8 ms·

Homeowners Use Airbnb to Dodge Foreclosure

75 points by brianchesky 16y ago

carbocation 16y ago
Unsurprisingly, using residentially-zoned space for commercial purposes is profitable. Don't most full-time bed-and-breakfasts have to get licensed? (I'm assuming that making $4,500/month implies being nearly full-time; maybe I'm wrong.) To me, this seems fine when rare. So let's say I rent out a room once a month or something along those lines - no big deal. If I'm treating it like a real b-n-b, though, it seems like I'm engaged in some real commerce that is probably regulated. Presumably Airbnb behaves agnostically on this issue, allowing the responsibility to fall to the property owner? I'm delighted for the specific homeowners being discussed here, but concerned about the general case.
- hko 16y ago
  Have you attended any planning hearings in your town?
  - carbocation 16y ago
    No. May I ask, out of ignorance, why that is relevant? I suspect it's not just a "You're not doing anything about it so you have no right to complain," sort of thing and actually something much more relevant to the conversation, like "If you went, you'd see that the deck is stacked against mom-and-pop shops" or something like that. However, I can't guess what you're thinking and would like to know more.
    - tomjen3 16y ago
      Because bribing politicians to make the zones in your favor is a great business to be in. Never assume the politicians ever do anything for you, except when it benefit themselfs.
- nopassrecover 16y ago
  Not sure why the Parent was downvoted. These are some legitimate questions. Cities regulate the areas in which business can occur, tax businesses differently than individuals and have regulations on food and hospitality for health and safety reasons. As the parent says most of the time this will slip through as "letting a mate stay the night" but at $4500 a month we are in a different ballgame. Incidentally airbnb have great PR
- edderly 16y ago
  I have a problem with worrying whether this is 'real commerce' or whether subjectively a lot of money is being made. If someone makes money, largely it's none of my business whether this a significant amount or not. If your concern is zoning, that's a reasonable concern if people were turning residential properties effectively in hotels. That criteria can be left to local lawmakers. However it seems in most cases people are simply using small-scale property they live in and previously would rent.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Sydney used to have a problem with unscrupulous entrepreneurs who would (say) buy up a bunch of three-bedroom apartments in a fancy inner-city building, stuff sixteen beds into it, and rent the beds out to foreign backpackers for (say) fifteen bucks a night. For the backpackers, it was better than the regular hostels, and for the owners it was a license to print money, but for the other residents of the building, who would find the pool and gardens filled with drunk poms at all hours of day and night, it was pretty annoying. Eventually I think they came up with some new law to stop it. Anyway, if airbnb is smart they should try to stop people from abusing their system by trying to set up pseudo-hotels, since it's these people who are going to bring down the regulatory hammer on the entire system.
  - starkfist 16y ago
    "Hotel Toshi" in NYC does exactly this. The fact that the guy is operating somewhat high-profile and attracting attention to himself is probably what brought knowledge of this problem to the NYC media and regulators. http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms
oldgregg 16y ago
New York can go fuck itself. It's insulting to the people that in a time of economic turmoil the politicians are still taking big fat campaign checks from the hoteliers and passing arbitrary bullshit laws that dick people over who are trying to make ends meet. Who the fuck do they think are to even suggest they can come into my home and tell me how "sanitary" it is? Sorry for the rant, but this is industry after industry, entrepreneurs like AirBNB try to create efficiency and wealth and the establishment comes along and buys off politicians to eliminate the competition. Democrats hate corporations, Republicans hate the government. Or maybe they just pit us against each other while they all laugh their way to the bank.
- nopassrecover 16y ago
  If someone gets sick because your last airbnb "customer" contaminated a room or because you didn't realise you served some out of date chicken you haven't signed any legal waiver to my knowledge.
- patio11 16y ago
  If you feel strongly about this, you might want to read Cato regarding licensing for e.g. cosmetologists and taxi drivers. It is the same story -- pretexts about the public safety justify anti-competition laws, whose effects are felt mostly by poor would-be entrepreneurs and the communities who they can't legally service.
  - carbocation 16y ago
    The taxi thing seems totally like a pretext, but cosmetologists engage in a lot of quasi-medical stuff that seems reasonable to regulate. Perhaps I'm mostly thinking of spas and their ilk, and honestly I'm probably mostly just thinking about the rise in community-acquired MRSA (which, to be fair, has not been shown to be driven by cosmetological practices at this point).
    - houseabsolute 16y ago
      Sometimes it might be better to wait and see if a problem arises rather than preemptively legislating it in a way that might do far more harm than the anticipated problem.
patio11 16y ago
Airbnb is amazing at PR. See their interviews for examples, but in general they've got a wonderful sense for spotting a narrative the media cares about and inserting themselves into it.
sliverstorm 16y ago
Those bastards! How dare they dodge their foreclosures and stop us from taking their houses!
- daychilde 16y ago
  I think that's rather missing the point entirely.
ck2 16y ago
What's funny is how many people in America think (large) corporations = capitalism. But in reality what these enterprising homeowners are doing is real capitalism. So politicians are protecting the former (corporations) and destroying the latter - they are actually working against capitalism!
- joshuacc 16y ago
  If we're being technical, capitalism != free market, though the terms are often used interchangeably. Capitalism means the rule of those with capital (in this instance, corporations) while a free market is a system which guarantees the free exchange of goods.
rbanffy 16y ago
Shouldn't banks be lobbying against legislation like the one passed in NYC? If it helps people to pay mortgages, it's their best interests, right?
- hugh3 16y ago
  The total amount of money, as far as they're concerned, is probably less than it takes to buy one lobbyist lunch.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    But since they have lobbyists on payroll, I assume there would be no need to secure extra funding.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Yes, but their lobbyists are working hard on other things, like the complete damn re-regulation of the entire financial industry, at the moment. Whether a handful (hundreds?) of extra mortagees go into foreclosure isn't a big deal for them.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        Oh, but it would picture them fighting for the small guy. That's something representatives like. It would be far easier to de-regulate an industry that fights for the small guy, wouldn't it??
mattmaroon 16y ago
If I were AirBNB, I'd be sending this to whichever organization coordinates lobbying for the lending industry to fight the law against this sort of activity. Mortgage lenders have a serious interest in having their customers pay mortgages, if this sort of activity helps them they'd be fools to not support it.
starkfist 16y ago
There is one high profile illegal hotelier in NYC who is probably solely responsible for all the media attention and ruining it for everyone else: Hotel Toshi. He's a wannabe actor who was the asian chippendale gag on Conan a few years back. The guy even advertises for cleaning staff and has his own vans and trucks painted with his logo. I found AirBNB unusable in NYC because half the listings were from Hotel Toshi. http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms

75 points by brianchesky 16y ago

Unsurprisingly, using residentially-zoned space for commercial purposes is profitable. Don't most full-time bed-and-breakfasts have to get licensed? (I'm assuming that making $4,500/month implies being nearly full-time; maybe I'm wrong.) To me, this seems fine when rare. So let's say I rent out a room once a month or something along those lines - no big deal. If I'm treating it like a real b-n-b, though, it seems like I'm engaged in some real commerce that is probably regulated. Presumably Airbnb behaves agnostically on this issue, allowing the responsibility to fall to the property owner? I'm delighted for the specific homeowners being discussed here, but concerned about the general case.

hko 16y ago
Have you attended any planning hearings in your town?
- carbocation 16y ago
  No. May I ask, out of ignorance, why that is relevant? I suspect it's not just a "You're not doing anything about it so you have no right to complain," sort of thing and actually something much more relevant to the conversation, like "If you went, you'd see that the deck is stacked against mom-and-pop shops" or something like that. However, I can't guess what you're thinking and would like to know more.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    Because bribing politicians to make the zones in your favor is a great business to be in. Never assume the politicians ever do anything for you, except when it benefit themselfs.
nopassrecover 16y ago
Not sure why the Parent was downvoted. These are some legitimate questions. Cities regulate the areas in which business can occur, tax businesses differently than individuals and have regulations on food and hospitality for health and safety reasons. As the parent says most of the time this will slip through as "letting a mate stay the night" but at $4500 a month we are in a different ballgame. Incidentally airbnb have great PR
edderly 16y ago
I have a problem with worrying whether this is 'real commerce' or whether subjectively a lot of money is being made. If someone makes money, largely it's none of my business whether this a significant amount or not. If your concern is zoning, that's a reasonable concern if people were turning residential properties effectively in hotels. That criteria can be left to local lawmakers. However it seems in most cases people are simply using small-scale property they live in and previously would rent.
hugh3 16y ago
Sydney used to have a problem with unscrupulous entrepreneurs who would (say) buy up a bunch of three-bedroom apartments in a fancy inner-city building, stuff sixteen beds into it, and rent the beds out to foreign backpackers for (say) fifteen bucks a night. For the backpackers, it was better than the regular hostels, and for the owners it was a license to print money, but for the other residents of the building, who would find the pool and gardens filled with drunk poms at all hours of day and night, it was pretty annoying. Eventually I think they came up with some new law to stop it. Anyway, if airbnb is smart they should try to stop people from abusing their system by trying to set up pseudo-hotels, since it's these people who are going to bring down the regulatory hammer on the entire system.
- starkfist 16y ago
  "Hotel Toshi" in NYC does exactly this. The fact that the guy is operating somewhat high-profile and attracting attention to himself is probably what brought knowledge of this problem to the NYC media and regulators. http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms

