4 ms·

Is this a surprise? If you look at eBay, it's also dominated by professional sellers as well. In some sense it makes it better because you have motivated peopl

Is this a surprise? If you look at eBay, it's also dominated by professional sellers as well. In some sense it makes it better because you have motivated people handling the transaction, not one-off people that might not take the transaction seriously.

solatic 9y ago
> not one-off people that might not take the transaction seriously But this is exactly what's needed to keep costs down. Consumers have the choice of professionally managed and regulated hotels, for a higher price, or to take a chance on some guy's couch in a basement, for very cheap, because hospitality isn't couch-guy's day job and it's just a way for him to make an extra quick buck. That couch-guy is a one-off is supposed to be the entire value proposition why AirBNB can be cheaper. The moment professionals start to get involved is the moment the law needs to be careful that professionals aren't using AirBNB to skirt regulations.
- chii 9y ago
  > using AirBNB to skirt regulations. i'd like to hear what sort of regulations that are being skirted. I keep hearing about things like fire safety laws, and escape hatches etc. Why does being used as a hotel force an apartment to be more stringent than it originally was? Shouldn't the safety regulations be the same no matter what? As for zoning laws - those are arbituary lines drawn by the city planners. As a property owner, you have to make the best use of the property, and if airbnb brings in more money, you _have_ to do it, otherwise, you'd be losing value. City planners cannot forsee this, and so zoning laws will be broken no matter what.
  - solatic 9y ago
    > Shouldn't the safety regulations be the same no matter what? No. Hotels are denser (in terms of people sleeping in a building) than typical apartment buildings, because apartment buildings need to devote the square footage to copies of kitchens etc. per apartment, which unnecessarily would drive up the cost of hotel rooms. But leaving that aside (after all, the argument is about apartment buildings being used in place of hotels, not hotel buildings) - there's a bigger picture than just safety regulations. How about taxes? Cities which attract tourism often like to establish high taxes on tourists, because municipalities need to draw their budget from somewhere, and tourists don't vote (well, they do, because they could decide to vacation somewhere else, but barring a very steep price increase, tourism tends to be somewhat immune from these higher taxes, by the very nature of most tourists saving up money to travel to some specific fantasy location), so municipalities will levy high taxes on hotels, knowing full well that those taxes are passed on to tourists. When hotels start to be threatened by unregulated competitors, that competition threatens that tax revenue stream. > As for zoning laws - those are arbitrary lines drawn by the city planners So what? As many objectors have pointed out, city residents have an inherent interest in developing a sense of community, which requires people to commit to living in apartments over the long-term. Ghost ownership threatens that social good, and seasonal tourism threatens local mom-and-pop shops serving local neighborhoods, which no longer get foot traffic in the off-season. That's not to say hotels are evil - it's to say that one of the central tenets of urban planning is to attempt to balance competing, mutually-exclusive interests forced to live together by inherent urban density, for the common harmony and benefit of all, and zoning is an integral tool for that purpose. > As a property owner, you have to make the best use of the property, and if airbnb brings in more money, you _have_ to do it, otherwise, you'd be losing value. This is a farcical argument. The highest return for urban property is turning it into illegal drug factory. By your logic, investment apartments should always be turned into illegal drug factories, because their investors have to do it, otherwise they'd be losing value. After all, what's the qualitative difference between breaking zoning laws and breaking drug enforcement laws? If you're OK with operating an illegal hotel, to the detriment of the people in the surrounding neighborhood, then why not be OK with operating an illegal drug factory, also to the detriment of the people in the surrounding neighborhood?

solatic 9y ago

> not one-off people that might not take the transaction seriously But this is exactly what's needed to keep costs down. Consumers have the choice of professionally managed and regulated hotels, for a higher price, or to take a chance on some guy's couch in a basement, for very cheap, because hospitality isn't couch-guy's day job and it's just a way for him to make an extra quick buck. That couch-guy is a one-off is supposed to be the entire value proposition why AirBNB can be cheaper. The moment professionals start to get involved is the moment the law needs to be careful that professionals aren't using AirBNB to skirt regulations.

chii 9y ago
> using AirBNB to skirt regulations. i'd like to hear what sort of regulations that are being skirted. I keep hearing about things like fire safety laws, and escape hatches etc. Why does being used as a hotel force an apartment to be more stringent than it originally was? Shouldn't the safety regulations be the same no matter what? As for zoning laws - those are arbituary lines drawn by the city planners. As a property owner, you have to make the best use of the property, and if airbnb brings in more money, you _have_ to do it, otherwise, you'd be losing value. City planners cannot forsee this, and so zoning laws will be broken no matter what.
- solatic 9y ago
  > Shouldn't the safety regulations be the same no matter what? No. Hotels are denser (in terms of people sleeping in a building) than typical apartment buildings, because apartment buildings need to devote the square footage to copies of kitchens etc. per apartment, which unnecessarily would drive up the cost of hotel rooms. But leaving that aside (after all, the argument is about apartment buildings being used in place of hotels, not hotel buildings) - there's a bigger picture than just safety regulations. How about taxes? Cities which attract tourism often like to establish high taxes on tourists, because municipalities need to draw their budget from somewhere, and tourists don't vote (well, they do, because they could decide to vacation somewhere else, but barring a very steep price increase, tourism tends to be somewhat immune from these higher taxes, by the very nature of most tourists saving up money to travel to some specific fantasy location), so municipalities will levy high taxes on hotels, knowing full well that those taxes are passed on to tourists. When hotels start to be threatened by unregulated competitors, that competition threatens that tax revenue stream. > As for zoning laws - those are arbitrary lines drawn by the city planners So what? As many objectors have pointed out, city residents have an inherent interest in developing a sense of community, which requires people to commit to living in apartments over the long-term. Ghost ownership threatens that social good, and seasonal tourism threatens local mom-and-pop shops serving local neighborhoods, which no longer get foot traffic in the off-season. That's not to say hotels are evil - it's to say that one of the central tenets of urban planning is to attempt to balance competing, mutually-exclusive interests forced to live together by inherent urban density, for the common harmony and benefit of all, and zoning is an integral tool for that purpose. > As a property owner, you have to make the best use of the property, and if airbnb brings in more money, you _have_ to do it, otherwise, you'd be losing value. This is a farcical argument. The highest return for urban property is turning it into illegal drug factory. By your logic, investment apartments should always be turned into illegal drug factories, because their investors have to do it, otherwise they'd be losing value. After all, what's the qualitative difference between breaking zoning laws and breaking drug enforcement laws? If you're OK with operating an illegal hotel, to the detriment of the people in the surrounding neighborhood, then why not be OK with operating an illegal drug factory, also to the detriment of the people in the surrounding neighborhood?