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Hotel CEO celebrates higher prices in NYC after anti-Airbnb law passes

216 points by applecore 10y ago

robg 10y ago
Perhaps it's me living in an area that used to be mostly boarding houses, but I do understand the concerns that hotels and homes have different impacts on a neighborhood and community. Zoning laws exist for that reason and many, many others. What am I missing here?
pmiller2 10y ago
He didn't need to say it. It was obvious the hotel industry was going to react this way, due to there being less supply, and, presumably, approximately the same amount of demand for temporary lodging in NYC.
dogma1138 10y ago
Higher hotel prices are not necessarily bad, especially for the local residents. I had an Airbnb spawn across the mews behind my building they have a pretty large open balcony and there were parties literally every night during the summer here in London, they stopped only fairly recently when the season changed and I'm expecting the hell to resume when we get closer to the holiday season. Across the street on the front of my building there is a pretty nice hotel (actually there are a few of them on the street and around it) and they are quiet because the hotel staff keeps the guests behaved. After 10 PM you'll see the porter or the front desk telling guests to be quiet even if they are talking on their phone a tad too loud while having a smoke. And as far as calling the cops goes, this doesn't work, noise complaints especially on the weekend are pretty low priority I'm hardly the only one bothered by it and it's pretty futile. Before that there were about 3-4 weeks of an Airbnb in my actual building, it's a small mid 19th century building with only 6 flats and there were tons of complaints including loss of mail and packages so the trust that owns the building had a vote and banned short term rental.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  You're supposed to approach the council, not the cops. If you document it and complain to the council you can get them shut down. e.g. http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/kensington-and-chelsea-council-clamps-down-on-airbnbstyle-lets-as-neighbours-complain-of-partying-a102061.html http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/kensington-a... You can find out who to contact here: https://www.gov.uk/report-noise-pollution-to-council https://www.gov.uk/report-noise-pollution-to-council Also, if you got organised with a few other residents you would have a lot more sway and probably be able to get councillors involved. It depends on how much effort you're willing to put in.
- linkregister 10y ago
  It looks like abuses like the mews behind your building were the intended target of the legislation. Airbnb failed itself and its investors by failing to address this problem. I'm glad you're free of that nuisance; it sounds pretty awful. Hotel room prices are related but aren't a strict function of the niceness/care of a hotel room. I've paid hundreds for a crap hole in a great touristy location (and with no crowd control as you describe it).
  - joering2 10y ago
    Couldn't upvote you more! Since AirBNB so many times matches prices of hotels in busy spots, people rent on Air because it has less rules and regulations. - hey let's throw an all booze/drugs loud music party.. where? at Cesars'. Are you insane you want to get us arrested and banned for life?? Versus: hey let's rent on AirBNB and have a reckless party, I mean what bad can happen to us? Too bad AirBNB was busy writing complaints to Cuomo and basically threaten him with lawsuits based it baselessly on 2nd Amendment violations, instead of re-working their "behavior guidelines" for rentees.
    - ryuker16 10y ago
      You can be banned from airbnb or get a low score
PaulHoule 10y ago
High hotel prices are a real downside to business in NYC. In Los Angeles (and most other U.S. cities) you can find a place that is pretty nice around $120 a night. In NYC you are talking about at least twice that.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  NYC has always been a pain in the ass. That's a big reason why whole industries have left the city over the last 30 years. It's an awesome place for sure, but has a high cost and hassle factor.
- apaprocki 10y ago
  I picked a random weekend in November. There are 228 hotels listed on Orbitz for < $125/night. Midtown, Chelsea, Times Square, etc. Are people only picking the one single hotel right across the street from where they need to be and extrapolating from that?
qdog 10y ago
I'm sure the hotels will charge as much as possible, but since they pay taxes that assumably (since it was illegal) AirBnB hosts didn't, sounds like a win for the City Government of NY. Just an observation, I don't really have much of an opinion either way. I currently live next to a couple resory rentals and depending on the people it can be between "not noticeable" and "Holy crap, I wish those drunk idiots would shut up and go to bed". Since there are multiple issues on all sides, they might need some zoning for "short-stay resort" dwellings, so people can choose to live in a possible party place or not. Might also give renters some piece of mind, ala the A ratings restaurants have to post.
- hueving 10y ago
  What happens if your long term neighbors are drunk idiots? I fail to see how term length is relevant since it's not like neighbors vet new long term tenants for alcoholism and IQ.
  - 24gttghh 10y ago
    If it's the same person repeatedly causing a nuisance, I could see the Police paying more attention than towards a different person every night.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    This is something some people don't understand. Gentrification and things like it aren't only a racial issue. Sometimes you move into an area simply because the unemployed drunks and drug addicts can't afford to move there with you. I know I felt relief moving out of an all white trailer park into a suburban neighborhood. Nothing is worse that neighbors who have nothing to do all day but make noise.
    - Pica_soO 10y ago
      Well, one could argue that automating away the jobs and producing those Unemployeds and then complaining about them, constitutes as worser. But i understand your point of view, i helped a friend to move out of a flat that was near a living complex mainly inhabited by collaps-cascading community members. Anyway, constructive criticism, how to prevent such self-destruction? Boarding schools for ghetto children, to avoid prolonged contact with negative examples and behavior?
linkregister 10y ago
I found this law problematic because it was written to make enforcement easy, not to address actual issues with serial short-term renting. The intent of the law was to bring serial short-term rented units back into the market for long-term renters. The intended outcome was to make more housing available for prospective renters and to reduce nuisances involved with serial short-term renters. The outcome is to further sclerotize and limit the rental market. Now students cannot effectively sublet their apartments on Craigslist while out on summer break or study abroad, for a summer intern working at a company in the city. Now a couple can't rent out their apartment for the week while they go to Disneyworld. To some degree I have fallen for the populist message in this article; the hoteliers are clearly reaping the most benefits from this legislation. However, in the long term, everyone in the city is harmed by unnecessarily restrictive laws. The outcome is going to be a drive of this activity underground, as we have seen in alcohol prohibition and the formerly wild west of off-meter (or "gypsy") cabs in NYC. At least with Airbnb, there was a rating system and an escalation/authentication path. Airbnb's failure was twofold: that of not spending as much capital and time as Uber/Lyft in changing the minds of lawmakers; and failing to address the targets of the legislation: serial short-term landlords. If Airbnb had addressed this issue, the hoteliers would not have had an argument for the public benefit.