oldgregg 16y ago

New York can go fuck itself. It's insulting to the people that in a time of economic turmoil the politicians are still taking big fat campaign checks from the hoteliers and passing arbitrary bullshit laws that dick people over who are trying to make ends meet. Who the fuck do they think are to even suggest they can come into my home and tell me how "sanitary" it is? Sorry for the rant, but this is industry after industry, entrepreneurs like AirBNB try to create efficiency and wealth and the establishment comes along and buys off politicians to eliminate the competition. Democrats hate corporations, Republicans hate the government. Or maybe they just pit us against each other while they all laugh their way to the bank.

nopassrecover 16y ago
If someone gets sick because your last airbnb "customer" contaminated a room or because you didn't realise you served some out of date chicken you haven't signed any legal waiver to my knowledge.
patio11 16y ago
If you feel strongly about this, you might want to read Cato regarding licensing for e.g. cosmetologists and taxi drivers. It is the same story -- pretexts about the public safety justify anti-competition laws, whose effects are felt mostly by poor would-be entrepreneurs and the communities who they can't legally service.
- carbocation 16y ago
  The taxi thing seems totally like a pretext, but cosmetologists engage in a lot of quasi-medical stuff that seems reasonable to regulate. Perhaps I'm mostly thinking of spas and their ilk, and honestly I'm probably mostly just thinking about the rise in community-acquired MRSA (which, to be fair, has not been shown to be driven by cosmetological practices at this point).
  - houseabsolute 16y ago
    Sometimes it might be better to wait and see if a problem arises rather than preemptively legislating it in a way that might do far more harm than the anticipated problem.

patio11 16y ago

Airbnb is amazing at PR. See their interviews for examples, but in general they've got a wonderful sense for spotting a narrative the media cares about and inserting themselves into it.

sliverstorm 16y ago

Those bastards! How dare they dodge their foreclosures and stop us from taking their houses!

daychilde 16y ago
I think that's rather missing the point entirely.

ck2 16y ago

What's funny is how many people in America think (large) corporations = capitalism. But in reality what these enterprising homeowners are doing is real capitalism. So politicians are protecting the former (corporations) and destroying the latter - they are actually working against capitalism!

joshuacc 16y ago
If we're being technical, capitalism != free market, though the terms are often used interchangeably. Capitalism means the rule of those with capital (in this instance, corporations) while a free market is a system which guarantees the free exchange of goods.

rbanffy 16y ago

Shouldn't banks be lobbying against legislation like the one passed in NYC? If it helps people to pay mortgages, it's their best interests, right?

hugh3 16y ago
The total amount of money, as far as they're concerned, is probably less than it takes to buy one lobbyist lunch.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  But since they have lobbyists on payroll, I assume there would be no need to secure extra funding.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Yes, but their lobbyists are working hard on other things, like the complete damn re-regulation of the entire financial industry, at the moment. Whether a handful (hundreds?) of extra mortagees go into foreclosure isn't a big deal for them.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      Oh, but it would picture them fighting for the small guy. That's something representatives like. It would be far easier to de-regulate an industry that fights for the small guy, wouldn't it??

mattmaroon 16y ago

If I were AirBNB, I'd be sending this to whichever organization coordinates lobbying for the lending industry to fight the law against this sort of activity. Mortgage lenders have a serious interest in having their customers pay mortgages, if this sort of activity helps them they'd be fools to not support it.

starkfist 16y ago

There is one high profile illegal hotelier in NYC who is probably solely responsible for all the media attention and ruining it for everyone else: Hotel Toshi. He's a wannabe actor who was the asian chippendale gag on Conan a few years back. The guy even advertises for cleaning staff and has his own vans and trucks painted with his logo. I found AirBNB unusable in NYC because half the listings were from Hotel Toshi. http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194 http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms