11 ms·

Airbnb's impact on cities

90 points by trusche 10y ago

EugeneOZ 10y ago
Airbnb is definitely not the analogy of Uber. It's extremely expensive service - prices of dirty rooms with old furniture are higher than in 4-stars apart-hotels. In city I live (Saint Petersburg) price for room in Airbnb is 8-9 times higher than on local sites. And I tried to find room in Rome, Prague, Barcelona - every time Airbnb was more expensive than good hotels.
- gruez 10y ago
  >... every time Airbnb was more expensive than good hotels. Really? I thought the whole point of airbnb was to get accommodation for less.
  - Bombthecat 10y ago
    I don't understand it either. But it is kinda true. After trying to rent a room for my family from oversee and i got rejected every time. I found something like four times cheaper here. And this was like an hour away from a big city where I looked... I don't understand it either. But maybe that's where we are heading everywhere. Appeal only to the rich. One customer a month is better than four or five.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    The whole point of AirBnB is to make more money for landlords and for AirBnB. The service has economic value in itself, so it's not a surprise prices are more likely to trend upwards than downwards, especially if there's high demand. "We have too many tourists" should be a good place to be, not a bad one. Trying to stop the flood is less constructive than trying to work out positive ways to manage it.
    - collyw 10y ago
      Have you ever traveled to somewhere that is "really touristy". Patong beach in Thailand, Magaluf in Mallorca are two that come to mind (as I have ended up in both in the last year). I am sure they were far nicer places before the tourism. Tourism brings in money so from an economic perspective its a no brainier, but there is more to quality of life than economics.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    I hoped for same. Maybe it's because I'm not looking for hostel-like rooms, but in BCN I saw even room in the boat (Airbnb) for $900 per week. It's just one of examples. This June our family (4 persons) spent 3 weeks in Barcelona apart-hotels (4 stars) with prices $1200-$1400 per week. It was less expensive than Airbnb.
    - pimlottc 10y ago
      I also vacationed in Barcelona this June and stayed in two different Airbnb rooms at $40 and $55 per night (including all fees). Both were private rooms, although bathroom was shared in both cases (I don't think I've been in an airbnb that had its own private bath). Granted, as a solo traveller I'm likely looking at different listings than you are, but the options on Airbnb were quite good, even during a major festival weekend (Primavera Sound).
      - EugeneOZ 10y ago
        1. Shared bath is absolutely unacceptable for family. 2. $55 * 4 * 7 = $1540 for week, with shared bath. We were in hotels with private baths (2 separate private bathrooms) for $1200. Thank you for proving my point :)
        pimlottc 10y ago
        As I said, if I were looking for an airbnb for a family, I would be looking at different listings, e.g. complete apartments, in which case you would have your own bathroom. I'd image the per-person prices to be better than for a solo traveller in this case as well, as has been my experience in other areas. Weekly rates on Airbnb tend to be better than nightly as well (I didn't stay long enough). The point being, whether Airbnb in Barcelona is competitive with hotels depends on your needs, but at least in my case, it was, while providing better than hostel-like accommodations.
  - sambe 10y ago
    No, I doubt most people find this to be true. I generally find clean private apartments in good areas, cheaper than hotels, sometimes cheaper than hostels too. Used to be more availability of single rooms for even cheaper too. Seems like prices have gone up over the last couple of years, but certainly not a surfeit of low quality expensive places.
    - EugeneOZ 10y ago
      If you want to call me a liar, I can find apart-hotel in Barcelona for you (4 stars, good reviews on Booking), and comparable set of rooms on Airbnb. And after that you will bring apologizes. Deal?
      - dang 10y ago
        Please don't escalate like this. People can (and do, and need to) disagree without calling each other a liar. One main purpose of discussion here is to share different experiences.
        EugeneOZ 10y ago
        Answer "I disagree" is one thing, answer "you are wrong" - is fine also. Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. It's offensive and I see nothing wrong in my try to defend myself. Only thing I regret is typo in previous comment in this branch.
        dang 10y ago
        You appear to have missed the key word in what I posted, which is "escalate". For example: > Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. That's literally what it's not doing. Equating these two things is escalating, i.e. substituting one utterance for a more provocative one and replying to that instead. You may feel that the train of logic inevitably takes you there down a one-way deductive track. But there are many opportunities to get off that train, and good manners and civility demand that we do. If we don't, all disagreement ends in conflict, which is tedious (for everyone else) and destructive. I wonder if there may be a crossed cultural channel here, because the gap between "you are wrong" and "it's not true" strikes me as tiny—not the chasm that you describe—and if anything, "you are wrong" sounds slightly less polite since it's more personal. This is the kind of thing that people with different cultural and language backgrounds routinely hear differently, and the presence of many different backgrounds on HN is one reason why we all need to be charitable in our interpretations. p.s. I've fixed the typo for you.
- dhoe 10y ago
  That's not been my experience at all, and I've booked dozens of places through Airbnb over the years. Also, one big advantage for me as a vegetarian is that I can get a fully equipped kitchen, so instead of hunting for the one restaurant that has more than one salad to offer, I can shop in local markets and cook myself - I enjoy it and it saves me money too. Even good apartment hotels often just have two sad pans and three plates.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    It's not good apart-hotels. In every apart hotel we tried, there was equipped kitchen and we often make food there. And we don't even need to be vegetarians to do it.
    - eulji 10y ago
      My advise would be to stop applying the soviet mentality to these things. Really sometimes it's not about the price but convenience. This is something that people in your and mine country fail to understand.
f_allwein 10y ago
I am also becoming wary of using airbnb, for some of the reasons mentioned here. I did meet some great hosts, but at other times I felt I would have been better off e.g. in a hostel. Also, people who care about hosting and getting to know travelers could just sign up to Couchsurfing or Hospitalityclub, which strangely don't seem to be booming.
joelrunyon 10y ago
I'm staying longer term in BCN for a month and a half and accidentally ended up at an outdoor concert last night before realizing that it was protesting tourists. "Tourism kills the city" was the slogan on the signs around the area. In 2 weeks, I've seen at least 2 demonstrations like this and it seems to be picking up from previous years that I've been here. Things are a little more crowded and I feel like every day there's a bachelor / bachelorette party running around - the density of which reminds me of vegas. I like to think that I blend in more than most tourists - the ones you see in groups of 8 with 2-3 roller bags each fumbling for the keys and trying to make sure they find the right building - but I'm probably biased. I'm not sure what BCN's solution will be. Tourism is 12-15% of their economy in Catalonia, so it's not a small chunk for a country with 20% unemployment rate. The hotel options aren't great for what you pay for. AirBnB is definitely cheaper (and usually roomier), but it's a difference when you notice that all your neighbors in "old town" are german / british tourists that pop in for a weekend and then leave. Barcelona does have an ordinance that you can only rent rooms for longer than 30 days - so they have people that come around on occasion to check - but I think it's sort of hit & miss enforcement. I'm not sure I have answers as much as questions - and it's interesting being on the ground zero and seeing this take place.
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  Catalonia is not only Barcelona. In Barcelona tourism is about third of city's income, so protests like this are ridiculous. Noisy tourists are usually in hotels/hostels. And I have to say locals sometimes are more noisy than tourists.
  - philipDS 10y ago
    I've been living in Barcelona on/off since 2013. I don't have a problem with the tourists. I do have a problem with drunk tourists who pee and shout in the streets at night. Very disrespectful. I completely understand the protests.. Tourists are a real pain in Barcelona, especially in El Born/Raval/around La Rambla.
    - EugeneOZ 10y ago
trusche 10y ago
Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments, and it's a fair question to ask if AirBnB is partially to blame. From [1]: > The average rental value of a two-bed apartment in the city centre at €2,000 per month, less a management fee, would equate to the apartment being occupied for just 120 nights of the year through Airbnb. > Investors have confirmed that if correctly managed, the income can be double that of a long-term rental. (AirBnB disagrees [2]) As much as I like the idea of AirBnB, their impact on the housing market in any given city needs to be considered. Unfortunately the article doesn't mention that at all, focussing solely on tourism. [1] http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/booming-airbnb-adding-to-dublins-rent-squeeze-34715683.html http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property... [2] http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/airbnb-insists-home-hosting-is-not-taking-housing-off-market-1.2584950 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/airbnb-insists...
- apsec112 10y ago
  I can't speak to Ireland, but here in the US, there's an extremely strong relationship between expensive apartments and a lack of new construction. Here's the graph: http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.prices.png http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.price... How difficult is it to build new housing in Dublin? Does the city allow new apartment buildings, or are most areas single family, detached residences only?
  - trusche 10y ago
    It's complicated. There are height limitations for residential buildings in the city (lower than those for commercial ones), and there's no culture of apartment living here comparable to other European capitals I know. Dublin is sprawling with single family homes. There's a debate going on right now about higher density zoning and the like, but it will take time. Regulations to improve building standards have added to cost, and most developers seem to be in it for the quick buck (my opinion only) and are holding back right now because that's no longer (or not yet again) an option after the crash. http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/time-to-end-ireland-s-failed-developer-led-property-market-1.2645776 http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/time-to-end-irela...
jkot 10y ago
There is explosion of cheap flight tickets.
Bombthecat 10y ago
The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I just can raise the rent? Right, no one would and no one will. Without the state intervening we will have a lot of new york cities around the globe.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  If your theory was right, then developers shouldn't be desperately begging for permission to build while local NIMBYs beat them back at every turn. Your theory doesn't seem to match reality.
- quanticle 10y ago
  The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I can just raise the rent? It might actually be more profitable for you to have more units of housing at a lower price, than fewer units of housing at a higher price. Profit follows a quadratic formula, and it's quite possible to raise profits dramatically by selling more units at a (slightly) lower price.
- nawitus 10y ago
  Another question is "why shouldn't I create new houses and apartments and create more profit"? This is true whether or not that person/company already owns apartments in that place. The market is global.
- aianus 10y ago
  Because if housing prices are out of whack with development costs it can be more profitable to sell your current apartment (with its associated discounted cash flow) and use the capital to build a new one for cheaper.
austinl 10y ago
I stayed in 4 different Airbnbs in Barcelona around the time when Ada Colau was pushing to have them all registered [1]. The major concern I heard from my hosts were about properties used _only for Airbnb_, which were particularly notorious in Barceloneta. A few people figured out they could pose as fake tenets in several apartments at once, then turn a profit by listing them all on Airbnb. This was where things went from bad to worse — some people were listing 10+ properties at the same time [2]. With all of that, I'm not surprised there was such a backlash. The type of subletting that was going on in BCN is clearly not what Airbnb is about. It's unfortunate that it's led to a much larger/more political movement against tourism in general. [1] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/barcelona-airbnb-tourism/421788/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/barcelona-airbnb-tour... [2] http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/01/inenglish/1441115926_651764.html http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/01/inenglish/1441115926_651...
personlurking 10y ago
It's not only Airbnb in Europe, but also Erasmus (twice a year they make finding housing very difficult), Uniplaces (like Airbnb but for EU students), local classifieds sites (which now just double as Airbnb and Uniplaces listings) and being known as an affordable city (like here, in Lisbon, which is being called "the new Berlin" as well as the new "startup capital city"). Over the past 3 years, rental prices here have increased 30%, pushing locals out of the city center. A quick look on Airbnb for Lisbon, one sees the average monthly price at around 700 euro (for a room) while some listings go well above 1,000 euro. Three years ago, the norm for a room - no matter how you found it - was 180 to 220 euro per month, now the minimum is 300 and increasing. People are mad, and rightly so since minimum wage here is 530 euro. If anyone wishes to see all the stats well laid out, this article below (in Portuguese) has been circulating locally. I suggest running it through an online translator. It's titled "Who is going to be able to live in Lisbon?" http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-lisboa http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-lisbo...? One of the images from the article is this (http://i.imgur.com/FFDVm0M.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FFDVm0M.jpg) showing local Airbnb saturation, where 75% of listings are entire homes/apts. Airbnb's regional head says in 2015 there were 12K homes listed in the Greater Lisbon area, a 60% jump from 2014 numbers. We're a small city but data shows there are 174 hostels and 184 hotels here, with many more in the pipeline. It's out of hand and the govt hasn't done much of anything to stop it. By the way, that local listing at over 1K euro per month? It had lots of reviews, meaning there have been plenty of takers.
- golergka 10y ago
  Why do you see this as something bad? Some people are willing to pay more than others for housing, so others have to move elsewhere; this is normal market at work, why would anyone want to stop it?
  - personlurking 10y ago
    Because those willing to pay absurd prices are not locals, nor are they living here long-term, thus this causes locals and long-term residents to be pushed out of the city. Imagine being pushed out of your own city just because the market says tourists are more important than residents.
forrestthewoods 10y ago
Answer? Probably not. Especially if you don't provide housing stock numbers. The last AirBnB complaint I read was in Seattle which had a whopping 1000 units on the market. Which is jack shit. If you want top argue that AirBnB is a problem then you have to list the number of houses, apartments, hotel rooms, and AirBnB units. I'm not convinced it's s talk problem in any city in the world. Now regulations that inhibit new construction? That's an issues in more than a few places!
- germanier 10y ago
  Some numbers for Berlin can be found here: http://www.airbnbvsberlin.com http://www.airbnbvsberlin.com
- trusche 10y ago
  Again, for Dublin only. A quick search of all properties for rent in Dublin on the market leading website (daft.ie) comes up with 1,437 properties, and that's without any limitations to the search. A quick search on AirBnB for just the next weekend (in the middle of tourist season) finds "300+" listings. That's a very rough snapshot of course (e.g. there might be many double listings), but it hints at the potentially large portion of properties that could be off the long-term market thanks to AirBnB (and their competitors, for what it's worth).
  - zanny 10y ago
    Which is only a good thing, because it means the city as a whole is attracting rich tourists to spend tons of money rather than renters who spend less. And the best part is that if the tourism ever declines, the housing is still fine for renting again.
  - forrestthewoods 10y ago
    Dublin has a population of 530k/1.1M/1.8M for city/urban/metro. Having a thousand apartments off the market is irrelevant at that scale. It's is not a "large portion". Or even close.
    - 10y ago
vemv 10y ago
It'd be awesome if Airbnb integrated each city's regulation into its software. e.g. it ensures that you can't host more than X nights a year. It could even extract the taxes from each host's incomes and pay them directly to each city council. Prediction: if Airbnb doesn't do it, someone else will and councils will rule out competitors as illegal.
khattam 10y ago
So the argument is that since Airbnb makes travel cheaper, it is ruining the cities? Suggesting that hotels were keeping the prices artificially high to limit tourists and hence conserve the cities? Try harder next time.
- emerongi 10y ago
  The argument is that there's less hotels (and that nobody has noticed that the demand is higher).
- sammoth 10y ago
  No it's not that hotel prices are artificially high, they are priced in a completely separate market to residential properties. If there is no regulation on Airbnb rentals, tourists are now competing more in the residential market. This can obviously have an effect on cities.
  - collyw 10y ago
    I don't see what is artificially high about hotel prices. As someone else pointed out tourist do incur costs, and that can be added to hotel taxes. So Airbnb are both reducing taxes as well as making less accommodation available for residents.
frequent 10y ago
Isn't the "ruining" of cities more due to general lack of affordable space in light of increased urbanization and tourism? Granted, Airbnb will add its share to the overall shortage, but if I'd take all Airbnb apartments off of any market, would this put rents back to an affordable level or curtail tourism? Airbnb reminds me a bit of eBay - good idea led to an influx of professional sellers, which at some point had to be regulated (register as business, taxable income) and in growing up, the platform lost most of its appeal and discoverability of the things it once was created for. Still fills a large enough demand to be around. I'll call the same for Airbnb: There's demand for staying at a place which does not feel like a hotel and I found the Berlin ruling made for Airbnb to be going in a good direction (Zwecksentfremdungsverbot - use Airbnb if you rent out part of your place, but if you rent on as a business, it must be registered as such). I'll expect other cities to follow suit, because it also postpones having to address the underlying issue. (regular Couchsurfing host and sparse surfer)
yummyfajitas 10y ago
Tourists are human beings, same as residents. Tourists value the opportunity to visit for 2 weeks more than residents value the opportunity to live there for 2 weeks (as evidenced by their willingness to pay more). Why do you believe tourists deserve fewer rights than residents? I realize that in terms of blatant power struggles to control the means of violence, tourists will lose. But lets not pretend that's anything other than the strong exploiting the weak.
- janpieterz 10y ago
  Generally the tourist taxes paid (if any) are considerably lower than the taxes a resident pays. Besides payments for city taxes which equal more or less what tourist taxes are (in NL), I also pay taxes (income, possessions/investments, housing) to the countries government, which distributes money to cities. If we'd all be tourists, the world would quickly look different, mostly negatively for the current tourists (tourist taxes would increase to match current resident taxes). Without having to resort to violence I think that being a resident (paying taxes) does introduce more rights. This shows in, for example, being able to vote. Next time a major wants to run, make it a point to limit AirBnb and alike and you should get the vote if it is detrimental enough.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The city services consumed by tourists are considerably lower than those consumed by a resident. Why do you believe tourists don't pay for the services they use? Without having to resort to violence...being able to vote. You try to disclaim violence and then immediately come back to the fact that residents control the monopoly on violence. Self refuting.
    - janpieterz 10y ago
      Not so sure city services are considerably lower for a tourist than a resident. If I look to my residential usage or tourist usage, I'd venture I'm about equal, taking into account things like safety, infrastructure, city governmental services etc, if divided up by time. I'm not sure what kind of city services I'm missing that I'm suddenly not using as a tourist but am as a resident? The couple small ones are easily equaled or even outnumbered (ratio-wise) by tourist offices and other services only there for tourists. Voting and the monopoly of violence has never occurred to me that concretely, it's an interesting viewpoint. Of course the same perspective occurs directly when I become a tourist in the 'tourists' city. The 'Tourist' isn't some vague entity or a non-resident anywhere (generally) but also someone who uses their control of the monopoly on violence. Turning it around, how do you propose 'tourists' get equal rights?
luojiebin 10y ago
I don't think so
bogomipz 10y ago
"Earlier this month, it released data showing that since it began it has collected $85m in tax revenue for cities worldwide." That's not a very impressive figure. That's for a global company with massive revenue, now in it's eight year? “If it becomes law, this legislation would threaten thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers with fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing that they would like to share their homes,” Airbnb fumed. Uhm no, lower class New Yorkers don't own they rent and this is the point - the property is not theirs to profit from. Most middle class New Yorkers don't own their own homes either and if they do its likely a one bedroom or a studio. A two bedroom in New York is well out of reach of whatever is left of the middle class there. People that can afford two bedrooms in New York are generally not the "lets make a few extra dollars from this sharing economy" types. I know that in New Orleans the hotel industry has felt the pinch of Airbnb. Even during big weekend like Jazz Fest, you could still get a room last minute this year, something that used to be unheard of. While its great that tourist dollars still enter the local economy, the hotels employ a lot of people. This is significant in an economy that is almost solely based around hospitality and tourism.
dang 10y ago
You've been posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We ban accounts that do that, so please stop doing that. Instead, please (re)-read the site guidelines and follow them. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html Edit: oops, I misread that comment, so have detached this one from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980147 and marked it off topic.
- khattam 10y ago
  That is exactly what I got from the article. I would suggest you to read it but that breaks the guidelines. Even the original title reads "From Berlin to Barcelona; will Airbnb ruin our most loved cities?". If anything, you should ban the article.
  - dang 10y ago
    I'm sorry! I misread you. I thought "Try harder next time" was a swipe at another user, which it wasn't. (But https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11979795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11979795 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11963888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11963888, the other comments I had in mind, did break the site guidelines, so I still need to ask you not to do that.) That title is indeed bad, but I've explained why we haven't banned the article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981664. Also, if we had, people would accuse us of trying to suppress criticism of a YC-funded startup, which is something we err on the side of not doing.
    - khattam 10y ago
      OK, understood. Thank you.
dang 10y ago
This article is better than a lot of comparables and the discussion isn't bad, so we've reduced the downweights (not Airbnb-related) that got automatically applied to this submission and replaced the baity title with something more neutral. If anyone wants to suggest a more accurate and neutral title, we can change it again.
- kgwgk 10y ago
  What's wrong with the original title? Would the subtitle "Airbnb has become so successful that hotels are losing business and tourist sites face being ruined" be acceptable?
  - dang 10y ago
    "Ruin" is hyperbolic and "ruin our most-loved" is over the top.
    - kgwgk 10y ago
      Ok, your site, your rules. But I'm surprised to see that that title in another submission in the top page has been changed from "Reasons not to use Facebook" (the title of the document in the <h1> sense) to the less neutral and more hyperbolic "Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook" (which is the <head><title>).
      - dang 10y ago
        We changed that one to the original title of the article. Is it misleading or linkbait? Those are the conditions under which it should be changed. Arguably it is, but then the site is Stallman's, which makes the context of the advocacy unmistakeable. Also the verbal twist of "use, (i.e. be used by)" is marginally gratifying of curiosity in its own right, and not the same thing as the usual clickbait. So IMO that title squeaks by as ok. Obviously different editors would call some of these differently, but that's not the same thing as arbitrarily changing the rules. The rule is pretty fixed.
hackuser 10y ago
> analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025. In a world of 7-8 billion people (and where most people live with and travel with others, so there are many fewer households and travel groups), these numbers seem more than a little unlikely.
- reissbaker 10y ago
  The author misread the actual predictions from Cowen & Co, which predict 500 million "room nights" per year — a term that we refer to internally as "nights booked" per year — which would mean that a total of 500 million nights were booked across all hosts over the course of a year. A single "booking" may count as multiple "nights," since often you'll be staying at (and have booked) a place for more than one night. Here's a better report of the Cowen & Co analysis: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/one-wall-street-firm-expects-airbnb-to-book-a-billion-nights-a-year-within-a-decade http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/one-wall-s... — it's a far, far cry from "500 million bookings a night." You're 100% correct that the size of the total world population makes it spectacularly unlikely that we'll ever have 500 million bookings per night.
tehchromic 10y ago
Long term the impact I see is better tourists and better cities.
Lucadg 10y ago
