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What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

bbc.co.uk

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Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#71

Post by jeffbax »

cortesoft wrote: post #46
burlesona wrote: post #25

How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / work / visit? It seems to me that AirBNB isn't to blame for the overall lack of housing (and temporary housing aka hostel/hotel) options, rather it's just the most visible brand name competing for the limited supply. Cities can ban it if they want, but I'd rather…

Wait, how would this solve ANY of the problems mentioned in the article? Most of the issues they talked about were simply caused by having a bunch of tourists living with the people (in fact, 'over tourism' was one of the mentioned problems, along with harassment and loudness from guests). Building more places for these tourists to stay isn't going to solve the problem of having too many tourists in a city.

AirBNB could not exist and all our cities would still have severe housing shortages. It's a scapegoat, the real problem is lack of supply, which is a zoning regulatory issue.

Zoning prevents building the stock needed (or things like making styles of homes like multi-family illegal), so AirBNB may be an irritation to it, but its far from the root problem.

https://www.dataforprogress.org/housing/

> Without abolishing apartment bans we are left with very little space in growing cities to place social housing. Let’s say we raise taxes on the rich as much as we dream, and set about to build social housing apartments. Right now, apartments – market rate or not – are illegal in much of the useable land in American cities (only 17% of Seattle’s buildable land allows apartments, for instance). Where will we put the new social housing if apartment bans remain? (And it will take years to build the social housing we need; in the meantime let’s at least build some places for middle class and working class people to live.)

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#72

Post by oalessandr »

jonny_eh wrote: post #44
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #36

I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero. I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling lik…

Neighbours should have a hotline to Airbnb that they can call to report disruptive guests.

Not sure if it's useful, but they have www.airbnb.com/neighbors

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#73

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

One impact of AirBnb is that it lowers the threshold for traveler affordability. Couple it with discount air carriers such as RyanAir or Southwest and the number of humans who can afford to travel increases dramatically.

For example, a quick survey of Chicago shows:

On TripAdvisor: 8 hotels with rooms under $100/night. Lowest room $79.

On AirBnb: 100+ listings, entire place, under $100/night. Many under $50.

In this way, AirBnb is an enabler for travel.

Moreover, you don't even need to look at discount airlines. British Air had a round trip from San Francisco to Milan for $650. AirBnb in Milan, entire apartment, start at around $30/night. Suddenly, 10 days in Milan can be had for under $1,500.

Economists might see the future for this situation: More air travel leads to cheaper fares. Cheaper fares leads to still more travelers. More travelers on cheap fares means more demand for AirBnb style housing. AirBnb prices get some upward pressure from added demand, bringing more units into the market. More landlords convert from long to short-term rental. Fewer long term rental means lower supply of long term and higher rents. Higher rents mean more people choose to buy, increasing demand for owned homes.

What it all adds up to: Without increasing the number of humans on the planet, you've increased housing prices by making travel more affordable.

/s Maybe we make the following rule: In order to rent an AirBnb, you have to AirBnb your home while you're gone. s/

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#74

Post by syspec »

eerwrq wrote: post #64
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #36

I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero. I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling lik…

I, too, love externalities when other's bear the cost, and hate them when I bear the cost.

best comment.

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#75

Post by jeffbax »

deadmetheny wrote: post #70
matwood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my city Your city? Interesting way to frame it. Maybe you were born where you currently live or maybe you moved there last year. Either way it doesn't really matter. Why do you feel the need to keep other people out of the city you currently live? The reasons that you live where you live are the same reasons other people want to live and visit. Why deny someone that ability to move or visit only because you got the…

Permanent long-time residents are what make a city what it is more often than not. Added to that, residents are contributing long-term to the local economy and paying taxes to a degree that temporary visitors are not. On top of that: yes , his city. It's the problem with places like Hawaii where the locals who have been there for generations get told they have to eat shit because rich haoles can afford to buy up or r…

Assuming you live in the US (SF?) The American story is a story of migrants, whether from other countries or within the nation itself. People move for opportunity (though this is decreasing as the costs have gone up dramatically in the last decade)

Nobody owns the city, the city is a result of the people who live there at any given time. Renters and tourists pay plenty of taxes too, and they aren't riding the real estate lottery wave due to permanent long-time residents fucking everyone else over with zoning rules that are making the prices go insane.