- wdewind 10y ago
  I disagree. Airbnb has always had a really really simple solution to all of this: make it so people can file complaints about specific addresses without being involved in the Airbnb system. Airbnb lost the public support because they ignored externalities: so many people were adversely affected by living next to people who irresponsibly rented out their Airbnb. Personally in one building I had my lobby and elevator destroyed by Airbnb guests, as well as many loud party nights in an otherwise quiet building. In my next building I've dealt with noise and partying again. But I have effectively no recourse. A system like this would vastly limit Airbnb's market: it would make it so landlords could easily tell when people were Airbnbing their apartments out, and thus would vastly shrink Airbnb's market. I like Airbnb a lot. I use it when I travel, my friends use it when they visit me in NYC. But I am happy about this law because Airbnb chose short term profit over long term sustainability. The zoning laws that support hotels are there for a reason. And there was room for innovation there, but Airbnb has not been successful in traversing the space between the economic inefficiency and the zoning issues. None of this even touches on the macro issue that Airbnb demonstrably increases rent prices.
hueving 10y ago
Market incumbent celebrates new market participant being kicked out? Color me shocked!
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Is AirBnB really in the same market as hotels? I don't think AirBnB manages any property, do they? Maybe they compete with franchises that solely license a brand?
  - ryuker16 10y ago
    Hotels ironically own some airbnb chains(Marriott runs a few floors in my building).
  - joshuak 10y ago
    Not taking a position here, but just to answer the question on the face of it. Yes, AirBnB is in the same market as hotels. The market is short term rental property, not property management services. Supply chain is how one obtains inventory of product to sell into a market, it does not define what the market is. Owning and managing real estate that can be resold as a short term rental is just one supply chain solution to sell into the market. AirBnB uses a different one.
diogenescynic 10y ago
I'd rather have insignificantly higher hotel prices and lower housing prices. It's a fair trade off.
- arebop 10y ago
  OK, but this article is talking about significantly higher hotel prices ("big boost in the arm"), while any estimate of the fraction of housing units allocated to airbnb implies insignificantly lower housing prices, so your desired tradeoff is not happening.
  - lameexcuse333 10y ago
    I mean this just became law. Shouldn't we wait a bit for things to shake out before taking such hardliner stances?
  - diogenescynic 10y ago
    Travel is a luxury, housing is a necessity. I stay in a hotel maybe 8-10 times a year and the other times it's paid for by work. I can afford modestly more expensive vacations, but housing prices are much more of a concern for most.
vkou 10y ago
Meanwhile, renters celebrate slower price growth, because they no longer have to compete against AirBnBers renting out apartments for twice their market value?
- travisp 10y ago
  Renters lost the following things: - The ability to rent out their home when they go away for a long weekend or take a couple weeks of vacation somewhere, most likely financing a good portion of their rent or vacation. - Affordable ways for family to visit, especially nearby to where they live (e.g. When my family comes into town to see their grandchildren, there aren't even really any hotels nearby, let alone affordable ones. AirBnB was a good, affordable way for them to be nearby when they visit, since like most people in NYC, we don't have a guest bedroom). What many renters would really celebrate, would be an end to many of the restrictions on building that are enriching the owners of the properties at the expense of renters. Much of NYC suffers from height restrictions, historical building laws, and an expensive process to build anything new (and neighbors who will do anything to make sure their properties don't have new competition that might lower prices).
  - manacit 10y ago
    Renter in NYC here (looks like you're one as well). * I didn't lose the ability to rent my apartment out - that was always against the rules/law. My LL just put in new electronic locks in on my building to make sure it was significantly harder to lend apartments in the building out on Airbnb. * As far as affordable places for family, I've always dissuaded them from renting from a largely unregulated market where quality can be difficult to determine in advance and the pitfalls of renting something unsavory could be bedbugs or worse. I live in a neighborhood well served by fairly affordable hotels nearby (in Manhattan!) which can be price competitive with Airbnb, and significantly more regulated. I view this as a positive - this law did not change anyone's ability to rent out a bedroom in an apartment or house that they are also staying in, and stays over 30 days are still legal. It feels like a win/win to me.
    - danielweber 10y ago
keepper 10y ago
I love AirBnB, and have used them many times. But in the case of NYC, AirBnB brought this wholly on themselves. They knew landlords were running whole buildings in nyc as pseudo hotels, and they did little until now. [1] They knew individuals were renting whole apartments 100% of the time, and did nothing.[2] They refused to give data to the attorney general, and instead, mounted an AD campaign.[3] Only after they were harshly penalized, did they promise to clamp down on the actual abuses.[4] So they willingly let their customers break the law, because nyc is their biggest market, and well, now want to play the victim. The spirit of AirBnB and the "sharing" economy is to share under utilized housing. Not to create illegal hotels. [1] http://gothamist.com/2014/10/16/airbnb_illegal_rapacious.php http://gothamist.com/2014/10/16/airbnb_illegal_rapacious.php [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-07/wooing-governor-cuomo-airbnb-boots-2-233-new-york-city-listings https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-07/wooing-go... [3] http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-refuses-to-give-user-data-to-attorney-general-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-refuses-to-give-user-d... [4]http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/technology/airbnb-proposes-cracking-down-on-new-york-city-hosts.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/technology/airbnb-proposes...
- nostromo 10y ago
  > They refused to give data to the attorney general, and instead, mounted an AD campaign. Companies that take their customer's privacy seriously should be lauded, not condemned.
  - vkou 10y ago
    What about companies who's sole source of business is illegal activity? Ones that produce negative externalities they don't have to pay for? Do we applaud them, too? We're not talking about protecting a political activist. We're talking about illegal rentals.
    - wyager 10y ago
      This seems to be the meaningless complaint du jour right now. If you don't like a business or product, just accuse it of introducing negative externalities. No evidence needed! Whatever negligible externalities are introduced by Airbnb, they are vastly outweighed by positive effects like making travel more affordable and busting up the hotel oligopoly.
yuhong 10y ago
I wonder what would happen if there was a spot and contract market for housing like there is for DRAM.
danso 10y ago