rencently Airbnb introduced Smart Prices. It's an optional automated system which allows the host to accept prices suggested by Airbnb's algorithm. They prices are usually very low and I have the feeling they'll make it less interesting for many renters to stay on the market. Maybe it will bring some balance. It's completely counterintiuitive but I'm afraid they are destroying the market. I already know some people going off Airbnb and moving to other platforms because it only brings cheap bookings.
goblin89 10y ago
Obviously this must be an impact of increased mobility and globalization forcing previously isolated economies to compete in larger market, with Airbnb merely riding the wave. Dwellers of comparatively more well-off cities probably aren’t complaining about tourists driving them out, in other words. In Seoul, for example, monthly rate for a studio on Airbnb right now seems close to what a local would pay for a similar option found via old-school real estate agency[0]. [0] If they could get away without depositing some $xxxxx upfront. Based on experience of a friend who in 2014–2015 rented a studio found via an agency.
Techowl 10y ago
Surely the projections cited in this article aren't accurate. > Already operating in 191 countries and 34,000 cities, analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025. If the population of the world is about 8.2 billion in 2025, which is the UN's expectation [0], that'd mean one Airbnb booking a night per eight humans on Earth. Perhaps they mean yearly, not nightly? [0] http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-billion-2025 http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-bill...
- awesomepantsm 10y ago
  I just assume that Cowen & Co must be bad at predictions.
  - colinbartlett 10y ago
    They got to 191 countries in 8 years. By 2024 AirBNB will be in 382 countries!
- ryanjodonnell 10y ago
  There's no way that can be correct, they only did 80 million bookings in 2015: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-growth-idUSKCN0RS2QK20150928 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-growth-idUSKCN0RS2Q...
- conceit 10y ago
  Extrapolated from their numbers, in 2045 it will be an unbelievable 16 billion, 2 bookings a night per human. All that vacationing will lead to vacation fornication and generate the increase in population needed to sustain the growth. What a keen business model.
p4wnc6 10y ago
In the past 6 years, I've traveled significantly in New England, the New York City region, the Paris and Marseille regions, London, Leeds, Manchester, and Edinburgh, Iceland, Barcelona, Mallorca, Rome, Geneva, Genoa, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Austin, across a mix of work-related travel to conferences, vacations, and graduate school that involved time at a foreign program. I have not ever used Airbnb, never found difficulty in getting good hotel accommodations for reasonable prices, never found difficult being shown around the "non-touristy" parts of every place I've visited, either by just asking locals, getting advice from friends, using travel websites, etc., and have really, really valued the nicer accommodations in traditional hotels (especially the extra privacy, standardized cleanliness, and lower variance in terms of noise and sounds that reduce sleep quality). I'm not being snarky or critical of Airbnb, many of my good friends love it and seem to get a lot of value out of it. But I cannot see any aspect of Airbnb that offers value to me or satisfies my search criteria when looking for housing. Given this, it is almost bewildering to me that there is so much demand for Airbnb-provided short term lodging that landlords would even consider the idea that renting an apartment solely as an Airbnb rental is more profitable than traditional rental agreements. I mean, I can't blame the landlords if that's the case. But I sure do feel like the mass of travelers who believe they are getting value from Airbnb simply cannot be correct in their belief that they are actually receiving that value. I just wonder why they think they are.
- jacalata 10y ago
  I find that Airbnb is most attractive when (a) travelling in a small group, because it can be cheaper to get a place that fits three adults and a kid on airbnb than at a hotel, and (b) when visiting people that live somewhere, since it's frequently hard to find a hotel in the residential suburbs where they live, but you can often find an airbnb nearby or (c) when I'm staying somewhere long enough that I want to be able to cook my own food. In specific cities (like Dublin) it also turned out to be much cheaper than an equivalent hotel.
  - p4wnc6 10y ago
    For me, (c) is not really a pro for Airbnb. I'm vegan and cooking is a passion of mine, so I almost always want to cook for myself if I can. I'll even pre-cook meals that can be sealed and go through bag check at the airport just to avoid dining at restaurants. If it weren't for the social aspect, mostly appeasing others, I think I would never eat at a restaurant. But I've always found that even in dense urban areas (and especially in suburban areas) it's always very easy to find an extended-stay suite sort of place that has an adequate kitchen. The huge benefit for me is also that I'm in control of the kitchen, instead of having to deal with someone else's haphazard stuff, personal ticks, etc. In terms of (a) I've rented a lot of cabins and houses for small group hiking vacations, but never used Airbnb for it. I can't say anything about how it works on Airbnb, but on other travel sites and one-off sites like Craigslist, I've always had easy, positive experiences and never found the prices to be anything but reasonable. Obviously (b) depends on exactly who you're visiting. When I visit my family in small town southern Ohio, Airbnb is not an option (too few listings, and I would not trust the safety in that region anyway), so hotels are necessary. I've never had trouble getting cost-effective and nice hotel rooms in suburbia, but perhaps some cities are just much worse than others.
geebee 10y ago
I know this isn't the main point, but airbnb lost me a long time ago with statements like this: “If it becomes law, this legislation would threaten thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers with fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing that they would like to share their homes,” Airbnb fumed. By "share", do they mean a quid pro quo exchange of goods and services for money? It's nuts to call this "sharing", and I don't think this is quibbling about words when people at pro airbnb rallies chant "sharing is caring". Of course they're trying to grab the emotional connotations of "sharing" that exist outside the commerce world, which include friendship, generosity, and a wish to help others. I don't expect airbnb to stop this bit of manipulation, but I do think the mainstream media should certainly stop referring to the contract "you may stay in my house on the condition that you pay me the price I have specified" as "sharing". An argument by ambiguity uses the fact that words have more than one meaning, but honestly, I'm not sure how "sharing" even applies at all to such a clear cut unambiguous example of commerce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation There they go again, claiming that governments are regulating or fining "sharing". No, they are regulating commerce. They are threatening fines on businesses that fail to properly comply with regulations on commerce. Airbnb's corporate-speak is pretty brazen.
- skewart 10y ago
  I'm generally in favor of letting companies like AirBnB, Lyft, Uber, and Turo operate in cities. But I completely agree with you that it's infuriating to see the word "sharing" being used to describe them. They're platforms that make it easy for people to operate various kinds of small businesses - or sometimes maybe micro businesses. I suppose they think it's good for PR to peddle the warm and fuzzy concept of "sharing" but in most people's eyes it just makes them seem more deceptive and untrustworthy. I'm generally a fan of what these companies are doing, and I worry that pushing a false description of themselves only sets them up for stronger backlash. A much better term than the "sharing economy" for these kinds of two-sided marketplace platforms is the "access economy". The fundamentally new thing they provide is much easier access to both buyers and sellers. As a traveler, AirBnB gives me access to lots of vacation rental listings, many of the them reviewed and to some extent vetted by the crowd. As someone looking to rent out my home, AirBnB gives me access to millions of potential customers, who are, to varying degrees, vetted by other hosts.
WalterBright 10y ago
New businesses and ways of doing business always disrupt the existing businesses, and the existing ones frequently advocate for regulations to preserve their niche.
edem 10y ago
In Budapest, Hungary I can see a rise in prices from 250 EUR/month to almost 350 EUR/month for the same flat in the last 2 years thanks to Airbnb. What happens here is that most property owners realized that they can make more money by renting their flat (not just a room) instead of underleasing it. This leads to a LOT of people hopelessly scrambling for flats to rent because there are not a lot of new flats being built. Basically tourists are taking away flats from people who are trying to live in the city. This is horrible IMHO. I hope that the government will assess brutal taxes on Airbnb to make it useless or otherwise a lot of people will either become homeless or are forced to return to the countryside.

