Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads • Hacker News Board

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#61

Post by bcncit » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 7:27 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #42

faragon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-tourist movement in Barcelona is a minority, mainly from extreme-left parties and activists from Catalan nationalist parties. I live in Barcelona, and I'm ashamed of those xenophobic acts. My guess is that over 90% of Barcelona population don't endorse such xenophobic attitude. Despite being affected personally, e.g. because of tourism flat rental makes generic rental to have huge price increases (15% year to ye…

It's kind of crazy because I suspect a large portion of the tourist crowd (especially those from the us) would probably sympathize with Catalan separatism.

What is really claimed by the Catalan's government is the right of self-determination, that is the right for people living in Catalonia to decide their future. Spain's government oppose to that right, hence the conflict.

To put in perspective, there have been other situations in the history of humanity where various stakeholders did not agree on rights being granted, sometimes even involving violence or even war. Examples are the right of women to vote or the abolition of slavery.

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#62

Post by atemerev » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 9:36 AM UTC

bjl wrote: post #17

Good. Hotels and hostels are for tourists, apartments should be for residents.

Let the market decide. I am a resident, and I rent an apartment, but I have no objection over AirBnB. Tourists are good. Spain's economy is struggling. Renting an apartment to tourists via AirBnb is a lifesaver for some of my friends in Barcelona, who lived for some time without the ability to find any job (unemployment rates in Spain are ridiculous).

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#63

Post by wrasee » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 1:07 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #62

bjl wrote: post #17

Good. Hotels and hostels are for tourists, apartments should be for residents.

Let the market decide. I am a resident, and I rent an apartment, but I have no objection over AirBnB. Tourists are good. Spain's economy is struggling. Renting an apartment to tourists via AirBnb is a lifesaver for some of my friends in Barcelona, who lived for some time without the ability to find any job (unemployment rates in Spain are ridiculous).

That does kind of miss the whole point of the article. If you are a resident, you rent an apartment, and pay an extra 23% that in part is due to the ease at which firms like AirBnB let speculators buy up apartments and rent them out to tourists for a profit.

Tourism is good for Spain, that's not lost on anyone. But the profits are not evenly distributed. Not all social problems can be solved by the market.

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#64

Post by atemerev » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 2:29 PM UTC

wrasee wrote: post #63

atemerev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the market decide. I am a resident, and I rent an apartment, but I have no objection over AirBnB. Tourists are good. Spain's economy is struggling. Renting an apartment to tourists via AirBnb is a lifesaver for some of my friends in Barcelona, who lived for some time without the ability to find any job (unemployment rates in Spain are ridiculous).

That does kind of miss the whole point of the article. If you are a resident, you rent an apartment, and pay an extra 23% that in part is due to the ease at which firms like AirBnB let speculators buy up apartments and rent them out to tourists for a profit. Tourism is good for Spain, that's not lost on anyone. But the profits are not evenly distributed. Not all social problems can be solved by the market.

Why the profits should be "evenly" distributed? Even distribution is unfair. Fairness is way more important than equality (in fact, "equality", if unfair, is definitely something you wouldn't want to create).

If my friend can rent her apartment for some amount of money and it helps her to survive jobless periods, why she (or I) should bother that somebody is doing it on the larger scale for larger profits? Good for them. And preventing these profits by prohibiting AirBnb will also kill her small income stream, which is way more important to her than it is for the rich guys (who will just invest freed money to something else).

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#65

Post by dnautics » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

faragon wrote: post #45

dnautics wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of crazy because I suspect a large portion of the tourist crowd (especially those from the us) would probably sympathize with Catalan separatism.

I hope not. In my opinion, the Catalan separatist movement is clearly not democratic (despite using agitprop equaling self-determination to democracy, which is a fallacy), and often, xenophobic ("Spain robs us"). I hope that once the economy gets fully recovered, nationalist people will go back to a more rational position.

How is "Spain robs us" xenophobic? I don't think when americans, for example say, "washington robs us" that's xenophobic at all. It does xenophobic when it's coupled to antitourist sentiment or excluding people from moving to Catalonia (which I don't doubt it is, at the level of the political party)

> once the economy gets fully recovered.

I guess part of my point is that spain's economy won't recover so long as the entrenched political class that feels like it's entitled to the gains catalonia's relatively performant economy.

The same pattern holds true with the EU writ large. For example the entirely disingenous anti-austerity rhetoric in greece vs. germany: news flash, austerity only hurts the poor when you direct the pain of deficit reduction against the poorest and refuse to give up the sweet deals that fill the pockets of rich politically connected interests.