This is an expected headline/occurrence, but it shouldn't be what happens to sway one's opinion about the legislation. A hotel exec saying anything about business is news. What is the potential for a news org to write about the person who had a slightly easier time finding an affordable rent, which is the ostensible purpose of this bill? It's not much different than when an executive politician stonewalls on prison reform. Willie Horton happened 30 years ago and he still hangs like a specter over the justice system. What about the thousands of released prisoners we never hear about because, if we haven't heard about them, they probably went on to live normal, non-imprisoned lives, as criminal justice reform intended.
davidf18 10y ago
It is one CEO with one 800 bed hotel and 3 < 200 bed hotels speaking this way. As a NYC resident, we don't want transients living in our buildings. There are safety issues for children, the elderly, an women, as well as potential theft. Many buildings are doormen to keep transients out. There are $60 hotel rooms in Union City, NJ (according to Priceline) which is about 15 minutes by transit away from Times Square, the center of tourism in NYC. These Union City hotel rooms are closer to Times Square than a number of NYC hotels.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  There are far better arguments to make than "good lord, the women and children!"
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    There are far worse arguments, as well. "I want my kids to be safe" isn't automatically a bad argument.
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      I guess I'm just cynical of this since it's usually baseless fearmongering. Has there been evidence of serious problems with this? I haven't seen any but I also haven't gone looking either.
godzillabrennus 10y ago
It was once illegal to be a Jew and own a business in Germany. Private companies holding out against government oversight is not only often a good thing but should be a human right. Last thing we want is to give any government full insight into everything. R.I.P. Lavabits.
- yladiz 10y ago
  Echoing Spooky23's comment: "Really?" Did you really bring in Nazi Germany into a discussion on Airbnb and its practices and now illegality for short term rentals?
  - csallen 10y ago
    It was a perfectly valid analogy for the point (s)he was making (that laws aren't always just), and I see no reason to object just because the analogous subject was Nazi Germany. Making an analogy between two things is not the same as saying those two things are equivalent.
    - yladiz 10y ago
      Sure, it's a valid analogy, but there are better ones that could be made instead of going directly for that that don't force readers to compare the two.
      - csallen 10y ago
        What possible analogy doesn't force readers to compare two things? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12811091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12811091
    - mikeash 10y ago
      The whole point of an analogy is to ease thinking by using something the reader is already familiar with. When your analogy brings along so much baggage, it completely fails in its task and just serves to disrupt the conversation. It may be technically valid, but it's a terrible analogy to use.
supercanuck 10y ago
Wasn't there just a study that AirBnB consumes excess demand anyway? Doesn't that mean the Hotel CEO should've been able to raise prices anyway, regardless of AirBnB?
lbenes 10y ago
The majority of AirBnB hosts are individuals just trying to make some extra money. The lobbyies are claiming these units prevent the homeless from finding homes. How about the people that avoid becoming homeless by AirBnB'ing one of their rooms? The hypocrisy in this situation is mind blowing. Thanks to Citizen's United, corporates are protected and allowed unlimited money for lobbying as “Freedom of Speech”. But when the individual wants to advertise a room in their private home, the government censors that speech? This is just another example of how our Democracy has been hijacked by lobbyists. Neither Clinton, nor Trump, not even Bernie Sanders could cleanse this rot from our democracy. The only way I see for us to take it back is with a Constitutional Amendment ending this legalized bribery. The group that's making the most progress towards this goal is Wolf-PAC. You can read more about it and help with the cause here: http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  > How about the people that avoid becoming homeless by AirBnB'ing one of their rooms? Actual home sharing, that is, renting an extra room in your residence, is still allowed. This legislation doesn't touch that. The target of this legislation is people who were creating businesses by buying condos purely to permanently rent on Airbnb.
- bsder 10y ago
  > The majority of AirBnB hosts are individuals just trying to make some extra money. Perhaps that's true, but AirBnB made a point to not share the data so people could figure that out. In addition, while the number of rental properties is probably dominated by individuals, the number of days rented is probably dominated by the professional AirBnB hosts.
qq66 10y ago
Of course a hotel CEO will celebrate an anti-AirBnb law, and of course the Airbnb CEO will celebrate an anti-hotel law. That doesn't make either one a bad law. The law is supposed to serve the best interest of the public, and yes, someone will benefit and be happy about that.
throwaway455 10y ago
I really don't like the image of AirBnb. They seem to think they can do whatever they like and get away with, like they should get special treatment because they are billionaires. I'm honestly happy to see them get crushed by the US government. It's good to see them put in their place. Just like how the US government did with MSFT back in the late 90s
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  This is one of those comments where I'm really not sure if you're being sarcastic, or you actually believe this (because I've exchanged messages with people on boards like this one who honestly believed the US government "put MSFT in their place" with the 90s trial).
rb808 10y ago
It is pretty circular that NYC has started putting up homeless people in hotels. Without ABnB maybe tourists can start staying back in the hotels and the homeless people can rent the apartments.
jbverschoor 10y ago
That's a pretty shitty way of celebrating....
pbae 10y ago
Reading these comments reminds me of the AirBnB ad I saw on twitter. Clicked through and sure enough, every single response was railing against AirBnB. Had a good chuckle at how AirBnB paid for an ad-hoc localized forum for people to complain about them.
DominikR 10y ago
I guess Airbnb did not do what most industrials do - bribe the politicians. In societies where large parts of the economy are either owned by the government or directed through regulations the only way to advance is to corrupt public officials. But when arguing from a principled position that views freedom as the highest value one can possess it is very hard to come up with a consistent and valid argument why private persons should not be allowed to rent out their property in the same way that "legal" hotels do. Safety regulations are often cited but why shouldn't a place be good enough for a guest while it is good enough for local people living there? And why should a guest not be able to decide for him or herself if it's acceptable to stay there? (with Airbnb you'll actually get a much nicer place for the same money, especially in NY "legal" hotel owners got away with charging $250 for flea infested 2 star s* holes due to low competition) Then there's the argument that properties rented out at Airbnb are generally advertised as great for parties. This is not true, anyone who has used this platform will know that these people offering their place go to great lengths to ensure that their guests wont do that. And even if they did, there are ways for neighbours to get reparations for damages, both from the guests (the law of the land applies to them too!) and the person renting out the place. To me all of this sounds like politicians who are in the pocket of a certain industry ruling in favour of the same industry. This is similar to what is happening to Uber. One thing is for sure: By suppressing competition in this way the government effectively creates an Aristocracy where everything is rigged against the average person. Another angle to look at this issue: If you can't use your property in a way that doesn't harm anyone, like renting it to someone, is it then still _your_ property?
