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I have trouble feeling sorry for AirBnB with this. It has had numerous opportunities to put forth a reasonable view on how this should all work and AFAICT, has
by pbreit 11y ago
I have trouble feeling sorry for AirBnB with this. It has had numerous opportunities to put forth a reasonable view on how this should all work and AFAICT, has not.
First, most (all?) HOAs and landlords forbid short term rentals, and for good reason (short term renting is generally disliked by neighbors).
Second, city zoning policies are implemented for a reason, again, a good one. Residential neighborhoods generally prefer little or no commercial activity as well as inhabitants who care about the neighborhood.
I have not seen AirBnB weigh in reasonably on these important issues. For that, it's possible it deserves Prop F.
- JamisonM 11y agoThe thing that troubles me the most about AirBNB is the general feeling I get from them that they feel concerns about their social impact are simply not worth addressing. Not just disagreeing about the degree to which the things you cited might be problems but being dismissive about the whole idea that there may be any problems at all.
- seiji 11y agofeel concerns about their social impact are simply not worth addressing. Welcome to VC land. The game is: collect everybody else's money and resources for yourself at any cost. It's even easier when laws and regulations are either toothless or only get applied across 8 to 16 year time periods, so you can flaunt them with no repercussions.
- Kalium 11y agoAfter spending some time dealing with social impact concern activists, I've personally found that it's something of a bottomless pit. No concern is too small, every concern is hugely important, no concern is irrelevant, everything needs immediate addressing with all the money, every concern is your immediate direct personal problem, etc. So it's easier to not bother at all and catch flak than it is to do an "insufficient" amount of addressing concerns and get the same amount of flak from the same people.
- seiji 11y agoYeah, saying airbnb is good for housing prices is like the people who think a universal income will help people live easier. hint: if you give everyone an extra $20k/year, housing will magically go up by $20k/year to match. with airbnb, if you can't afford your $3,000/month rent so you take in a share tenant, maybe now you can afford $5,000 month in rent. now housing prices know everybody can make $5k/month appear through tenant-izing, so all prices go up. now nobody can afford a place unless they take in co-habitating renters or are DINKs.
- acgourley 11y agoIt's not magic, it's economics. There are frameworks to think and model this, and they do not support your conclusions.
- seiji 11y agobut does your model take into account ė, the derivative of evil in the hearts of humans with respect to time?
- acgourley 11y agoYes.
- gozo 11y agoThe article states that "75% of Airbnb hosts in San Francisco say that their income from Airbnb helps them stay in their homes". I don't really see how economics would get in the way of that driving up rents.
- bduerst 11y agoI agree on the income-elastic pricing part, but the demand capacity for AirBnB is tiny compared to the supply. Not that many people are able to subsidize their income and move up.
- seiji 11y ago
- coryrc 11y agoCity zoning is only voted on by the people who currently live there, not the people that would like to live there. They use threats of violence (government force) against property owners that would like to help others move into the city. I'm not sure how a better solution would be implemented -- allow people to choose which jurisdiction their vote applies to?
- chralieboy 11y agoThat is how representative democracy works. You decide how things work in the area where you live. Imagine if I got to decide how things worked in your neighborhood without living there, that wouldn't be fair. People who _want_ to live somewhere have no rights to it. They are by definition not yet part of the community. That's like allowing job applicants vote on company policy. I'm sure they would want to, but communities are defined by those in them.