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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

#61

Post by ceejayoz »

massivecali wrote: post #37
matchbok wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because renting != hotel. There is a huge different between how a tourist treats a building/apartment/neighborhood and a resident does. There are many good reasons why hotels have regulations. Mini-hotel platforms are not subject to the same things.

All of the laws regarding noise, littering, loitering, smoking, etc. don't magically vanish. You have the same recourse against a renter as you would a tourist.

> All of the laws regarding noise, littering, loitering, smoking, etc. don't magically vanish.

The guests do, though, which means when you call the cops again next week, it's a new person getting their first noise warning.

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

#62

Post by duxup »

karzeem wrote: post #34
matchbok wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform actively harms communities. Don't be selfish.

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

I guess it is "housing" but I think you'd find a lot less housing as in traditional places you can rent or buy long term, I belive we're already seeing that with Airbnb.

Then you've got even more housing problems.

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

#64

Post by bradleyjg »

smallgovt wrote: post #31
matchbok wrote: post #14

More bad behavior that is encouraged by the AirBnb leadership. Disgusting. They could solve this problem overnight with their software but choose not to because it makes ~70% of their revenue, while at the same time claiming they are a "home-sharing" site. AirBnb needs to go into the trash. They consume resources and push costs onto the community and neighbors, while making millions.

> They could solve this problem overnight with their software Can you expand on what the software solution would look like here? I'm curious why the hotel lobby doesn't scrape Airbnb and report all the properties that are breaking regulation.

All or very very nearly all host not present rentals in NYC are illegal. That the software allows such listings is evidence that Airbnb doesn’t care. I suspect rather the opposite that they value the revenue they get from these illegal transactions.

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

#65

Post by massivecali »

ceejayoz wrote: post #61
massivecali wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the laws regarding noise, littering, loitering, smoking, etc. don't magically vanish. You have the same recourse against a renter as you would a tourist.

> All of the laws regarding noise, littering, loitering, smoking, etc. don't magically vanish. The guests do, though, which means when you call the cops again next week, it's a new person getting their first noise warning.

So these apartments and condos don't have rules where you just complain to management and they kick you (the leaseholder) out?

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

#66

Post by pjc50 »

CaramelSauce wrote: post #19
matchbok wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform actively harms communities. Don't be selfish.

I

The community generally wants extremely restrictive building regulations. We're currently going through this in Edinburgh, which is a world heritage site as well.

An extra complication here is that the communal stair wells of apartments are comunally owned, so landlords attaching keyboxes outside the door are usually violating the property rights of their neighbours.

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

#67

Post by smallgovt »

matchbok wrote: post #45
smallgovt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could solve this problem overnight with their software Can you expand on what the software solution would look like here? I'm curious why the hotel lobby doesn't scrape Airbnb and report all the properties that are breaking regulation.

Eliminating all listings without a host present would solve 99% of these problems. That's what the site sells itself as, anyway. Problem is there isn't much money to be made there. Or just do a tiny bit of host/property verification. Again, too much money to be made from illegal/unzoned hotels.

I see. So, the legality of short-term rentals in NYC hinge on the presence of the host during the rental. And, that's not easily detectable by just scraping Airbnb.

I still think it'd be straight forward to scrape reviews off Airbnb that have telltale signs of the host not being present e.g. lockbox mentions. Filing complaints/lawsuits against even a small minority should create a chilling effect for everyone else who's running illegal hotels.

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

#68

Post by gamblor956 »

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

I mean declaring a property to be 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.

Simply false. These are the steps involved in "declaring" your property to be rentable:

Step 1a: If you rent your place, ask your landlord for permission. Step 1b: If you live in a condo building, ask your condo association for permission. Step 1c: If you own your own house, ask your spouse for permission.

Step 2: Put an ad on Craigslist advertising your rental.

Step 3: There is no step 3.

Declaring a property to be rentable is literally a trivial exercise unless you're going for short-term (aka "transient" or "hotel") rentals.

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

#69

Post by ceejayoz »

massivecali wrote: post #65
ceejayoz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of the laws regarding noise, littering, loitering, smoking, etc. don't magically vanish. The guests do, though, which means when you call the cops again next week, it's a new person getting their first noise warning.

So these apartments and condos don't have rules where you just complain to management and they kick you (the leaseholder) out?

Plenty of landlords won't want to do battle with the lucrative tenants who've rented out half the building and always pay on time.

Nor do they really want to do all that work - evictions cost money, and are hard! - just to have another AirBnBer sign the replacement lease.

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

#70

Post by pjc50 »

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

The interesting thing about AirBnb is not in the raw space consumption, but that it's driven down the cost of hotel rooms by changing what "hotel" means.
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