vowelless 10y ago
I'm curious, why did the author use the word "celebrate"?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
guelo 10y ago
This seems desirable from the perspective of NYC renters. Supply will shift from the hotel market to the long term rental market which should lower rent prices.
downandout 10y ago
Wow, the Washington Post is now ignoring Google's cloaking rules and putting up their paywall even when clicking from Google if you've gone over their "free article limit" for the month. I've reported them to Google, here's hoping they get deindexed.
- danielweber 10y ago
  That happens if you visit the article first from your browser and then use the google-hack to try to get around it. If you really visit the site fresh from Google, you get the article. I just tested. I know I'm over my WaPo limit, but I could pull up the article from Google, since I hadn't gone to it before.
  - downandout 10y ago
    That's more targeted cloaking, but cloaking nonetheless. I mean of course I can get around it by clearing WaPo cookies but that isn't the point. I just hate that these large sites think they can do whatever they want - and for the most part they get away with it.
    - aioprisan 10y ago
      They can get away with whatever they want? It's a company with employees that need to be paid, it's not just a free service for anyone to use.
      - downandout 10y ago
        They're flagrantly violating Google's rules. That's their choice, but the penalty is deindexing. Additionally, HN has a rule against posting links to sites that use paywalls without workarounds.
        tedunangst 10y ago
        Do Google's rules really say that you must be able to read an article you've already found by clicking an index result? Or only that if you first find an article via Google you must be able to read it?
peg_leg 10y ago
Affordable housing > low hotel prices. In Traverse City, Michigan we are facing a drought of affordable housing. Low rent spare rooms are being rented out on AirBNB et. al. for more money and because of that those rooms aren't available for service workers and students. The most unwelcome side effect of this is that several businesses could not open this year for lack of labor and many others operated below capacity for the same reason.
JDiculous 10y ago
First of all I want to say that this regulation, like most regulations of these nature, will do very little if anything to combat the affordable housing crisis in NYC. There's a severe non-luxury housing shortage. The solution is to build more non-luxury housing. Regarding the regulation, it's well-meaning but poorly designed, broadly punishing anyone who wants to sublet their whole apartment for <30 days. I subletted my room multiple times at my last NYC apartment while I was on vacation. It was nice to make side income on a room that would've been vacant anyways, while allowing tourists (one of which became a good friend of mine) to visit NYC without paying the outrageous hotel prices here (yesterday I was looking for a hotel for the same night, the cheapest I could find would've cost $350, most were going for $450+). I get it, we want to punish landlords who turn apartments into illegal hotels. Then why don't we simply target landlords renting out apartments that aren't their primary residences instead of painting broad strokes and making it illegal for me to make some extra income off of my vacant room while I'm on vacation, or sublet a place for 10 days while I look for a more permanent accomodation? These regulations are lazy and inefficient, causing unnecessary negative distortions to the market. But before I come off as sounding really pro AirBnB, AirBnB has absolutely terrible customer service and a pretty steep fee (6-12% for the guest, 3% for the host), and thus I'm really hoping a competitor will step in to break this monopoly and force them to get their act together. A couple months ago after my lease ended I decided to try living on AirBnB full-time, switching apartments every month. It worked out for the first two stays, but three days ago I ended up in a disgusting apartment with no internet connection and a different room that I had booked for 30 days. Immediately I contacted AirBnB, and since then I've wasted an extraordinary amount of time over the phone/email with them trying to get them to simply cancel my reservation and refund me for the time I won't be staying there. After over 24 hours of this, they closed my case and offered me a $100 refund, telling me I'd need to accept this measly offer within 24-hours or get nothing (I paid over $1,600 for the reservation). Had to keep calling and eventually was able to escalate it to a supervisor, but right now three days after my initial contact with AirBnB, the reservation has been cancelled but there's still no word regarding any refund. TLDR: This regulation is too broad and not targeted enough, but AirBnB has terrible customer service so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them and I wouldn't recommend them for long-term stays.
joshuak 10y ago
I've only had good experiences with AirBnB. Almost exclusively the issue here seems to be guest partying and abuse of the property. Is this really true? How is it the guest rating system doesn't quickly eliminate guests that cause problems? Who is doing so much partying? Where did these people come from? Where do they normally party before AirBnb?
- collyw 10y ago
  Isn't the guest rating filled by the owner rather than the neighbors? That would be an obvious explanation.
  - joshuak 10y ago
    I don't see why the owner wouldn't get harassed by the neighbors for being loud, plus trashing the place is one of the common 'party' related complaints. However, guest reviews cannot be updated, so I can see how learning about problems days later may allow bad guests to dodge the bullet.
thekevan 10y ago
From the article: "Renting out an entire apartment for less than 30 days has been illegal under New York law for the last six years, but the rules were not enforced until very recently (Renting out a single room is legal)." So what if you rented out one bedroom of an apartment on Airbnb and the living room and kitchen were public areas? Public because your spouse rented out the bathroom for the first 15 days of each moth for a dollar and let's say one of your parents rented it our for the remaining days of that month. You divulge this to each Airbnb guest but tell them, "don't worry, the other occupant doesn't have plans to stop by during your stay and if they are not on premise in the room they reserved, you are free to make short term usage of it." The wink and nod will be implied.
lonelyw0lf 10y ago
The truth is Airbnb should have been nothing more than a hotel room marketplace like booking.com - instead they used this "innovative" but completely illegal way of booking "rooms". If all the hotels did the same and stopped registering, paying for licenses, inspections, maintaining safety standards etc. I am sure they could easily undercut airbnb.
rdlecler1 10y ago
There's no free lunch. In low vacancy market with a large amount of tourism if you divert housing stock to vacation rental, then housing prices go up and vacation rental goes down. This means that the cities poor are subsidizing a more affluent tourist (or business traveler).

216 points by applecore 10y ago

robg 10y ago

Perhaps it's me living in an area that used to be mostly boarding houses, but I do understand the concerns that hotels and homes have different impacts on a neighborhood and community. Zoning laws exist for that reason and many, many others. What am I missing here?

pmiller2 10y ago

He didn't need to say it. It was obvious the hotel industry was going to react this way, due to there being less supply, and, presumably, approximately the same amount of demand for temporary lodging in NYC.

dogma1138 10y ago

Higher hotel prices are not necessarily bad, especially for the local residents. I had an Airbnb spawn across the mews behind my building they have a pretty large open balcony and there were parties literally every night during the summer here in London, they stopped only fairly recently when the season changed and I'm expecting the hell to resume when we get closer to the holiday season. Across the street on the front of my building there is a pretty nice hotel (actually there are a few of them on the street and around it) and they are quiet because the hotel staff keeps the guests behaved. After 10 PM you'll see the porter or the front desk telling guests to be quiet even if they are talking on their phone a tad too loud while having a smoke. And as far as calling the cops goes, this doesn't work, noise complaints especially on the weekend are pretty low priority I'm hardly the only one bothered by it and it's pretty futile. Before that there were about 3-4 weeks of an Airbnb in my actual building, it's a small mid 19th century building with only 6 flats and there were tons of complaints including loss of mail and packages so the trust that owns the building had a vote and banned short term rental.

mattmanser 10y ago
You're supposed to approach the council, not the cops. If you document it and complain to the council you can get them shut down. e.g. http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/kensington-and-chelsea-council-clamps-down-on-airbnbstyle-lets-as-neighbours-complain-of-partying-a102061.html http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/kensington-a... You can find out who to contact here: https://www.gov.uk/report-noise-pollution-to-council https://www.gov.uk/report-noise-pollution-to-council Also, if you got organised with a few other residents you would have a lot more sway and probably be able to get councillors involved. It depends on how much effort you're willing to put in.
linkregister 10y ago
It looks like abuses like the mews behind your building were the intended target of the legislation. Airbnb failed itself and its investors by failing to address this problem. I'm glad you're free of that nuisance; it sounds pretty awful. Hotel room prices are related but aren't a strict function of the niceness/care of a hotel room. I've paid hundreds for a crap hole in a great touristy location (and with no crowd control as you describe it).
- joering2 10y ago
  Couldn't upvote you more! Since AirBNB so many times matches prices of hotels in busy spots, people rent on Air because it has less rules and regulations. - hey let's throw an all booze/drugs loud music party.. where? at Cesars'. Are you insane you want to get us arrested and banned for life?? Versus: hey let's rent on AirBNB and have a reckless party, I mean what bad can happen to us? Too bad AirBNB was busy writing complaints to Cuomo and basically threaten him with lawsuits based it baselessly on 2nd Amendment violations, instead of re-working their "behavior guidelines" for rentees.
  - ryuker16 10y ago
    You can be banned from airbnb or get a low score

PaulHoule 10y ago

High hotel prices are a real downside to business in NYC. In Los Angeles (and most other U.S. cities) you can find a place that is pretty nice around $120 a night. In NYC you are talking about at least twice that.

Spooky23 10y ago
NYC has always been a pain in the ass. That's a big reason why whole industries have left the city over the last 30 years. It's an awesome place for sure, but has a high cost and hassle factor.
apaprocki 10y ago
I picked a random weekend in November. There are 228 hotels listed on Orbitz for < $125/night. Midtown, Chelsea, Times Square, etc. Are people only picking the one single hotel right across the street from where they need to be and extrapolating from that?

qdog 10y ago

I'm sure the hotels will charge as much as possible, but since they pay taxes that assumably (since it was illegal) AirBnB hosts didn't, sounds like a win for the City Government of NY. Just an observation, I don't really have much of an opinion either way. I currently live next to a couple resory rentals and depending on the people it can be between "not noticeable" and "Holy crap, I wish those drunk idiots would shut up and go to bed". Since there are multiple issues on all sides, they might need some zoning for "short-stay resort" dwellings, so people can choose to live in a possible party place or not. Might also give renters some piece of mind, ala the A ratings restaurants have to post.

hueving 10y ago
What happens if your long term neighbors are drunk idiots? I fail to see how term length is relevant since it's not like neighbors vet new long term tenants for alcoholism and IQ.
- 24gttghh 10y ago
  If it's the same person repeatedly causing a nuisance, I could see the Police paying more attention than towards a different person every night.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  This is something some people don't understand. Gentrification and things like it aren't only a racial issue. Sometimes you move into an area simply because the unemployed drunks and drug addicts can't afford to move there with you. I know I felt relief moving out of an all white trailer park into a suburban neighborhood. Nothing is worse that neighbors who have nothing to do all day but make noise.
  - Pica_soO 10y ago
    Well, one could argue that automating away the jobs and producing those Unemployeds and then complaining about them, constitutes as worser. But i understand your point of view, i helped a friend to move out of a flat that was near a living complex mainly inhabited by collaps-cascading community members. Anyway, constructive criticism, how to prevent such self-destruction? Boarding schools for ghetto children, to avoid prolonged contact with negative examples and behavior?

linkregister 10y ago

I found this law problematic because it was written to make enforcement easy, not to address actual issues with serial short-term renting. The intent of the law was to bring serial short-term rented units back into the market for long-term renters. The intended outcome was to make more housing available for prospective renters and to reduce nuisances involved with serial short-term renters. The outcome is to further sclerotize and limit the rental market. Now students cannot effectively sublet their apartments on Craigslist while out on summer break or study abroad, for a summer intern working at a company in the city. Now a couple can't rent out their apartment for the week while they go to Disneyworld. To some degree I have fallen for the populist message in this article; the hoteliers are clearly reaping the most benefits from this legislation. However, in the long term, everyone in the city is harmed by unnecessarily restrictive laws. The outcome is going to be a drive of this activity underground, as we have seen in alcohol prohibition and the formerly wild west of off-meter (or "gypsy") cabs in NYC. At least with Airbnb, there was a rating system and an escalation/authentication path. Airbnb's failure was twofold: that of not spending as much capital and time as Uber/Lyft in changing the minds of lawmakers; and failing to address the targets of the legislation: serial short-term landlords. If Airbnb had addressed this issue, the hoteliers would not have had an argument for the public benefit.

