5 ms·

Then your neighbors should put that in their HOA rules. The city is getting involved to protect hotels not "neighbors".

mc32 10y ago
That's a good point. However, I _think_ they genuinely have good intentions for renters, except they are doing it in the most knee-jerk constituency visible way, for whatever reason.
paulmd 10y ago
Absolutely not. There are significant negative externalities associated with transient populations. For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since antiquity. Skeezy/short term motels have a reputation for a reason, and are regulated for even better ones. You yourself may be a perfectly upstanding citizen who just couchsurfs for a weekend to check out a cool area, but others are not. It's unreasonable to expect neighbors to file daily lawsuits against their neighbors to keep a modicum of peace. It's a known problem and it's perfectly reasonable to preempt it by either requiring a formal lease with a minimum term of a month or more, or requiring more identification/scrutiny of the clients and some formal standards of the rentiers. Analogously, it's perfectly fine for banks to scrutinize large cash transactions. Some of them are legit, some of them are tied to crime. But you need to look and be sure because it's high-risk activity. If you don't want that level of scrutiny, send a check/transfer/CC payment and your reputation will speak for itself.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  ...secondary vice (drug dens/solicitation of prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). Since we are regulating what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, shall we also bring up the possibility of homosexuals engage in sodomy? If that's somehow off limits to regulate, what distinguishes it from the private bedroom activities you bring up?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    One occurs as a financial transaction.
  - rahimnathwani 10y ago
    Orgies and drug dens can have an impact outside the bedroom, and outside the apartment. Search 'airbnb xxx fest evicted' for details.
  - brainfire 10y ago
    Your parent post is talking about the (already illegal) negative effects that follow from the presence of a transient population.
- abannin 10y ago
  I'm surprised that this argument gets so much traction without any supporting data. It just plays on fear. First, nothing you listed is an externality but rather direct results of poor behavior. An externality would be something like 'decreases property values of neighboring properties' or 'increased rents due to lower supply'. Second, what data do you have that proves these scenarios are more likely in an AirBnB than a long term tenant? You're only supporting evidence is inference; if people are going to behave poorly then it makes sense for them to rent an AirBnB away from home. But there's an easy counter argument: pressure from neighbors will keep these incidents to a minimum. Sure, there will always be hosts are not sensitive to neighborhood pressure, but that same logic can be applied to long term tenants who have bedbugs, throw parties with loud music, litter, engage in criminal activity, etc. Simply put, all of negative scenarios you outline can occur with long term or short term tenants, and there is no evidence that these behaviors are more common from short term tenants. Third, comparing all AirBnB's to skeezy motels is like saying all restaurants are roach-infested mold-filled 50-point scoring health hazards. This is a classic straw man argument. What about Marriot or Hilton? Embassy Suites or DoubleTree? Do they fulfill the reputation of "skeezy/short term motels"? This is an argument for better inspections and code enforcement, not prohibiting AirBnB. No one expects neighbors to file daily lawsuits, but neighbors can notify the police if there is a noise violation, etc. Once again, there is no difference here between long term and short term rentals. AirBnB requires more identification than any hotel I've stayed at, so this argument actually supports AirBnB as a platform. Lastly, your bank analogy is frightfully off base. First, a bank's intrinsic motivation for monitoring large transactions is fraud and not criminal activity. Second, banks are compelled by law to monitor and report specific types of activities that are likely to be criminal activity, but this is defined by organizations like the FBI, not the banks themselves. Third, you still have yet to prove, beyond casual inference, that AirBnB promotes criminal activity any more than long term tenancy.
  - tjl 10y ago
    I know that near the major universities in my region properly values are far lower because they're often rented to groups of students who are rowdy so their neighbours property values are lower since people are reluctant to buy a house that's for sale unless you're willing to either put up with it, or rent it out yourself. The amount of off-campus housing needs increased dramatically through the 2000s as the universities expanded enrolment so many areas that weren't being rented now were. Many of the long time homeowners who lived in those areas long before student housing came there have been up in arms.
- areyousure 10y ago
  Due to intentional local policies, San Francisco is full of transient populations, litter, criminal occupancy, drug dens, and prostitution all directly on the street.
mdorazio 10y ago
That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it. There are a baotload of regulations on hotels for very good reasons, as other commenters have pointed out. If you turn your home into a de facto hotel then those same regulations should apply to you as well. To me, Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too - they want the rental income, but not the downsides of adhering to short-term rental regulations. Think if you started a bakery and went through the laborious process of getting a business license, getting your kitchen health inspected and certified, etc. and then a week later someone next door just started selling bread out of their home to undercut you on price, regulations be damned. I would be rightly pissed off and expect the local government to shut down the home operation.
- ab5tract 10y ago
  "Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too" -- in fact, considering that the whole company was founded by two bros who couldn't afford their own rent, this is a perfect summation of what Airbnb does. And now that it exists, rents are even more unaffordable than before. Commenters who want to ignore externalities are Randians with no actual sense of human society. All they see are rules that are in their own personal way, naturally some tyranny or another. Democracy itself is a blight in their eyes, and a business plan should always trump community concerns.
matthewowen 10y ago
They don't need to. The city already made laws limiting short term rentals. We voted on them in a citywide referendum. They were passed. This change is merely enforcement of rules that already exist.

