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Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

nytimes.com

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Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#81

Post by whimsicalism »

iandanforth wrote: post #60
andy_ppp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with Airbnb and hosts who are basically trying to rinse as much money as possible for as little effort as possible. I’m not sure after a long journey I want to wonder around the Edinburgh fringe again, trying to decipher Scottish, while the wind is going crazy and there are millions of people floating around just to get keys. I think Airbnb is great if there are 15 of you sharing…

Because I've had the opposite experience would you be willing to share how you pick places? I rent: "Whole places", with a strong bias towards detached buildings, that rate 4.7 or higher on their scale, and have glowing reviews that mention how nice the host is. These are almost always $90/night or more, with an average of $120/night.

This is basically how I rent and I've also had great experiences.

I have rented a "non-Whole place" and I would say that was a pretty bad experience. Our room was supposed to be the only Airbnb, but two nights in, they rented out a room with a frosted glass separator next to us as "420 friendly" and the couple that moved in proceeded to have quite loud sex. We gave them pretty scathing reviews, which I am not wont to do.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#83

Post by ghaff »

brianshaler wrote: post #19
zwieback wrote: post #3

and I thought they were struggling because everyone is staying home due to Covid...

I imagine cancellations skyrocketed and bookings halted for a few weeks in the spring, but by summer they started to publicly reveal trends were working in their behavior. The number of bookings was a bit depressed, but the number of nights booked had actually increased. In covid times, people seem to prefer staying in a private home for 1-2 weeks over sharing hallways with other guests at hotels for a few nights. Wi…

I was going to uncharacteristically rent an AirBnB in January because I wanted my own place I could cook in rather than have to go to restaurants, at least for every meal. (As a base for hiking.) I ended up canceling because the situation is so fluid/crazy but it made more sense than staying in a hotel.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#84

Post by rezz »

whimsicalism wrote: post #70
rezz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe ease up on the costal holier than thou sentiment. I’m in Miami right now and 90% of the people I’ve met are tech / finance types from NYC doing blow inside of clubs until 4am.

I was in Texas recently. I'm not going to ease up on it when mask compliance compared to SF or DC (haven't been to NYC) is measurably awful . > I’m in Miami right now and 90% of the people I’ve met are tech / finance types from NYC doing blow inside of clubs until 4am I don't even know what this means. 90% of people you've met in Miami do "blow"? What? Are you a coke dealer?

Maybe go out to a high end dinner in Miami and meet people before assuming I’m a drug dealer.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#85

Post by thesimon »

boberoni wrote: post #65
jpalmer wrote: post #31

Market cap now exceeds top 5 US hotel chains combined. How much can it grow from here?

Based on Airbnb's other product of "experiences", I could see them growing into the broader vacation industry. I remember a talk by Brian Chesky where he lamented the (pre-COVID) style of travel where tourists just herd into queues at mainstream tourist attractions. Airbnb experiences are supposed to subvert this and create an industry of tourism that is more serendipitous and less standardized.

>Airbnb experiences are supposed to subvert this and create an industry of tourism that is more serendipitous and less standardized.

Although the experiences I saw were either around (vegan) cooking and stuff or the general stuff that you can book at a normal tourist agency, just a lot more expensive.

Nothing too interesting, just expensive but YMMV.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#86

Post by victor106 »

ricotico060 wrote: post #2

For some reason, I just feel this price is too high for them and that it will fall in the coming 2-3 months. Then again, I think about their business model and there’s a lot to like: the don’t own any real estate and if they really wanted to, they could likely let go most of their staff and have a team of maybe 60 - 100 people run the bussiness as it mostly revolves around simply managing the app and keeping it runni…

Aswath Damodaran's analysis.

http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-sharing-econ...

TLDR;The per share value based upon the latest share count is about $54/share.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#87

Post by fullshark »

tempsy wrote: post #18
boringg wrote: post #4

Talk about setting the wrong price for their stock. Looks like airbnb just handed over boatloads of money to wall street.

that isn’t how an IPO works. just because your stock pops doesn’t mean you handed over money to “wall street” if you’ve raised the money you sought at the set IPO price. the investors who bought the IPO allocation got an immediate 100% return but that is not at the expense of the company.

Semantics. If I buy your car for half its value guaranteed, you will regret it, and you basically handed me 1/2 its value.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#88

Post by lawlorino »

boberoni wrote: post #65
jpalmer wrote: post #31

Market cap now exceeds top 5 US hotel chains combined. How much can it grow from here?

Based on Airbnb's other product of "experiences", I could see them growing into the broader vacation industry. I remember a talk by Brian Chesky where he lamented the (pre-COVID) style of travel where tourists just herd into queues at mainstream tourist attractions. Airbnb experiences are supposed to subvert this and create an industry of tourism that is more serendipitous and less standardized.

Yes this seems reasonable. I used to work for one of the main competitors of Airbnb and this was our strategy for growth outside of our core business of selling hotel "roomnights" until Covid hit.

The margins on flights and attraction tickets are tiny as you might expect, but the idea was this would lead to more growth in our core business since it could all be tied together in one platform. There's also the less well defined but non-zero benefit of data, marketing and so on that this extra visibility provides.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#89

Post by madaxe_again »

VectorLock wrote: post #74
bjarneh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How often do you hear people talk about being murdered in uber? I still hear it. How often do you hear it for Airbnb? I haven't heard someone express that worry yet. Only in the US: They've solved one of the hardest problems, not being murdered while using their service....

>How often do you hear it for Airbnb? I've heard a lot of potential hosts not do airbnb for worry of things like guests having massive parties, making drugs, destroying things, etc.

I’ve been running two airbnbs for two years, with over 1000 nights hosted, and I’ve had none of those things. The worst that’s happened is a guest broke a chair, which they apologised over and paid for.

People are generally decent.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#90

Post by jbverschoor »

ghaff wrote: post #77
andy_ppp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure, now that I can afford a nicer place I usually book a hotel due to my previous experience. Maybe I should increase my price ranges and try again, but the key problem just means I really cannot be bothered. If they had places around town to get the keys from I’d be much more likely to use it again. Having said that places usually are over £90 per night but this is very place dependant.

Most of the time when I travel, it's the city etc. that's the experience I'm looking for, not the accommodation. I have no doubt there are, even many, AirBnBs out there that are quite nice. But I'll usually go for predictability, as well as other amenities, like being able to leave my luggage for the day after I check out.

I've had many bad experiences with airbnb. Also some really great (esp in the beginning), but usually those were huge places.

AirBNB is often more expensive, is a hassle with getting a key some times (other side of the city wtf), NO support in case electricity fails, some had dirty laundry. etc etc.

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