wdewind 10y ago
I disagree. Airbnb has always had a really really simple solution to all of this: make it so people can file complaints about specific addresses without being involved in the Airbnb system. Airbnb lost the public support because they ignored externalities: so many people were adversely affected by living next to people who irresponsibly rented out their Airbnb. Personally in one building I had my lobby and elevator destroyed by Airbnb guests, as well as many loud party nights in an otherwise quiet building. In my next building I've dealt with noise and partying again. But I have effectively no recourse. A system like this would vastly limit Airbnb's market: it would make it so landlords could easily tell when people were Airbnbing their apartments out, and thus would vastly shrink Airbnb's market. I like Airbnb a lot. I use it when I travel, my friends use it when they visit me in NYC. But I am happy about this law because Airbnb chose short term profit over long term sustainability. The zoning laws that support hotels are there for a reason. And there was room for innovation there, but Airbnb has not been successful in traversing the space between the economic inefficiency and the zoning issues. None of this even touches on the macro issue that Airbnb demonstrably increases rent prices.

hueving 10y ago

Market incumbent celebrates new market participant being kicked out? Color me shocked!

jsprogrammer 10y ago
Is AirBnB really in the same market as hotels? I don't think AirBnB manages any property, do they? Maybe they compete with franchises that solely license a brand?
- ryuker16 10y ago
  Hotels ironically own some airbnb chains(Marriott runs a few floors in my building).
- joshuak 10y ago
  Not taking a position here, but just to answer the question on the face of it. Yes, AirBnB is in the same market as hotels. The market is short term rental property, not property management services. Supply chain is how one obtains inventory of product to sell into a market, it does not define what the market is. Owning and managing real estate that can be resold as a short term rental is just one supply chain solution to sell into the market. AirBnB uses a different one.

diogenescynic 10y ago

I'd rather have insignificantly higher hotel prices and lower housing prices. It's a fair trade off.

arebop 10y ago
OK, but this article is talking about significantly higher hotel prices ("big boost in the arm"), while any estimate of the fraction of housing units allocated to airbnb implies insignificantly lower housing prices, so your desired tradeoff is not happening.
- lameexcuse333 10y ago
  I mean this just became law. Shouldn't we wait a bit for things to shake out before taking such hardliner stances?
- diogenescynic 10y ago
  Travel is a luxury, housing is a necessity. I stay in a hotel maybe 8-10 times a year and the other times it's paid for by work. I can afford modestly more expensive vacations, but housing prices are much more of a concern for most.

vkou 10y ago

Meanwhile, renters celebrate slower price growth, because they no longer have to compete against AirBnBers renting out apartments for twice their market value?

travisp 10y ago
Renters lost the following things: - The ability to rent out their home when they go away for a long weekend or take a couple weeks of vacation somewhere, most likely financing a good portion of their rent or vacation. - Affordable ways for family to visit, especially nearby to where they live (e.g. When my family comes into town to see their grandchildren, there aren't even really any hotels nearby, let alone affordable ones. AirBnB was a good, affordable way for them to be nearby when they visit, since like most people in NYC, we don't have a guest bedroom). What many renters would really celebrate, would be an end to many of the restrictions on building that are enriching the owners of the properties at the expense of renters. Much of NYC suffers from height restrictions, historical building laws, and an expensive process to build anything new (and neighbors who will do anything to make sure their properties don't have new competition that might lower prices).
- manacit 10y ago
  Renter in NYC here (looks like you're one as well). * I didn't lose the ability to rent my apartment out - that was always against the rules/law. My LL just put in new electronic locks in on my building to make sure it was significantly harder to lend apartments in the building out on Airbnb. * As far as affordable places for family, I've always dissuaded them from renting from a largely unregulated market where quality can be difficult to determine in advance and the pitfalls of renting something unsavory could be bedbugs or worse. I live in a neighborhood well served by fairly affordable hotels nearby (in Manhattan!) which can be price competitive with Airbnb, and significantly more regulated. I view this as a positive - this law did not change anyone's ability to rent out a bedroom in an apartment or house that they are also staying in, and stays over 30 days are still legal. It feels like a win/win to me.
  - danielweber 10y ago

keepper 10y ago

I love AirBnB, and have used them many times. But in the case of NYC, AirBnB brought this wholly on themselves. They knew landlords were running whole buildings in nyc as pseudo hotels, and they did little until now. [1] They knew individuals were renting whole apartments 100% of the time, and did nothing.[2] They refused to give data to the attorney general, and instead, mounted an AD campaign.[3] Only after they were harshly penalized, did they promise to clamp down on the actual abuses.[4] So they willingly let their customers break the law, because nyc is their biggest market, and well, now want to play the victim. The spirit of AirBnB and the "sharing" economy is to share under utilized housing. Not to create illegal hotels. [1] http://gothamist.com/2014/10/16/airbnb_illegal_rapacious.php http://gothamist.com/2014/10/16/airbnb_illegal_rapacious.php [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-07/wooing-governor-cuomo-airbnb-boots-2-233-new-york-city-listings https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-07/wooing-go... [3] http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-refuses-to-give-user-data-to-attorney-general-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-refuses-to-give-user-d... [4]http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/technology/airbnb-proposes-cracking-down-on-new-york-city-hosts.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/20/technology/airbnb-proposes...

nostromo 10y ago
> They refused to give data to the attorney general, and instead, mounted an AD campaign. Companies that take their customer's privacy seriously should be lauded, not condemned.
- vkou 10y ago
  What about companies who's sole source of business is illegal activity? Ones that produce negative externalities they don't have to pay for? Do we applaud them, too? We're not talking about protecting a political activist. We're talking about illegal rentals.
  - wyager 10y ago
    This seems to be the meaningless complaint du jour right now. If you don't like a business or product, just accuse it of introducing negative externalities. No evidence needed! Whatever negligible externalities are introduced by Airbnb, they are vastly outweighed by positive effects like making travel more affordable and busting up the hotel oligopoly.

yuhong 10y ago

I wonder what would happen if there was a spot and contract market for housing like there is for DRAM.