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#66

Post by crucialfelix » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #62

bjl wrote: post #17

Good. Hotels and hostels are for tourists, apartments should be for residents.

Let the market decide. I am a resident, and I rent an apartment, but I have no objection over AirBnB. Tourists are good. Spain's economy is struggling. Renting an apartment to tourists via AirBnb is a lifesaver for some of my friends in Barcelona, who lived for some time without the ability to find any job (unemployment rates in Spain are ridiculous).

If it's somebody renting their flat or extra rooms then it's not a problem. I'm in a lovely Airbnb right now sitting in the beautiful back yard. The problem is when people have 10 apartments or whole houses cut up into rooms. This happens in Berlin. That is a professional operation avoiding professional costs. That isn't the market deciding, it's unfair competition by evading tax and insurance that a hotel must pay for. And it really is hurting locals in places like Berlin that have a severe shortage.

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#67

Post by atemerev » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

crucialfelix wrote: post #66

atemerev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the market decide. I am a resident, and I rent an apartment, but I have no objection over AirBnB. Tourists are good. Spain's economy is struggling. Renting an apartment to tourists via AirBnb is a lifesaver for some of my friends in Barcelona, who lived for some time without the ability to find any job (unemployment rates in Spain are ridiculous).

If it's somebody renting their flat or extra rooms then it's not a problem. I'm in a lovely Airbnb right now sitting in the beautiful back yard. The problem is when people have 10 apartments or whole houses cut up into rooms. This happens in Berlin. That is a professional operation avoiding professional costs. That isn't the market deciding, it's unfair competition by evading tax and insurance that a hotel must pay f…

Why do you consider a hotel tax to be a priori fair?

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#68

Post by olliej » Sat, Jun 03, 2017, 11:53 PM UTC

That headline seems very ambiguous :)

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#69

Post by faragon » Sun, Jun 04, 2017, 10:30 AM UTC

bcncit wrote: post #60

faragon wrote: post #47

No, because of tourist rentals are not enough for covering the local demand, the problem is 10x bigger. Regarding people needs, in my opinion the problem is that people in charge in local government (Barcelona city) is not focused in solving the problems, but in agitprop for increasing their own power (currently the extreme-left is governing Barcelona in minority). Also, regional government (Catalonia) is focused in…

Thank you for clarifying. As a Barcelona citizen, I was with the impression that Spain's central government furious attack against Catalonia people's right to self-determination was to simply to distract the fact that the central government party (Partido Popular) has over 900 politicians currently on trial with charges of corruption (more than any other party in the whole Europe). In fact, I thought central governme…

You're a Spanish citizen, as there is no such thing as per-city citizenship in Spain. BTW, you can twist the words at your convenience, if that makes you happy.

Re: Barcelona cracks down on Airbnb rentals with illegal apartment squads

#70

Post by bcncit » Sun, Jun 04, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

faragon wrote: post #69

bcncit wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for clarifying. As a Barcelona citizen, I was with the impression that Spain's central government furious attack against Catalonia people's right to self-determination was to simply to distract the fact that the central government party (Partido Popular) has over 900 politicians currently on trial with charges of corruption (more than any other party in the whole Europe). In fact, I thought central governme…

You're a Spanish citizen, as there is no such thing as per-city citizenship in Spain. BTW, you can twist the words at your convenience, if that makes you happy.

Currently, I am technically a Spanish citizen. I like people from Spain, their food and their culture, and I even find it kind of cool that they have a king, although I do not feel he is my king in any way.

When I watch a soccer game with the Spain's national team I can equally celebrate a goal scored by them or against them if I like the goal. With Catalonia's national team (who only are allowed to play once a year) or my local team FC Barcelona (I even have a season ticket) the feelings are totally different.

Also I do not feel at all the Spanish flag is my flag. To be frank, I even have a sense of foreigness when I look at the Spanish flag, possibly because it still somehow suggests repression to me.

I strongly believe that people in Catalonia should have the right of self-determination. The culture, the language, even the traits are distinct enough to deserve it, and not be bullied because of it.

That Catalan people have the right of self-determination does not mean that all Catalan people who think they should have that right would vote to leave Spain.

I am totally neutral about if the outcome of a referendum is to leave Spain or to stay in Spain (both things have upsides and downsides at short and long term), but I'm not neutral about Catalonia's people having the right of self-determination, we should have it.