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#76

Post by yonran »

Rather than blaming the company Airbnb for a city’s ills, it may be more helpful to examine why it has popular support in the first place, while family-only zoning is declining in popularity. Short-term rentals in residences were already illegal in San Francisco and New York; they were legalized to allow Airbnb because short-term rentals have popular support from voters. Single-family zoning was designed 100 years ago to create neighborhoods of families who were protected from the nuisances of the lower-class apartment “parasite”s (Euclid v. Ambler) and lower-class houses that were used to raise chickens and take on boarders (https://www.citylab.com/equity/2013/07/it-time-bring-back-bo... or https://www.amazon.com/American-Nightmare-Government-Undermi...). I think exclusionary zoning has been so extreme in some cities that it is beginning to lose its support among the middle class, for whom it is now more necessary to use their property as a business rather than only as consumption.

Edit: Related point: In some places, it is ingrained in our culture since the 1970s that housing should be a good investment. Low property taxes (Proposition 13) and zoning restrictions are designed to increase the private gains to this investment (https://www.amazon.com/Homevoter-Hypothesis-Influence-Govern...). A small change of use to short-term rentals is perhaps the next incremental step for house investors. It sucks for people who want to use housing as only a peaceful consumption good, but in my opinion that ship sailed a long time ago in Closed-Access cities.

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#77

Post by tropo »

burlesona wrote: post #25

How have we gotten this far into the comments without anyone mentioning the root cause here is a general shortage of housing in places people want to live / work / visit? It seems to me that AirBNB isn't to blame for the overall lack of housing (and temporary housing aka hostel/hotel) options, rather it's just the most visible brand name competing for the limited supply. Cities can ban it if they want, but I'd rather…

Since we can not all fit in "places people want to live / work / visit", the only viable solution is to change that. Other places need to be made more desirable. (as needed, add: cell towers, an airport, a high school, and a hospital) People need to move.

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#78

Post by teachrdan »

ralusek wrote: post #37
mc32 wrote: post #5

Here is where the rubber of “corporate responsibility” meets the road. So far AB&B has looked askance to the issues they bring to the table and have only taken token steps to mitigate what they have wrought on communities. They talk the talk all day long about inclusivity, implicit bias and any other terms du jour to shirk from confronting the gigantic mastodon in the room —the one sided effects their services have o…

Is Facebook responsible for people using it to browse their highschool sweetheart's page, and using messenger to try to cheat on their spouse? Is Tinder responsible for an increase in STDs, infidelity, or date-rapes that occur? Is Zillow responsible for someone finding a house that was foreclosed on because somebody got sick and couldn't afford to make their mortgage payments? AirBnB lets you find available short-ter…

> I just can't understand why people are so averse to letting situations play themselves out.

If you are getting evicted by your landlord so he can turn your apartment into an illgal hotel, you do not have the luxury to let things play out. You have to find new housing immediately or become homeless.

Most people, especially those who are poor, live life on a more day to day basis. Your home is connected to your community: the friends who support you, the extended family who provide free child care, or the elderly and infirm members of your community whom you check up on. Being driven out of your home through no fault of your own, so that your landlord can run what amounts to an illegal hotel no less, is a crisis, not something to play wait and see on.

It's true that we will reach equilibrium in the long term, but to quote John Maynard Keynes, "In the long run we are all dead."

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#79

Post by mcjiggerlog »

eerwrq wrote: post #64
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #36

I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero. I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling lik…

I, too, love externalities when other's bear the cost, and hate them when I bear the cost.

Heh. I am aware of the contradiction.

My point is not all AirBnB usage is equal.

Re: What Airbnb really does to a neighbourhood

#80

Post by michaelbuckbee »

eerwrq wrote: post #64
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #36

I live next door to an AirBnB, in a building where maybe 1/5 of the flats have been converted to tourist flats. When I moved in 3 years ago there were zero. I'm woken up by screaming drunk tourists as they come home at 3am on a Tuesday night. There are constantly people clattering suitcases up the stairs at all hours. People smoke inside the common areas instead of on the street. Of course, just generally feeling lik…

I, too, love externalities when other's bear the cost, and hate them when I bear the cost.

Which is true, but I think misses the point. It's not that AirBnB is in and of itself bad, but there are good and bad places to rent with respect to the neighborhood.

Consider something like the Outer Banks for North Carolina, where nearly all the homes are rented out for vacationers. There's an expectation and knowledge of what to expect from the neighborhood (for example, multi-hour delays on the weekends as move in/out happens).

That's a very different situation from buying a home in a neighborhood and then having every 3rd house turn into a hotel.

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