danso 10y ago

This is an expected headline/occurrence, but it shouldn't be what happens to sway one's opinion about the legislation. A hotel exec saying anything about business is news. What is the potential for a news org to write about the person who had a slightly easier time finding an affordable rent, which is the ostensible purpose of this bill? It's not much different than when an executive politician stonewalls on prison reform. Willie Horton happened 30 years ago and he still hangs like a specter over the justice system. What about the thousands of released prisoners we never hear about because, if we haven't heard about them, they probably went on to live normal, non-imprisoned lives, as criminal justice reform intended.

davidf18 10y ago

It is one CEO with one 800 bed hotel and 3 < 200 bed hotels speaking this way. As a NYC resident, we don't want transients living in our buildings. There are safety issues for children, the elderly, an women, as well as potential theft. Many buildings are doormen to keep transients out. There are $60 hotel rooms in Union City, NJ (according to Priceline) which is about 15 minutes by transit away from Times Square, the center of tourism in NYC. These Union City hotel rooms are closer to Times Square than a number of NYC hotels.

ethanbond 10y ago
There are far better arguments to make than "good lord, the women and children!"
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  There are far worse arguments, as well. "I want my kids to be safe" isn't automatically a bad argument.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    I guess I'm just cynical of this since it's usually baseless fearmongering. Has there been evidence of serious problems with this? I haven't seen any but I also haven't gone looking either.

godzillabrennus 10y ago

It was once illegal to be a Jew and own a business in Germany. Private companies holding out against government oversight is not only often a good thing but should be a human right. Last thing we want is to give any government full insight into everything. R.I.P. Lavabits.

yladiz 10y ago
Echoing Spooky23's comment: "Really?" Did you really bring in Nazi Germany into a discussion on Airbnb and its practices and now illegality for short term rentals?
- csallen 10y ago
  It was a perfectly valid analogy for the point (s)he was making (that laws aren't always just), and I see no reason to object just because the analogous subject was Nazi Germany. Making an analogy between two things is not the same as saying those two things are equivalent.
  - yladiz 10y ago
    Sure, it's a valid analogy, but there are better ones that could be made instead of going directly for that that don't force readers to compare the two.
    - csallen 10y ago
      What possible analogy doesn't force readers to compare two things? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12811091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12811091
  - mikeash 10y ago
    The whole point of an analogy is to ease thinking by using something the reader is already familiar with. When your analogy brings along so much baggage, it completely fails in its task and just serves to disrupt the conversation. It may be technically valid, but it's a terrible analogy to use.

supercanuck 10y ago

Wasn't there just a study that AirBnB consumes excess demand anyway? Doesn't that mean the Hotel CEO should've been able to raise prices anyway, regardless of AirBnB?

lbenes 10y ago

The majority of AirBnB hosts are individuals just trying to make some extra money. The lobbyies are claiming these units prevent the homeless from finding homes. How about the people that avoid becoming homeless by AirBnB'ing one of their rooms? The hypocrisy in this situation is mind blowing. Thanks to Citizen's United, corporates are protected and allowed unlimited money for lobbying as “Freedom of Speech”. But when the individual wants to advertise a room in their private home, the government censors that speech? This is just another example of how our Democracy has been hijacked by lobbyists. Neither Clinton, nor Trump, not even Bernie Sanders could cleanse this rot from our democracy. The only way I see for us to take it back is with a Constitutional Amendment ending this legalized bribery. The group that's making the most progress towards this goal is Wolf-PAC. You can read more about it and help with the cause here: http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan

Tiktaalik 10y ago
> How about the people that avoid becoming homeless by AirBnB'ing one of their rooms? Actual home sharing, that is, renting an extra room in your residence, is still allowed. This legislation doesn't touch that. The target of this legislation is people who were creating businesses by buying condos purely to permanently rent on Airbnb.
bsder 10y ago
> The majority of AirBnB hosts are individuals just trying to make some extra money. Perhaps that's true, but AirBnB made a point to not share the data so people could figure that out. In addition, while the number of rental properties is probably dominated by individuals, the number of days rented is probably dominated by the professional AirBnB hosts.

qq66 10y ago

Of course a hotel CEO will celebrate an anti-AirBnb law, and of course the Airbnb CEO will celebrate an anti-hotel law. That doesn't make either one a bad law. The law is supposed to serve the best interest of the public, and yes, someone will benefit and be happy about that.

throwaway455 10y ago

I really don't like the image of AirBnb. They seem to think they can do whatever they like and get away with, like they should get special treatment because they are billionaires. I'm honestly happy to see them get crushed by the US government. It's good to see them put in their place. Just like how the US government did with MSFT back in the late 90s

Grishnakh 10y ago
This is one of those comments where I'm really not sure if you're being sarcastic, or you actually believe this (because I've exchanged messages with people on boards like this one who honestly believed the US government "put MSFT in their place" with the 90s trial).

rb808 10y ago

It is pretty circular that NYC has started putting up homeless people in hotels. Without ABnB maybe tourists can start staying back in the hotels and the homeless people can rent the apartments.

jbverschoor 10y ago

That's a pretty shitty way of celebrating....

pbae 10y ago

Reading these comments reminds me of the AirBnB ad I saw on twitter. Clicked through and sure enough, every single response was railing against AirBnB. Had a good chuckle at how AirBnB paid for an ad-hoc localized forum for people to complain about them.