90 points by trusche 10y ago

Airbnb is definitely not the analogy of Uber. It's extremely expensive service - prices of dirty rooms with old furniture are higher than in 4-stars apart-hotels. In city I live (Saint Petersburg) price for room in Airbnb is 8-9 times higher than on local sites. And I tried to find room in Rome, Prague, Barcelona - every time Airbnb was more expensive than good hotels.

gruez 10y ago
>... every time Airbnb was more expensive than good hotels. Really? I thought the whole point of airbnb was to get accommodation for less.
- Bombthecat 10y ago
  I don't understand it either. But it is kinda true. After trying to rent a room for my family from oversee and i got rejected every time. I found something like four times cheaper here. And this was like an hour away from a big city where I looked... I don't understand it either. But maybe that's where we are heading everywhere. Appeal only to the rich. One customer a month is better than four or five.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  The whole point of AirBnB is to make more money for landlords and for AirBnB. The service has economic value in itself, so it's not a surprise prices are more likely to trend upwards than downwards, especially if there's high demand. "We have too many tourists" should be a good place to be, not a bad one. Trying to stop the flood is less constructive than trying to work out positive ways to manage it.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Have you ever traveled to somewhere that is "really touristy". Patong beach in Thailand, Magaluf in Mallorca are two that come to mind (as I have ended up in both in the last year). I am sure they were far nicer places before the tourism. Tourism brings in money so from an economic perspective its a no brainier, but there is more to quality of life than economics.
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  I hoped for same. Maybe it's because I'm not looking for hostel-like rooms, but in BCN I saw even room in the boat (Airbnb) for $900 per week. It's just one of examples. This June our family (4 persons) spent 3 weeks in Barcelona apart-hotels (4 stars) with prices $1200-$1400 per week. It was less expensive than Airbnb.
  - pimlottc 10y ago
    I also vacationed in Barcelona this June and stayed in two different Airbnb rooms at $40 and $55 per night (including all fees). Both were private rooms, although bathroom was shared in both cases (I don't think I've been in an airbnb that had its own private bath). Granted, as a solo traveller I'm likely looking at different listings than you are, but the options on Airbnb were quite good, even during a major festival weekend (Primavera Sound).
    - EugeneOZ 10y ago
      1. Shared bath is absolutely unacceptable for family. 2. $55 * 4 * 7 = $1540 for week, with shared bath. We were in hotels with private baths (2 separate private bathrooms) for $1200. Thank you for proving my point :)
      - pimlottc 10y ago
        As I said, if I were looking for an airbnb for a family, I would be looking at different listings, e.g. complete apartments, in which case you would have your own bathroom. I'd image the per-person prices to be better than for a solo traveller in this case as well, as has been my experience in other areas. Weekly rates on Airbnb tend to be better than nightly as well (I didn't stay long enough). The point being, whether Airbnb in Barcelona is competitive with hotels depends on your needs, but at least in my case, it was, while providing better than hostel-like accommodations.
- sambe 10y ago
  No, I doubt most people find this to be true. I generally find clean private apartments in good areas, cheaper than hotels, sometimes cheaper than hostels too. Used to be more availability of single rooms for even cheaper too. Seems like prices have gone up over the last couple of years, but certainly not a surfeit of low quality expensive places.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago
    If you want to call me a liar, I can find apart-hotel in Barcelona for you (4 stars, good reviews on Booking), and comparable set of rooms on Airbnb. And after that you will bring apologizes. Deal?
    - dang 10y ago
      Please don't escalate like this. People can (and do, and need to) disagree without calling each other a liar. One main purpose of discussion here is to share different experiences.
      - EugeneOZ 10y ago
        Answer "I disagree" is one thing, answer "you are wrong" - is fine also. Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. It's offensive and I see nothing wrong in my try to defend myself. Only thing I regret is typo in previous comment in this branch.
        dang 10y ago
        You appear to have missed the key word in what I posted, which is "escalate". For example: > Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. That's literally what it's not doing. Equating these two things is escalating, i.e. substituting one utterance for a more provocative one and replying to that instead. You may feel that the train of logic inevitably takes you there down a one-way deductive track. But there are many opportunities to get off that train, and good manners and civility demand that we do. If we don't, all disagreement ends in conflict, which is tedious (for everyone else) and destructive. I wonder if there may be a crossed cultural channel here, because the gap between "you are wrong" and "it's not true" strikes me as tiny—not the chasm that you describe—and if anything, "you are wrong" sounds slightly less polite since it's more personal. This is the kind of thing that people with different cultural and language backgrounds routinely hear differently, and the presence of many different backgrounds on HN is one reason why we all need to be charitable in our interpretations. p.s. I've fixed the typo for you.
dhoe 10y ago
That's not been my experience at all, and I've booked dozens of places through Airbnb over the years. Also, one big advantage for me as a vegetarian is that I can get a fully equipped kitchen, so instead of hunting for the one restaurant that has more than one salad to offer, I can shop in local markets and cook myself - I enjoy it and it saves me money too. Even good apartment hotels often just have two sad pans and three plates.
- EugeneOZ 10y ago
  It's not good apart-hotels. In every apart hotel we tried, there was equipped kitchen and we often make food there. And we don't even need to be vegetarians to do it.
  - eulji 10y ago
    My advise would be to stop applying the soviet mentality to these things. Really sometimes it's not about the price but convenience. This is something that people in your and mine country fail to understand.

f_allwein 10y ago

I am also becoming wary of using airbnb, for some of the reasons mentioned here. I did meet some great hosts, but at other times I felt I would have been better off e.g. in a hostel. Also, people who care about hosting and getting to know travelers could just sign up to Couchsurfing or Hospitalityclub, which strangely don't seem to be booming.

joelrunyon 10y ago

I'm staying longer term in BCN for a month and a half and accidentally ended up at an outdoor concert last night before realizing that it was protesting tourists. "Tourism kills the city" was the slogan on the signs around the area. In 2 weeks, I've seen at least 2 demonstrations like this and it seems to be picking up from previous years that I've been here. Things are a little more crowded and I feel like every day there's a bachelor / bachelorette party running around - the density of which reminds me of vegas. I like to think that I blend in more than most tourists - the ones you see in groups of 8 with 2-3 roller bags each fumbling for the keys and trying to make sure they find the right building - but I'm probably biased. I'm not sure what BCN's solution will be. Tourism is 12-15% of their economy in Catalonia, so it's not a small chunk for a country with 20% unemployment rate. The hotel options aren't great for what you pay for. AirBnB is definitely cheaper (and usually roomier), but it's a difference when you notice that all your neighbors in "old town" are german / british tourists that pop in for a weekend and then leave. Barcelona does have an ordinance that you can only rent rooms for longer than 30 days - so they have people that come around on occasion to check - but I think it's sort of hit & miss enforcement. I'm not sure I have answers as much as questions - and it's interesting being on the ground zero and seeing this take place.

