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Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

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Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#71

Post by daedrdev »

embedding-shape wrote: post #65
socalgal2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does limiting rent increases help the issue? all that does is reduce the incentive to build more housing. It’s also a bandaid fix that sounds good today but in the end makes things worse.

Because now people aren't priced out of their current place where they live simply because the landlord wants more money each month, now it's limited to increases by an index. And landlords can also not just kick out a tenant, raise the rent price and find someone else. Again, many small streams make a big river. Not one single action or new law will instantly fix the issue, you patch what you can and incrementally w…

But it ruins the future market. People with a rent controlled unit will not leave even when they should, because they have it so good. Thus turnover never happens, which is why most programs have a waiting lists easily more than a decade.

Like it helps those who have one at a greater expense to renters without one

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#72

Post by embedding-shape »

bonzini wrote: post #58
embedding-shape wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In large parts of Spain, that is still true. Entire rural villages for sale in some cases even. Problem is that it's in areas where people don't want to live. In the areas people want to live, the problem is the opposite, there isn't nearly enough housing, so you end up with some of the highest population densities in EU (#2 and #3 are both in Spain at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_... i…

> (#2 and #3 are both in Spain at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_... in "density per km2" for example, 50% of top 10 on that list is in Spain!) That list does not make much sense, because it mostly consists of small municipalities that have been engulfed by growing metropolitan areas. Four of the five Spanish entries are like that, three in Valencia and one in Barcelona; and most other en…

It's a list of cities proper, not just "cities".

> A city proper is the geographical area contained within city limits

I'm not sure about the others, but the one from Barcelona is a city actually, with their own local government and all, separate from Barcelona, exactly like Badalona on the other end of Barcelona. It is within the city-limits of Barcelona (region, not city) though.

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#73

Post by neom »

alfyboy wrote: post #68

I was recently evicted from my apartment in a city in Norway experiencing similar growth in short-term rentals. The rental on that apartment was around €750 (same for my roommate). Apparently, during high season in the winter similar apartments goes for ~€830 a night. High season is 3 months in the winter, but seemingly that is enough to outcompete longterm tenants.

You have no protections against this where you live? That would be near impossible where I live (Ontario).

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#74

Post by sct202 »

probably_wrong wrote: post #5

As far as I understand this is the latest shot in the conflict between Spain and its lack of affordable housing. I'd put the symbolic start around 2004-2006 [1] with the movement called "you won't have a house in your fucking life" where people all over Spain started demonstrating against high apartment prices. I don't like AirBnB and I'm glad they got fined, but the Spanish government also needs to accept that they…

They've been expanding their airports over those 20 years; Barcelona's passenger air arrivals has doubled in that time and there is another expansion being planned. Barcelona is not a large city and they should really be coupling every airport capacity increase with an equal increase in tourist accommodations or they end up in an even worse situation.

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#75

Post by HDThoreaun »

MisterTea wrote: post #55

I was in Spain this past summer and it certainly seems they are experiencing tourist burnout. I saw anti tourist messages on banners hung on buildings, graffiti, posters and stickers in Madrid and Barcelona. Some of it was a bit threatening but I had zero issues. The issue of airbnb is a sticky one. On one hand, being able to temporarily live in an apartment greatly enhances the immersiveness when your travel - you g…

Spains problem is that their economy is terrible. Tourism is almost 15% of barcelona's economy so the tourism sector has political power but all the people who dont benefit from it are pissed. They cant afford to piss off the tourists but tourism has a lot of negative externalities.

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#76

Post by thayne »

showsover wrote: post #61
MisterTea wrote: post #55

I was in Spain this past summer and it certainly seems they are experiencing tourist burnout. I saw anti tourist messages on banners hung on buildings, graffiti, posters and stickers in Madrid and Barcelona. Some of it was a bit threatening but I had zero issues. The issue of airbnb is a sticky one. On one hand, being able to temporarily live in an apartment greatly enhances the immersiveness when your travel - you g…

> On one hand, being able to temporarily live in an apartment greatly enhances the immersiveness when your travel - you get to feel like a local and experience life in another place. Yes, if your local life is being inconsiderate and having parties till 3 because you're on holidays. Having an airbnb in your building is terrible as you don't know the people and they don't care about getting to know you. > Hotels suck…

> if your local life is being inconsiderate and having parties till 3 because you're on holidays

I would expect that to be the minority of visitors.