DominikR 10y ago

I guess Airbnb did not do what most industrials do - bribe the politicians. In societies where large parts of the economy are either owned by the government or directed through regulations the only way to advance is to corrupt public officials. But when arguing from a principled position that views freedom as the highest value one can possess it is very hard to come up with a consistent and valid argument why private persons should not be allowed to rent out their property in the same way that "legal" hotels do. Safety regulations are often cited but why shouldn't a place be good enough for a guest while it is good enough for local people living there? And why should a guest not be able to decide for him or herself if it's acceptable to stay there? (with Airbnb you'll actually get a much nicer place for the same money, especially in NY "legal" hotel owners got away with charging $250 for flea infested 2 star s* holes due to low competition) Then there's the argument that properties rented out at Airbnb are generally advertised as great for parties. This is not true, anyone who has used this platform will know that these people offering their place go to great lengths to ensure that their guests wont do that. And even if they did, there are ways for neighbours to get reparations for damages, both from the guests (the law of the land applies to them too!) and the person renting out the place. To me all of this sounds like politicians who are in the pocket of a certain industry ruling in favour of the same industry. This is similar to what is happening to Uber. One thing is for sure: By suppressing competition in this way the government effectively creates an Aristocracy where everything is rigged against the average person. Another angle to look at this issue: If you can't use your property in a way that doesn't harm anyone, like renting it to someone, is it then still _your_ property?

vowelless 10y ago

I'm curious, why did the author use the word "celebrate"?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

guelo 10y ago

This seems desirable from the perspective of NYC renters. Supply will shift from the hotel market to the long term rental market which should lower rent prices.

downandout 10y ago

Wow, the Washington Post is now ignoring Google's cloaking rules and putting up their paywall even when clicking from Google if you've gone over their "free article limit" for the month. I've reported them to Google, here's hoping they get deindexed.

danielweber 10y ago
That happens if you visit the article first from your browser and then use the google-hack to try to get around it. If you really visit the site fresh from Google, you get the article. I just tested. I know I'm over my WaPo limit, but I could pull up the article from Google, since I hadn't gone to it before.
- downandout 10y ago
  That's more targeted cloaking, but cloaking nonetheless. I mean of course I can get around it by clearing WaPo cookies but that isn't the point. I just hate that these large sites think they can do whatever they want - and for the most part they get away with it.
  - aioprisan 10y ago
    They can get away with whatever they want? It's a company with employees that need to be paid, it's not just a free service for anyone to use.
    - downandout 10y ago
      They're flagrantly violating Google's rules. That's their choice, but the penalty is deindexing. Additionally, HN has a rule against posting links to sites that use paywalls without workarounds.
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        Do Google's rules really say that you must be able to read an article you've already found by clicking an index result? Or only that if you first find an article via Google you must be able to read it?

peg_leg 10y ago

Affordable housing > low hotel prices. In Traverse City, Michigan we are facing a drought of affordable housing. Low rent spare rooms are being rented out on AirBNB et. al. for more money and because of that those rooms aren't available for service workers and students. The most unwelcome side effect of this is that several businesses could not open this year for lack of labor and many others operated below capacity for the same reason.

JDiculous 10y ago

First of all I want to say that this regulation, like most regulations of these nature, will do very little if anything to combat the affordable housing crisis in NYC. There's a severe non-luxury housing shortage. The solution is to build more non-luxury housing. Regarding the regulation, it's well-meaning but poorly designed, broadly punishing anyone who wants to sublet their whole apartment for <30 days. I subletted my room multiple times at my last NYC apartment while I was on vacation. It was nice to make side income on a room that would've been vacant anyways, while allowing tourists (one of which became a good friend of mine) to visit NYC without paying the outrageous hotel prices here (yesterday I was looking for a hotel for the same night, the cheapest I could find would've cost $350, most were going for $450+). I get it, we want to punish landlords who turn apartments into illegal hotels. Then why don't we simply target landlords renting out apartments that aren't their primary residences instead of painting broad strokes and making it illegal for me to make some extra income off of my vacant room while I'm on vacation, or sublet a place for 10 days while I look for a more permanent accomodation? These regulations are lazy and inefficient, causing unnecessary negative distortions to the market. But before I come off as sounding really pro AirBnB, AirBnB has absolutely terrible customer service and a pretty steep fee (6-12% for the guest, 3% for the host), and thus I'm really hoping a competitor will step in to break this monopoly and force them to get their act together. A couple months ago after my lease ended I decided to try living on AirBnB full-time, switching apartments every month. It worked out for the first two stays, but three days ago I ended up in a disgusting apartment with no internet connection and a different room that I had booked for 30 days. Immediately I contacted AirBnB, and since then I've wasted an extraordinary amount of time over the phone/email with them trying to get them to simply cancel my reservation and refund me for the time I won't be staying there. After over 24 hours of this, they closed my case and offered me a $100 refund, telling me I'd need to accept this measly offer within 24-hours or get nothing (I paid over $1,600 for the reservation). Had to keep calling and eventually was able to escalate it to a supervisor, but right now three days after my initial contact with AirBnB, the reservation has been cancelled but there's still no word regarding any refund. TLDR: This regulation is too broad and not targeted enough, but AirBnB has terrible customer service so it's hard for me to feel sorry for them and I wouldn't recommend them for long-term stays.

joshuak 10y ago

I've only had good experiences with AirBnB. Almost exclusively the issue here seems to be guest partying and abuse of the property. Is this really true? How is it the guest rating system doesn't quickly eliminate guests that cause problems? Who is doing so much partying? Where did these people come from? Where do they normally party before AirBnb?

collyw 10y ago
Isn't the guest rating filled by the owner rather than the neighbors? That would be an obvious explanation.
- joshuak 10y ago
  I don't see why the owner wouldn't get harassed by the neighbors for being loud, plus trashing the place is one of the common 'party' related complaints. However, guest reviews cannot be updated, so I can see how learning about problems days later may allow bad guests to dodge the bullet.

thekevan 10y ago

From the article: "Renting out an entire apartment for less than 30 days has been illegal under New York law for the last six years, but the rules were not enforced until very recently (Renting out a single room is legal)." So what if you rented out one bedroom of an apartment on Airbnb and the living room and kitchen were public areas? Public because your spouse rented out the bathroom for the first 15 days of each moth for a dollar and let's say one of your parents rented it our for the remaining days of that month. You divulge this to each Airbnb guest but tell them, "don't worry, the other occupant doesn't have plans to stop by during your stay and if they are not on premise in the room they reserved, you are free to make short term usage of it." The wink and nod will be implied.

lonelyw0lf 10y ago

The truth is Airbnb should have been nothing more than a hotel room marketplace like booking.com - instead they used this "innovative" but completely illegal way of booking "rooms". If all the hotels did the same and stopped registering, paying for licenses, inspections, maintaining safety standards etc. I am sure they could easily undercut airbnb.

rdlecler1 10y ago

There's no free lunch. In low vacancy market with a large amount of tourism if you divert housing stock to vacation rental, then housing prices go up and vacation rental goes down. This means that the cities poor are subsidizing a more affluent tourist (or business traveler).