EugeneOZ 10y ago
Catalonia is not only Barcelona. In Barcelona tourism is about third of city's income, so protests like this are ridiculous. Noisy tourists are usually in hotels/hostels. And I have to say locals sometimes are more noisy than tourists.
- philipDS 10y ago
  I've been living in Barcelona on/off since 2013. I don't have a problem with the tourists. I do have a problem with drunk tourists who pee and shout in the streets at night. Very disrespectful. I completely understand the protests.. Tourists are a real pain in Barcelona, especially in El Born/Raval/around La Rambla.
  - EugeneOZ 10y ago

trusche 10y ago

Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments, and it's a fair question to ask if AirBnB is partially to blame. From [1]: > The average rental value of a two-bed apartment in the city centre at €2,000 per month, less a management fee, would equate to the apartment being occupied for just 120 nights of the year through Airbnb. > Investors have confirmed that if correctly managed, the income can be double that of a long-term rental. (AirBnB disagrees [2]) As much as I like the idea of AirBnB, their impact on the housing market in any given city needs to be considered. Unfortunately the article doesn't mention that at all, focussing solely on tourism. [1] http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/booming-airbnb-adding-to-dublins-rent-squeeze-34715683.html http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property... [2] http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/airbnb-insists-home-hosting-is-not-taking-housing-off-market-1.2584950 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/airbnb-insists...

apsec112 10y ago
I can't speak to Ireland, but here in the US, there's an extremely strong relationship between expensive apartments and a lack of new construction. Here's the graph: http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.prices.png http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.price... How difficult is it to build new housing in Dublin? Does the city allow new apartment buildings, or are most areas single family, detached residences only?
- trusche 10y ago
  It's complicated. There are height limitations for residential buildings in the city (lower than those for commercial ones), and there's no culture of apartment living here comparable to other European capitals I know. Dublin is sprawling with single family homes. There's a debate going on right now about higher density zoning and the like, but it will take time. Regulations to improve building standards have added to cost, and most developers seem to be in it for the quick buck (my opinion only) and are holding back right now because that's no longer (or not yet again) an option after the crash. http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/time-to-end-ireland-s-failed-developer-led-property-market-1.2645776 http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/time-to-end-irela...

jkot 10y ago

There is explosion of cheap flight tickets.

Bombthecat 10y ago

The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I just can raise the rent? Right, no one would and no one will. Without the state intervening we will have a lot of new york cities around the globe.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
If your theory was right, then developers shouldn't be desperately begging for permission to build while local NIMBYs beat them back at every turn. Your theory doesn't seem to match reality.
quanticle 10y ago
The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I can just raise the rent? It might actually be more profitable for you to have more units of housing at a lower price, than fewer units of housing at a higher price. Profit follows a quadratic formula, and it's quite possible to raise profits dramatically by selling more units at a (slightly) lower price.
nawitus 10y ago
Another question is "why shouldn't I create new houses and apartments and create more profit"? This is true whether or not that person/company already owns apartments in that place. The market is global.
aianus 10y ago
Because if housing prices are out of whack with development costs it can be more profitable to sell your current apartment (with its associated discounted cash flow) and use the capital to build a new one for cheaper.

austinl 10y ago

I stayed in 4 different Airbnbs in Barcelona around the time when Ada Colau was pushing to have them all registered [1]. The major concern I heard from my hosts were about properties used _only for Airbnb_, which were particularly notorious in Barceloneta. A few people figured out they could pose as fake tenets in several apartments at once, then turn a profit by listing them all on Airbnb. This was where things went from bad to worse — some people were listing 10+ properties at the same time [2]. With all of that, I'm not surprised there was such a backlash. The type of subletting that was going on in BCN is clearly not what Airbnb is about. It's unfortunate that it's led to a much larger/more political movement against tourism in general. [1] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/barcelona-airbnb-tourism/421788/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/barcelona-airbnb-tour... [2] http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/01/inenglish/1441115926_651764.html http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/01/inenglish/1441115926_651...

personlurking 10y ago

It's not only Airbnb in Europe, but also Erasmus (twice a year they make finding housing very difficult), Uniplaces (like Airbnb but for EU students), local classifieds sites (which now just double as Airbnb and Uniplaces listings) and being known as an affordable city (like here, in Lisbon, which is being called "the new Berlin" as well as the new "startup capital city"). Over the past 3 years, rental prices here have increased 30%, pushing locals out of the city center. A quick look on Airbnb for Lisbon, one sees the average monthly price at around 700 euro (for a room) while some listings go well above 1,000 euro. Three years ago, the norm for a room - no matter how you found it - was 180 to 220 euro per month, now the minimum is 300 and increasing. People are mad, and rightly so since minimum wage here is 530 euro. If anyone wishes to see all the stats well laid out, this article below (in Portuguese) has been circulating locally. I suggest running it through an online translator. It's titled "Who is going to be able to live in Lisbon?" http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-lisboa http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-lisbo...? One of the images from the article is this (http://i.imgur.com/FFDVm0M.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FFDVm0M.jpg) showing local Airbnb saturation, where 75% of listings are entire homes/apts. Airbnb's regional head says in 2015 there were 12K homes listed in the Greater Lisbon area, a 60% jump from 2014 numbers. We're a small city but data shows there are 174 hostels and 184 hotels here, with many more in the pipeline. It's out of hand and the govt hasn't done much of anything to stop it. By the way, that local listing at over 1K euro per month? It had lots of reviews, meaning there have been plenty of takers.

golergka 10y ago
Why do you see this as something bad? Some people are willing to pay more than others for housing, so others have to move elsewhere; this is normal market at work, why would anyone want to stop it?
- personlurking 10y ago
  Because those willing to pay absurd prices are not locals, nor are they living here long-term, thus this causes locals and long-term residents to be pushed out of the city. Imagine being pushed out of your own city just because the market says tourists are more important than residents.

forrestthewoods 10y ago

Answer? Probably not. Especially if you don't provide housing stock numbers. The last AirBnB complaint I read was in Seattle which had a whopping 1000 units on the market. Which is jack shit. If you want top argue that AirBnB is a problem then you have to list the number of houses, apartments, hotel rooms, and AirBnB units. I'm not convinced it's s talk problem in any city in the world. Now regulations that inhibit new construction? That's an issues in more than a few places!

germanier 10y ago
Some numbers for Berlin can be found here: http://www.airbnbvsberlin.com http://www.airbnbvsberlin.com
trusche 10y ago
Again, for Dublin only. A quick search of all properties for rent in Dublin on the market leading website (daft.ie) comes up with 1,437 properties, and that's without any limitations to the search. A quick search on AirBnB for just the next weekend (in the middle of tourist season) finds "300+" listings. That's a very rough snapshot of course (e.g. there might be many double listings), but it hints at the potentially large portion of properties that could be off the long-term market thanks to AirBnB (and their competitors, for what it's worth).
- zanny 10y ago
  Which is only a good thing, because it means the city as a whole is attracting rich tourists to spend tons of money rather than renters who spend less. And the best part is that if the tourism ever declines, the housing is still fine for renting again.
- forrestthewoods 10y ago
  Dublin has a population of 530k/1.1M/1.8M for city/urban/metro. Having a thousand apartments off the market is irrelevant at that scale. It's is not a "large portion". Or even close.
  - 10y ago

vemv 10y ago

It'd be awesome if Airbnb integrated each city's regulation into its software. e.g. it ensures that you can't host more than X nights a year. It could even extract the taxes from each host's incomes and pay them directly to each city council. Prediction: if Airbnb doesn't do it, someone else will and councils will rule out competitors as illegal.

khattam 10y ago

So the argument is that since Airbnb makes travel cheaper, it is ruining the cities? Suggesting that hotels were keeping the prices artificially high to limit tourists and hence conserve the cities? Try harder next time.

