation home.

This practice is part of the problem. It is bidding up the cost of apartments for locals who need a place to live.

In general, the people who have 2nd vacation homes buy single family houses or condominium apartments. They don't rent, because that doesn't get them ownership of anything. The 2nd home is generally a more speculative investment than anything else.

So no, they're not really pushing up the costs of rental apartments, because they're not in that market segment at all.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#58

Post by fennecfoxen »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #34
ditojim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are talking about homeowners who own a 2nd home and in many cases, have bought it expecting to rent it out at least part of the time. they went into that purchase with the mindset of sharing with strangers. i would be very interested in using airbnb if i owned a vacation home.

This practice is part of the problem. It is bidding up the cost of apartments for locals who need a place to live.

Meh. It's the software engineers making $150,000 each bidding up the cost of apartments more than it is J Random Tourist-Supplemented Income dude.

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#59

Post by runako »

primigenus wrote: post #19
runako wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how AirBnB is handling this for your coworkers? This kind of real-time fiasco is exactly the reason I've been hesitant to rent on AirBnB, so I'd be curious to see how they resolve the situation for the renters.

They headed out to see the keynote at 9am and I think they'll deal with the problem afterwards. Priorities, and all that ;-) If I find out what happened and it's relevant I'll report back.

Smart guys. :-) Would love an update if you remember.

Thanks!

Re: Short-term rentals disrupting SF housing market

#60

Post by tomkarlo »

jseliger wrote: post #27
mindcrime wrote: post #15

all too often, the rules, laws and regulations in place that make the old way of doing business so boring and hard are actually in place for a very good reason. {{citation needed}} I can just as easily say that "the rules, laws and regulations in place that make the old way of doing business so boring and hard are actually in place because of corruption, greed, nepotism, and/or incompetence and are universally immora…

The article has one other howler: "But others, encouraged by lax oversight and lucrative payoffs, use the rental sites to run ad-hoc hotels, which besides annoying neighbors, takes long-term rentals off a market that desperately needs them. . ." San Francisco has also made it virtually impossible to build new housing units ( http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... ). If the city needs more hou…

This... there was also a recent NYT article about how new workers moving to SF are displacing existing residents by competing for apartment rentals. Having thousands of new residents moving into a city should be viewed as an opportunity, not a problem, especially considering the budget issues out here. SF needs to stop obstructing new construction and allow for more vertical residential housing like New York and other space-constrained cities. Even if those apartments mostly go to yuppies, it will take pressure off the overall housing market.
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