4 ms·

That seems reasonable. The social good of AirBnB is lowering the barrier to increase property utilization. Classifying people into commercial and "sometimes" r

by ethbro 8y ago

That 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 ago
  Yes, the most obvious of which is "build more [high-density] housing."
  - pjc50 8y ago
    I'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 ago
      Japanese cities are actually not especially high density. For example, Tokyo's density is lower than Queens.
      - patio11 8y ago
        Technically 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
        cdavid 8y ago
        Hm, I thought I was careful of getting the numbers for the 23 wards (I live there too ;) ), but looks like I made a mistake indeed. With the correct numbers, Tokyo "23 wards" becomes 40 % higher than NY metropolis, and approximately the same as Brooklyn (~15000 / km2). I would still argue it is not as dense as many people think (e.g. people often don't think of Paris as super dense, even tough it is itself ~40 % higher density that Tokyo). Yes, the houses are small, but except for within the few central wards, there are not that many high rise buildings.
        timr 8y ago
        "The density of the 23 wards is ~twice that of Queens, which much of it being 3x." Technically correct but misleading; Queens is not especially dense. I dropped a pin at random in Queens: https://goo.gl/maps/ULFor21SjXq https://goo.gl/maps/ULFor21SjXq Here's a random pin-dropping in one of the 23 wards: https://goo.gl/maps/Ah5kaMKvyLn https://goo.gl/maps/Ah5kaMKvyLn Roughly equivalent, I'd say, and not atypical for Tokyo. But compare to what most anyone would call a "dense" part of Manhattan: https://goo.gl/maps/kKMgK4qZVcG2 https://goo.gl/maps/kKMgK4qZVcG2 HN people who talk about the "density" of Tokyo are picturing skyscrapers and block housing, but it's not an accurate picture. Having spent plenty of time in both cities, Tokyo is about as dense as the outer boroughs of New York, on average.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I'll take the high density housing as long as, within that housing, we can segregate the vacationers, who often enjoy staying up late drinking and talking loudly, from the folks who have to get up and go to work or school the next morning. Otherwise, an increase in density might reduce airbnb's impact on rents, but at the cost of making airbnb even more annoying.
  - danudey 8y ago
    Build more high-density or mid-density rental housing. In Vancouver, condo towers are coming up like weeds, but it's not reducing the cost of living for anyone. People who already have money buy those condos, they rent them out at high prices so they can pay their mortgage, people have to rent them because there's nowhere else because literally no one is building rental housing, and so rents go up. Rents go up, so property values go up because there's so much money in them, so people build more condo towers, and the cycle repeats. The problem is that we have hundreds or thousands of speculators who got in early and have the real-estate wealth to leverage to purchase more real estate, but they're in it to make a short-term profit. They don't have the capital to set prices for the long-term, so they have to rent things out at pretty high prices. Meanwhile, if we had purpose-built rental, you'd be looking at one building, one landlord, one set of rents, and a business with a long-term view rather than real estate speculators who are just holding onto a condo as long as they can before they can cash it out and retire (or leverage it to buy more).
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      That can't go on forever. At some point demand is saturated. Speculation is fine, as long as vacancies are well taxed.
- Stoinker 8y ago
  No it doesn't. To use an analogy, renting is more like leasing a car on a several year plan, whereas AirBnB is like renting a car for 3 days. The rates are very dissimilar, for a number of reasons. Same goes for longer-term rentals vs AirBnB.
bunderbunder 8y ago
I wouldn't just assume that AirBnB increases property utilization. Most the full-time airbnb places in my neighborhood seem to be vacant most the time. So I'm not sure it's a way to increase property utilization so much as it's a way for people who move out of town to cover the cost of hanging on to the property even though they're not really using it anymore, but without taking on the same legal obligations that renting the house to a full-time tenant would incur.

by ethbro 8y ago

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 ago
Yes, the most obvious of which is "build more [high-density] housing."
- pjc50 8y ago
  I'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 ago
    Japanese cities are actually not especially high density. For example, Tokyo's density is lower than Queens.
    - patio11 8y ago
      Technically 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
      - cdavid 8y ago
        Hm, I thought I was careful of getting the numbers for the 23 wards (I live there too ;) ), but looks like I made a mistake indeed. With the correct numbers, Tokyo "23 wards" becomes 40 % higher than NY metropolis, and approximately the same as Brooklyn (~15000 / km2). I would still argue it is not as dense as many people think (e.g. people often don't think of Paris as super dense, even tough it is itself ~40 % higher density that Tokyo). Yes, the houses are small, but except for within the few central wards, there are not that many high rise buildings.
      - timr 8y ago
        "The density of the 23 wards is ~twice that of Queens, which much of it being 3x." Technically correct but misleading; Queens is not especially dense. I dropped a pin at random in Queens: https://goo.gl/maps/ULFor21SjXq https://goo.gl/maps/ULFor21SjXq Here's a random pin-dropping in one of the 23 wards: https://goo.gl/maps/Ah5kaMKvyLn https://goo.gl/maps/Ah5kaMKvyLn Roughly equivalent, I'd say, and not atypical for Tokyo. But compare to what most anyone would call a "dense" part of Manhattan: https://goo.gl/maps/kKMgK4qZVcG2 https://goo.gl/maps/kKMgK4qZVcG2 HN people who talk about the "density" of Tokyo are picturing skyscrapers and block housing, but it's not an accurate picture. Having spent plenty of time in both cities, Tokyo is about as dense as the outer boroughs of New York, on average.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  I'll take the high density housing as long as, within that housing, we can segregate the vacationers, who often enjoy staying up late drinking and talking loudly, from the folks who have to get up and go to work or school the next morning. Otherwise, an increase in density might reduce airbnb's impact on rents, but at the cost of making airbnb even more annoying.
- danudey 8y ago
  Build more high-density or mid-density rental housing. In Vancouver, condo towers are coming up like weeds, but it's not reducing the cost of living for anyone. People who already have money buy those condos, they rent them out at high prices so they can pay their mortgage, people have to rent them because there's nowhere else because literally no one is building rental housing, and so rents go up. Rents go up, so property values go up because there's so much money in them, so people build more condo towers, and the cycle repeats. The problem is that we have hundreds or thousands of speculators who got in early and have the real-estate wealth to leverage to purchase more real estate, but they're in it to make a short-term profit. They don't have the capital to set prices for the long-term, so they have to rent things out at pretty high prices. Meanwhile, if we had purpose-built rental, you'd be looking at one building, one landlord, one set of rents, and a business with a long-term view rather than real estate speculators who are just holding onto a condo as long as they can before they can cash it out and retire (or leverage it to buy more).
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    That can't go on forever. At some point demand is saturated. Speculation is fine, as long as vacancies are well taxed.
Stoinker 8y ago
No it doesn't. To use an analogy, renting is more like leasing a car on a several year plan, whereas AirBnB is like renting a car for 3 days. The rates are very dissimilar, for a number of reasons. Same goes for longer-term rentals vs AirBnB.

bunderbunder 8y ago

I wouldn't just assume that AirBnB increases property utilization. Most the full-time airbnb places in my neighborhood seem to be vacant most the time. So I'm not sure it's a way to increase property utilization so much as it's a way for people who move out of town to cover the cost of hanging on to the property even though they're not really using it anymore, but without taking on the same legal obligations that renting the house to a full-time tenant would incur.