emerongi 10y ago
The argument is that there's less hotels (and that nobody has noticed that the demand is higher).
sammoth 10y ago
No it's not that hotel prices are artificially high, they are priced in a completely separate market to residential properties. If there is no regulation on Airbnb rentals, tourists are now competing more in the residential market. This can obviously have an effect on cities.
- collyw 10y ago
  I don't see what is artificially high about hotel prices. As someone else pointed out tourist do incur costs, and that can be added to hotel taxes. So Airbnb are both reducing taxes as well as making less accommodation available for residents.

frequent 10y ago

Isn't the "ruining" of cities more due to general lack of affordable space in light of increased urbanization and tourism? Granted, Airbnb will add its share to the overall shortage, but if I'd take all Airbnb apartments off of any market, would this put rents back to an affordable level or curtail tourism? Airbnb reminds me a bit of eBay - good idea led to an influx of professional sellers, which at some point had to be regulated (register as business, taxable income) and in growing up, the platform lost most of its appeal and discoverability of the things it once was created for. Still fills a large enough demand to be around. I'll call the same for Airbnb: There's demand for staying at a place which does not feel like a hotel and I found the Berlin ruling made for Airbnb to be going in a good direction (Zwecksentfremdungsverbot - use Airbnb if you rent out part of your place, but if you rent on as a business, it must be registered as such). I'll expect other cities to follow suit, because it also postpones having to address the underlying issue. (regular Couchsurfing host and sparse surfer)

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Tourists are human beings, same as residents. Tourists value the opportunity to visit for 2 weeks more than residents value the opportunity to live there for 2 weeks (as evidenced by their willingness to pay more). Why do you believe tourists deserve fewer rights than residents? I realize that in terms of blatant power struggles to control the means of violence, tourists will lose. But lets not pretend that's anything other than the strong exploiting the weak.

janpieterz 10y ago
Generally the tourist taxes paid (if any) are considerably lower than the taxes a resident pays. Besides payments for city taxes which equal more or less what tourist taxes are (in NL), I also pay taxes (income, possessions/investments, housing) to the countries government, which distributes money to cities. If we'd all be tourists, the world would quickly look different, mostly negatively for the current tourists (tourist taxes would increase to match current resident taxes). Without having to resort to violence I think that being a resident (paying taxes) does introduce more rights. This shows in, for example, being able to vote. Next time a major wants to run, make it a point to limit AirBnb and alike and you should get the vote if it is detrimental enough.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  The city services consumed by tourists are considerably lower than those consumed by a resident. Why do you believe tourists don't pay for the services they use? Without having to resort to violence...being able to vote. You try to disclaim violence and then immediately come back to the fact that residents control the monopoly on violence. Self refuting.
  - janpieterz 10y ago
    Not so sure city services are considerably lower for a tourist than a resident. If I look to my residential usage or tourist usage, I'd venture I'm about equal, taking into account things like safety, infrastructure, city governmental services etc, if divided up by time. I'm not sure what kind of city services I'm missing that I'm suddenly not using as a tourist but am as a resident? The couple small ones are easily equaled or even outnumbered (ratio-wise) by tourist offices and other services only there for tourists. Voting and the monopoly of violence has never occurred to me that concretely, it's an interesting viewpoint. Of course the same perspective occurs directly when I become a tourist in the 'tourists' city. The 'Tourist' isn't some vague entity or a non-resident anywhere (generally) but also someone who uses their control of the monopoly on violence. Turning it around, how do you propose 'tourists' get equal rights?

luojiebin 10y ago

I don't think so

bogomipz 10y ago

"Earlier this month, it released data showing that since it began it has collected $85m in tax revenue for cities worldwide." That's not a very impressive figure. That's for a global company with massive revenue, now in it's eight year? “If it becomes law, this legislation would threaten thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers with fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing that they would like to share their homes,” Airbnb fumed. Uhm no, lower class New Yorkers don't own they rent and this is the point - the property is not theirs to profit from. Most middle class New Yorkers don't own their own homes either and if they do its likely a one bedroom or a studio. A two bedroom in New York is well out of reach of whatever is left of the middle class there. People that can afford two bedrooms in New York are generally not the "lets make a few extra dollars from this sharing economy" types. I know that in New Orleans the hotel industry has felt the pinch of Airbnb. Even during big weekend like Jazz Fest, you could still get a room last minute this year, something that used to be unheard of. While its great that tourist dollars still enter the local economy, the hotels employ a lot of people. This is significant in an economy that is almost solely based around hospitality and tourism.

dang 10y ago

You've been posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We ban accounts that do that, so please stop doing that. Instead, please (re)-read the site guidelines and follow them. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html Edit: oops, I misread that comment, so have detached this one from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980147 and marked it off topic.

khattam 10y ago
That is exactly what I got from the article. I would suggest you to read it but that breaks the guidelines. Even the original title reads "From Berlin to Barcelona; will Airbnb ruin our most loved cities?". If anything, you should ban the article.
- dang 10y ago
  I'm sorry! I misread you. I thought "Try harder next time" was a swipe at another user, which it wasn't. (But https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11979795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11979795 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11963888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11963888, the other comments I had in mind, did break the site guidelines, so I still need to ask you not to do that.) That title is indeed bad, but I've explained why we haven't banned the article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981664. Also, if we had, people would accuse us of trying to suppress criticism of a YC-funded startup, which is something we err on the side of not doing.
  - khattam 10y ago
    OK, understood. Thank you.

dang 10y ago

This article is better than a lot of comparables and the discussion isn't bad, so we've reduced the downweights (not Airbnb-related) that got automatically applied to this submission and replaced the baity title with something more neutral. If anyone wants to suggest a more accurate and neutral title, we can change it again.

kgwgk 10y ago
What's wrong with the original title? Would the subtitle "Airbnb has become so successful that hotels are losing business and tourist sites face being ruined" be acceptable?
- dang 10y ago
  "Ruin" is hyperbolic and "ruin our most-loved" is over the top.
  - kgwgk 10y ago
    Ok, your site, your rules. But I'm surprised to see that that title in another submission in the top page has been changed from "Reasons not to use Facebook" (the title of the document in the <h1> sense) to the less neutral and more hyperbolic "Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook" (which is the <head><title>).
    - dang 10y ago
      We changed that one to the original title of the article. Is it misleading or linkbait? Those are the conditions under which it should be changed. Arguably it is, but then the site is Stallman's, which makes the context of the advocacy unmistakeable. Also the verbal twist of "use, (i.e. be used by)" is marginally gratifying of curiosity in its own right, and not the same thing as the usual clickbait. So IMO that title squeaks by as ok. Obviously different editors would call some of these differently, but that's not the same thing as arbitrarily changing the rules. The rule is pretty fixed.

hackuser 10y ago

> analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025. In a world of 7-8 billion people (and where most people live with and travel with others, so there are many fewer households and travel groups), these numbers seem more than a little unlikely.

reissbaker 10y ago
The author misread the actual predictions from Cowen & Co, which predict 500 million "room nights" per year — a term that we refer to internally as "nights booked" per year — which would mean that a total of 500 million nights were booked across all hosts over the course of a year. A single "booking" may count as multiple "nights," since often you'll be staying at (and have booked) a place for more than one night. Here's a better report of the Cowen & Co analysis: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/one-wall-street-firm-expects-airbnb-to-book-a-billion-nights-a-year-within-a-decade http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/one-wall-s... — it's a far, far cry from "500 million bookings a night." You're 100% correct that the size of the total world population makes it spectacularly unlikely that we'll ever have 500 million bookings per night.

tehchromic 10y ago

Long term the impact I see is better tourists and better cities.