I certainly don't do that when I stay in Airbnbs.

> The biggest problem here in Barcelona is that most airbnbs / short term rentals are companies buying housing as an investment and so are stealing the opportunity from actual people and families trying to live.

Sure, the problem is balancing that with the desire of tourists that want something better than a hotel.

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#77

Post by embedding-shape »

daedrdev wrote: post #71
embedding-shape wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because now people aren't priced out of their current place where they live simply because the landlord wants more money each month, now it's limited to increases by an index. And landlords can also not just kick out a tenant, raise the rent price and find someone else. Again, many small streams make a big river. Not one single action or new law will instantly fix the issue, you patch what you can and incrementally w…

But it ruins the future market. People with a rent controlled unit will not leave even when they should, because they have it so good. Thus turnover never happens, which is why most programs have a waiting lists easily more than a decade. Like it helps those who have one at a greater expense to renters without one

Limiting rent increase does not mean "Rent can never change", it just means the rate of change is limited. Owners can still raise the prices each year, it's just limited based on a lot of factors, the main one being a local index. But renovating the property for example lets owners raise the rent higher, as just one exception.

> People with a rent controlled unit will not leave even when they should, because they have it so good.

... What do you mean "when they should"? If they don't want to leave because the rent is OK and they like living there, why should they move?

I guess one fundamental difference with Spain VS US or probably many other countries, is that here in Spain we have "the right to housing" enshrined in our constitution. This makes it so it's more important for residents and citizens to be able to find housing, than it is for owners to be able to make profits on owning properties/land.

The laws in the country should reflect this, and thankfully, they're starting to, albeit slowly.

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#78

Post by embedding-shape »

MisterTea wrote: post #55

I was in Spain this past summer and it certainly seems they are experiencing tourist burnout. I saw anti tourist messages on banners hung on buildings, graffiti, posters and stickers in Madrid and Barcelona. Some of it was a bit threatening but I had zero issues. The issue of airbnb is a sticky one. On one hand, being able to temporarily live in an apartment greatly enhances the immersiveness when your travel - you g…

> As long as we tolerate a society that only values ROI while ignoring the value of investing in humanity we won't resolve any of these issues.

That's exactly what we're not tolerating here in Spain. We have guaranteed right to "decent and adequate housing" enshrined in the constitution, which is why you're seeing these aggressive moves against companies that actively work against us having that.

I guess we in Spain are a bit of guinea pigs regarding this, as we've been hit hard by Airbnb et al, but we also have strong social movements trying to fight back, and right now being a bit successful. Gonna be interesting to see how it looks like in 5-10 years again, once we start to see the effect of the new laws passed these last few years.

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#79

Post by embedding-shape »

sct202 wrote: post #74
probably_wrong wrote: post #5

As far as I understand this is the latest shot in the conflict between Spain and its lack of affordable housing. I'd put the symbolic start around 2004-2006 [1] with the movement called "you won't have a house in your fucking life" where people all over Spain started demonstrating against high apartment prices. I don't like AirBnB and I'm glad they got fined, but the Spanish government also needs to accept that they…

They've been expanding their airports over those 20 years; Barcelona's passenger air arrivals has doubled in that time and there is another expansion being planned. Barcelona is not a large city and they should really be coupling every airport capacity increase with an equal increase in tourist accommodations or they end up in an even worse situation.

> Barcelona is not a large city

By what measure? Granted, I now live outside of Barcelona after moving here from an island with ~700 people on it, so for me pretty much any city is big, but I'm fairly sure Barcelona is within top 100 worldwide in terms of population living in it, so I'm guessing you're saying "not a large city" by some other metric?

Re: Spain fines Airbnb €65M: Why the government is cracking down on illegal rentals

#80

Post by embedding-shape »

bsoql wrote: post #67
igtztorrero wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone likes the warmth of Spain in winter

Those coming overwhelmingly come from places that are hotter than Spain.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/445784/foreign-populatio...

Not really true, Romania, Italy, UK, Ukraine, Peru, Germany, France and more are not hotter than Spain.

Is there something else you're trying to hint at that you don't dare to say out loud perhaps?

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