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We're still living in a world with artificially inflated housing prices. While yes, people will be foreclosed on, this is a necessity to bring the market back t
by sprout 16y ago
We're still living in a world with artificially inflated housing prices. While yes, people will be foreclosed on, this is a necessity to bring the market back to reasonable levels.
If hosting tourists becomes standard practice, this will be reflected in the price of housing, and even more people will be unable to afford homes in the long run as a result.
Especially when you look at vacant spots in hotels, which were zoned and set aside for that very purpose, this creates a significant inefficiency with a lot of unoccupied (and probably mis-priced by an illusory abundance of) space in the city.
- plusbryan 16y ago@sprout: I disagree that airbnb and ilk would increase inefficiency. In fact, it seems to me that it's hotels that bring the inefficiency into the market. They are proxies for short-term housing needs created at a time when it was difficult to arrange short-term housing in unused space in residential zones. Imagine a world where sublets were completely unrestricted on both a governmental and leasing level. If I go on vacation, I would rent out my place. Theoretically, because my place is used 100%, the demand for these massive, overpriced hotels taking up prime real estate in our nation's cities would dwindle - and the efficiency of the city would actually improve. Instead of locking up this prime real estate in hotels, which are seasonal and affected by economic hardship, we'd enable more people to live downtown full-time, close to their jobs - which would lower transportation costs, monthly housing costs, overnight rental costs, and in general bring efficiency to the market.