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This is the approach taken in London: Anyone can AirBnB their property, but only for 90 days a year, unless you have special permission. This prevents people bu
by fredley 8y ago
This is the approach taken in London: Anyone can AirBnB their property, but only for 90 days a year, unless you have special permission. This prevents people buying up/renting flats just to let them out on AirBnB and putting pressure on the already cripplingly bad housing situation.
- andy_ppp 8y agoIsn’t this just ignored largely?
- poooogles 8y agoBased upon my neighbours; yes completely. Anecdata is anecdata however...
- nikon 8y agoYou can report them to your council.
- fredley 8y agoAFAIK the limit is on AirBnB's site directly. Your account is limited until you provide documents from the council. I don't know to what extent people are forging these documents though.
- dspillett 8y agoIIRC it is enforced AirBnB side, so you can't rent too many days through them without providing the documentation needed to gain an exception. But this doesn't stop you using other services. While non have the same inertia and awareness amongst the public as AirBnB there are several so it is easy to get around the limit by using several providers who don't talk to each other.
- cannam 8y agoYes. Indeed there appear to be Airbnb-management companies that help you to ignore it, by inventing fake "host" personas to list your property under and changing it to a different host every now and again. Airbnb themselves don't seem to care if you do this so long as it doesn't look as if it's their responsibility. (We have been having problems with a neighbouring flat that is being run in this way. The details are murky but it appears to be intentionally managed like this)
- denzil_correa 8y agoI guess a size-able fine to both AirBnb and the apartment renters with repeat offences to be considered as criminal may help.
- elefantastisch 8y agoIn a way, that's fine. You don't need to prosecute all offenders for a law to be useful. The law gives you some way to shut down bad operators which otherwise would be difficult to stop. Compare tax law. By law, anyone profiting from illegal activity has to report it as income on their taxes. This isn't because they actually expect anyone to report it, it's because it gives another avenue for prosecution. It's worth noting that this distinction between who technically isn't complying and who will actually get prosecuted is a big part of why people have such different feelings about GDPR. Some people are focusing on the difficulty of complying and the penalties that could be assessed; others are focusing on the unlikelihood of small, mostly-compliant, well-meaning operations being targeted. Also worth noting, this kind of selective enforcement can absolutely be used in a harmful way or have unintended negative consequences. I'm just trying to point out why a jurisdiction might pass a law even if they don't expect anyone to abide by it.
- pjc50 8y agoIn re enforcement, https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1005093595005665285 https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1005093595005665285 "I have mixed feelings about the Japanese Airbnb news. On the one hand: does it seem like the optimal regulation? Probably not. On the other hand: my condo’s live-in supervisor had to update their “We will call police if we spot illegal tenants” policy with “Note: Patrick isn’t”" (patio11 is that rare thing, a Western permanent resident of Japan, and has lots of tweets on the subject of how Japan combines legendary, genuine politeness with a system that excludes non-Japanese)
- vokep 8y agoserial killers just ignore the fact that murder is illegal, but there aren't too many serial killers.
- ethbro 8y agoThat seems reasonable. The social good of AirBnB is lowering the barrier to increase property utilization. Classifying people into commercial and "sometimes" renters makes sense. If you want your business to be bigger, comply with more regulations.
- pjc50 8y ago> increase property utilization This implies that rent should rise to meet nightly AirBnb rates, which has all sorts of implications ..
- pc86 8y agoYes, the most obvious of which is "build more [high-density] housing."
- pjc50 8y agoI'm generally in favour of this, but "build more tall buildings in a World Heritage Site to satisfy the temporary demand of tourists" isn't going to be popular. Japan of course is already full of high-density housing. (Edinburgh is building housing, but lots of it is suburban low-density)
- cdavid 8y agoJapanese cities are actually not especially high density. For example, Tokyo's density is lower than Queens.
- patio11 8y agoTechnically correct but misleading; the thing that most people mean when they say Tokyo is "the 23 wards" (compare: the five burroughs; the canonical definition of New York which even kids growing up in Chicago learn the names of by sheer osmosis). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo#/media/File:Tokyo_23_Special_Wards_Area_Map.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo#/media/... ^^ They're the green part of this map. The non-green part of this map is, technically correct is the best kind of correct, also Tokyo (administered under Tokyo-to as opposed to any other prefecture), but it's not core Tokyo. (Akiruno-shi, for example, looks like this: http://www.bbqjp.com/portfolio/dainimizube/ http://www.bbqjp.com/portfolio/dainimizube/ ) The density of the 23 wards is ~twice that of Queens, which much of it being 3x. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo
- DINKDINK 8y ago>putting pressure on the already cripplingly bad housing situation. No amount of demand suppression will ever fix a supply issue. “We’re better off not building up housing infrastructure subsidized by short term leases and just trying to suppress any demand that changes the market clearing price”
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoIt could still be worth it to buy a unit purely for using it as an Airbnb in London and leave it empty 275 days a year. Just market it as a holiday rental on dates corresponding to big London-based football matches, when people traveling might often pay hugely inflated nightly rates. Maybe supplement during academic conferences or government events. In the right part of London and for a unit with the right amenities, you probably could still turn a net profit annually just on 90 days, and leaving it empty the rest. Which would mean it could still negatively affect housing shortage issues and home prices, and still result in poorly behaved tourists nearby for 1/4 of the time.
- moorhosj 8y agoIn this scenario is AirBnB shorthand for all short term rentals or specific to that company? Meaning could I do AirBnB for 90 days and VRBO for 90 days or are they combined?
- simonebrunozzi 8y agoSimilar in San Francisco. You can rent a single room (while you're in the house) for longer, but you can rent the entire apartment only for up to 90 days/year. Not sure whether it's a good solution or not. Mixed feelings about it.
- biztos 8y agoAlso similar in Berlin, though last I checked there were still quite a few whole flats available... at much higher prices. Makes me wonder if some people are just counting the fines as a cost of doing business.