mc32 10y ago

That's a good point. However, I _think_ they genuinely have good intentions for renters, except they are doing it in the most knee-jerk constituency visible way, for whatever reason.

paulmd 10y ago

Absolutely not. There are significant negative externalities associated with transient populations. For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since antiquity. Skeezy/short term motels have a reputation for a reason, and are regulated for even better ones. You yourself may be a perfectly upstanding citizen who just couchsurfs for a weekend to check out a cool area, but others are not. It's unreasonable to expect neighbors to file daily lawsuits against their neighbors to keep a modicum of peace. It's a known problem and it's perfectly reasonable to preempt it by either requiring a formal lease with a minimum term of a month or more, or requiring more identification/scrutiny of the clients and some formal standards of the rentiers. Analogously, it's perfectly fine for banks to scrutinize large cash transactions. Some of them are legit, some of them are tied to crime. But you need to look and be sure because it's high-risk activity. If you don't want that level of scrutiny, send a check/transfer/CC payment and your reputation will speak for itself.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
...secondary vice (drug dens/solicitation of prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). Since we are regulating what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, shall we also bring up the possibility of homosexuals engage in sodomy? If that's somehow off limits to regulate, what distinguishes it from the private bedroom activities you bring up?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  One occurs as a financial transaction.
- rahimnathwani 10y ago
  Orgies and drug dens can have an impact outside the bedroom, and outside the apartment. Search 'airbnb xxx fest evicted' for details.
- brainfire 10y ago
  Your parent post is talking about the (already illegal) negative effects that follow from the presence of a transient population.
abannin 10y ago
I'm surprised that this argument gets so much traction without any supporting data. It just plays on fear. First, nothing you listed is an externality but rather direct results of poor behavior. An externality would be something like 'decreases property values of neighboring properties' or 'increased rents due to lower supply'. Second, what data do you have that proves these scenarios are more likely in an AirBnB than a long term tenant? You're only supporting evidence is inference; if people are going to behave poorly then it makes sense for them to rent an AirBnB away from home. But there's an easy counter argument: pressure from neighbors will keep these incidents to a minimum. Sure, there will always be hosts are not sensitive to neighborhood pressure, but that same logic can be applied to long term tenants who have bedbugs, throw parties with loud music, litter, engage in criminal activity, etc. Simply put, all of negative scenarios you outline can occur with long term or short term tenants, and there is no evidence that these behaviors are more common from short term tenants. Third, comparing all AirBnB's to skeezy motels is like saying all restaurants are roach-infested mold-filled 50-point scoring health hazards. This is a classic straw man argument. What about Marriot or Hilton? Embassy Suites or DoubleTree? Do they fulfill the reputation of "skeezy/short term motels"? This is an argument for better inspections and code enforcement, not prohibiting AirBnB. No one expects neighbors to file daily lawsuits, but neighbors can notify the police if there is a noise violation, etc. Once again, there is no difference here between long term and short term rentals. AirBnB requires more identification than any hotel I've stayed at, so this argument actually supports AirBnB as a platform. Lastly, your bank analogy is frightfully off base. First, a bank's intrinsic motivation for monitoring large transactions is fraud and not criminal activity. Second, banks are compelled by law to monitor and report specific types of activities that are likely to be criminal activity, but this is defined by organizations like the FBI, not the banks themselves. Third, you still have yet to prove, beyond casual inference, that AirBnB promotes criminal activity any more than long term tenancy.
- tjl 10y ago
  I know that near the major universities in my region properly values are far lower because they're often rented to groups of students who are rowdy so their neighbours property values are lower since people are reluctant to buy a house that's for sale unless you're willing to either put up with it, or rent it out yourself. The amount of off-campus housing needs increased dramatically through the 2000s as the universities expanded enrolment so many areas that weren't being rented now were. Many of the long time homeowners who lived in those areas long before student housing came there have been up in arms.
areyousure 10y ago
Due to intentional local policies, San Francisco is full of transient populations, litter, criminal occupancy, drug dens, and prostitution all directly on the street.

mdorazio 10y ago

That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it. There are a baotload of regulations on hotels for very good reasons, as other commenters have pointed out. If you turn your home into a de facto hotel then those same regulations should apply to you as well. To me, Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too - they want the rental income, but not the downsides of adhering to short-term rental regulations. Think if you started a bakery and went through the laborious process of getting a business license, getting your kitchen health inspected and certified, etc. and then a week later someone next door just started selling bread out of their home to undercut you on price, regulations be damned. I would be rightly pissed off and expect the local government to shut down the home operation.

ab5tract 10y ago
"Airbnb is a case of many people wanting to have their cake and eat it too" -- in fact, considering that the whole company was founded by two bros who couldn't afford their own rent, this is a perfect summation of what Airbnb does. And now that it exists, rents are even more unaffordable than before. Commenters who want to ignore externalities are Randians with no actual sense of human society. All they see are rules that are in their own personal way, naturally some tyranny or another. Democracy itself is a blight in their eyes, and a business plan should always trump community concerns.

matthewowen 10y ago

They don't need to. The city already made laws limiting short term rentals. We voted on them in a citywide referendum. They were passed. This change is merely enforcement of rules that already exist.