Lucadg 10y ago

rencently Airbnb introduced Smart Prices. It's an optional automated system which allows the host to accept prices suggested by Airbnb's algorithm. They prices are usually very low and I have the feeling they'll make it less interesting for many renters to stay on the market. Maybe it will bring some balance. It's completely counterintiuitive but I'm afraid they are destroying the market. I already know some people going off Airbnb and moving to other platforms because it only brings cheap bookings.

goblin89 10y ago

Obviously this must be an impact of increased mobility and globalization forcing previously isolated economies to compete in larger market, with Airbnb merely riding the wave. Dwellers of comparatively more well-off cities probably aren’t complaining about tourists driving them out, in other words. In Seoul, for example, monthly rate for a studio on Airbnb right now seems close to what a local would pay for a similar option found via old-school real estate agency[0]. [0] If they could get away without depositing some $xxxxx upfront. Based on experience of a friend who in 2014–2015 rented a studio found via an agency.

Techowl 10y ago

Surely the projections cited in this article aren't accurate. > Already operating in 191 countries and 34,000 cities, analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025. If the population of the world is about 8.2 billion in 2025, which is the UN's expectation [0], that'd mean one Airbnb booking a night per eight humans on Earth. Perhaps they mean yearly, not nightly? [0] http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-billion-2025 http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-bill...

awesomepantsm 10y ago
I just assume that Cowen & Co must be bad at predictions.
- colinbartlett 10y ago
  They got to 191 countries in 8 years. By 2024 AirBNB will be in 382 countries!
ryanjodonnell 10y ago
There's no way that can be correct, they only did 80 million bookings in 2015: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-growth-idUSKCN0RS2QK20150928 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-growth-idUSKCN0RS2Q...
conceit 10y ago
Extrapolated from their numbers, in 2045 it will be an unbelievable 16 billion, 2 bookings a night per human. All that vacationing will lead to vacation fornication and generate the increase in population needed to sustain the growth. What a keen business model.

p4wnc6 10y ago

In the past 6 years, I've traveled significantly in New England, the New York City region, the Paris and Marseille regions, London, Leeds, Manchester, and Edinburgh, Iceland, Barcelona, Mallorca, Rome, Geneva, Genoa, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Austin, across a mix of work-related travel to conferences, vacations, and graduate school that involved time at a foreign program. I have not ever used Airbnb, never found difficulty in getting good hotel accommodations for reasonable prices, never found difficult being shown around the "non-touristy" parts of every place I've visited, either by just asking locals, getting advice from friends, using travel websites, etc., and have really, really valued the nicer accommodations in traditional hotels (especially the extra privacy, standardized cleanliness, and lower variance in terms of noise and sounds that reduce sleep quality). I'm not being snarky or critical of Airbnb, many of my good friends love it and seem to get a lot of value out of it. But I cannot see any aspect of Airbnb that offers value to me or satisfies my search criteria when looking for housing. Given this, it is almost bewildering to me that there is so much demand for Airbnb-provided short term lodging that landlords would even consider the idea that renting an apartment solely as an Airbnb rental is more profitable than traditional rental agreements. I mean, I can't blame the landlords if that's the case. But I sure do feel like the mass of travelers who believe they are getting value from Airbnb simply cannot be correct in their belief that they are actually receiving that value. I just wonder why they think they are.

jacalata 10y ago
I find that Airbnb is most attractive when (a) travelling in a small group, because it can be cheaper to get a place that fits three adults and a kid on airbnb than at a hotel, and (b) when visiting people that live somewhere, since it's frequently hard to find a hotel in the residential suburbs where they live, but you can often find an airbnb nearby or (c) when I'm staying somewhere long enough that I want to be able to cook my own food. In specific cities (like Dublin) it also turned out to be much cheaper than an equivalent hotel.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  For me, (c) is not really a pro for Airbnb. I'm vegan and cooking is a passion of mine, so I almost always want to cook for myself if I can. I'll even pre-cook meals that can be sealed and go through bag check at the airport just to avoid dining at restaurants. If it weren't for the social aspect, mostly appeasing others, I think I would never eat at a restaurant. But I've always found that even in dense urban areas (and especially in suburban areas) it's always very easy to find an extended-stay suite sort of place that has an adequate kitchen. The huge benefit for me is also that I'm in control of the kitchen, instead of having to deal with someone else's haphazard stuff, personal ticks, etc. In terms of (a) I've rented a lot of cabins and houses for small group hiking vacations, but never used Airbnb for it. I can't say anything about how it works on Airbnb, but on other travel sites and one-off sites like Craigslist, I've always had easy, positive experiences and never found the prices to be anything but reasonable. Obviously (b) depends on exactly who you're visiting. When I visit my family in small town southern Ohio, Airbnb is not an option (too few listings, and I would not trust the safety in that region anyway), so hotels are necessary. I've never had trouble getting cost-effective and nice hotel rooms in suburbia, but perhaps some cities are just much worse than others.

geebee 10y ago

I know this isn't the main point, but airbnb lost me a long time ago with statements like this: “If it becomes law, this legislation would threaten thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers with fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing that they would like to share their homes,” Airbnb fumed. By "share", do they mean a quid pro quo exchange of goods and services for money? It's nuts to call this "sharing", and I don't think this is quibbling about words when people at pro airbnb rallies chant "sharing is caring". Of course they're trying to grab the emotional connotations of "sharing" that exist outside the commerce world, which include friendship, generosity, and a wish to help others. I don't expect airbnb to stop this bit of manipulation, but I do think the mainstream media should certainly stop referring to the contract "you may stay in my house on the condition that you pay me the price I have specified" as "sharing". An argument by ambiguity uses the fact that words have more than one meaning, but honestly, I'm not sure how "sharing" even applies at all to such a clear cut unambiguous example of commerce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation There they go again, claiming that governments are regulating or fining "sharing". No, they are regulating commerce. They are threatening fines on businesses that fail to properly comply with regulations on commerce. Airbnb's corporate-speak is pretty brazen.

skewart 10y ago
I'm generally in favor of letting companies like AirBnB, Lyft, Uber, and Turo operate in cities. But I completely agree with you that it's infuriating to see the word "sharing" being used to describe them. They're platforms that make it easy for people to operate various kinds of small businesses - or sometimes maybe micro businesses. I suppose they think it's good for PR to peddle the warm and fuzzy concept of "sharing" but in most people's eyes it just makes them seem more deceptive and untrustworthy. I'm generally a fan of what these companies are doing, and I worry that pushing a false description of themselves only sets them up for stronger backlash. A much better term than the "sharing economy" for these kinds of two-sided marketplace platforms is the "access economy". The fundamentally new thing they provide is much easier access to both buyers and sellers. As a traveler, AirBnB gives me access to lots of vacation rental listings, many of the them reviewed and to some extent vetted by the crowd. As someone looking to rent out my home, AirBnB gives me access to millions of potential customers, who are, to varying degrees, vetted by other hosts.

WalterBright 10y ago

New businesses and ways of doing business always disrupt the existing businesses, and the existing ones frequently advocate for regulations to preserve their niche.

edem 10y ago

In Budapest, Hungary I can see a rise in prices from 250 EUR/month to almost 350 EUR/month for the same flat in the last 2 years thanks to Airbnb. What happens here is that most property owners realized that they can make more money by renting their flat (not just a room) instead of underleasing it. This leads to a LOT of people hopelessly scrambling for flats to rent because there are not a lot of new flats being built. Basically tourists are taking away flats from people who are trying to live in the city. This is horrible IMHO. I hope that the government will assess brutal taxes on Airbnb to make it useless or otherwise a lot of people will either become homeless or are forced to return to the countryside.