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I can't speak to this problem in tourist destinations or Europe generally as I don't have enough data to have an opinion, but I frequently see Airbnb blamed for

I can't speak to this problem in tourist destinations or Europe generally as I don't have enough data to have an opinion, but I frequently see Airbnb blamed for high housing costs in some American cities and it strikes me as being a bunch of bullshit. Sure Airbnb doesn't help the rental problem and it is a contributor to rising rents, but the primary problem isn't Airbnb, it's lack of supply of high density apartment living options. Many US cities are composed primarily of 2-3 story houses which have been converted into dingy expensive apartments. This is utterly unacceptable from an efficiency standpoint. Many of these units need to be bulldozed and replaced with high rise apartments if cities are to become affordable again.

jaytong 8y ago
and to top it all off, the zoning laws in some cities...
StavrosK 8y ago
The situation in Greece is very different, as everything is a highrise (sadly, because we tore down a lot of beautiful centuries-old antique villas to do that). The situation used to be much better, but the start of the problem coincides suspiciously with the rise of AirBnB, and you'd expect housing prices to drop in a recession, not rise. That's why I think it's fair to blame AirBnB for that. We'll see what happens in Tokyo, Madrid and other cities where they're severely restricting usage.
- distances 8y ago
  But apartments in Athens are very affordable still, aren't they?
  - ferongr 8y ago
    Yes, as well as rents. A 1BR apartment can be as low as 150€/mo or even a bit lower. It's only a few "hip" neighborhoods that are affected. Still, Athens is relatively compact and mass transit is excellent so you can easily find cheap places to live that are require less than 30 minutes of commute each way to work.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    I'm not sure, I'm not in Athens, but I've been trying to find a new apartment for three years in my city and the pickings have been extremely slim.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
  They all but banned it in Berlin (only allowed to rent guest rooms where the owner resides in the place) years ago and last time I was there (last week) it was still well awash with tourists like myself.
  - madisfun 8y ago
    Just checked, there are hundreds of apartments for rent in Berlin at the moment. Doesn't look to be banned.
undersuit 8y ago
> it's lack of supply of high density apartment living options. Devil's Advocate: I'd agree that AirBnB isn't entirely to blame, but a large company helping your town's citizen rezone their long-term residential units into short-term residential units and not telling the town isn't going to help the zoning board make correct decisions. Japan has made a good decision to at least butt themselves into the process.
- Thriptic 8y ago
  I totally agree, but it's not like this data is hidden. It would be relatively straight forward to monitor how many Airbnb units operate at any given time just by looking at the site repeatedly, and you could approximate how many rentals exist using tax data and corporate data.
llcoolv 8y ago
Exactly. You could see how many air-bnb flats are in total in a given city on their website and a lot of citiies produce statistics on that. For example in Vienna, the municipality claimed that 3000 air b'n'b bedrooms in a city with millions of bedrooms -roughly 1 ‰ had caused the rents to increase with tens of percent. Sorry, but people who believe that 1 promile decrease in supply could cause tens of percent increase in prices are just dumb beyond salvation.

jaytong 8y ago

and to top it all off, the zoning laws in some cities...

StavrosK 8y ago

The situation in Greece is very different, as everything is a highrise (sadly, because we tore down a lot of beautiful centuries-old antique villas to do that). The situation used to be much better, but the start of the problem coincides suspiciously with the rise of AirBnB, and you'd expect housing prices to drop in a recession, not rise. That's why I think it's fair to blame AirBnB for that. We'll see what happens in Tokyo, Madrid and other cities where they're severely restricting usage.

distances 8y ago
But apartments in Athens are very affordable still, aren't they?
- ferongr 8y ago
  Yes, as well as rents. A 1BR apartment can be as low as 150€/mo or even a bit lower. It's only a few "hip" neighborhoods that are affected. Still, Athens is relatively compact and mass transit is excellent so you can easily find cheap places to live that are require less than 30 minutes of commute each way to work.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  I'm not sure, I'm not in Athens, but I've been trying to find a new apartment for three years in my city and the pickings have been extremely slim.
SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
They all but banned it in Berlin (only allowed to rent guest rooms where the owner resides in the place) years ago and last time I was there (last week) it was still well awash with tourists like myself.
- madisfun 8y ago
  Just checked, there are hundreds of apartments for rent in Berlin at the moment. Doesn't look to be banned.

undersuit 8y ago

> it's lack of supply of high density apartment living options. Devil's Advocate: I'd agree that AirBnB isn't entirely to blame, but a large company helping your town's citizen rezone their long-term residential units into short-term residential units and not telling the town isn't going to help the zoning board make correct decisions. Japan has made a good decision to at least butt themselves into the process.

Thriptic 8y ago
I totally agree, but it's not like this data is hidden. It would be relatively straight forward to monitor how many Airbnb units operate at any given time just by looking at the site repeatedly, and you could approximate how many rentals exist using tax data and corporate data.

llcoolv 8y ago

Exactly. You could see how many air-bnb flats are in total in a given city on their website and a lot of citiies produce statistics on that. For example in Vienna, the municipality claimed that 3000 air b'n'b bedrooms in a city with millions of bedrooms -roughly 1 ‰ had caused the rents to increase with tens of percent. Sorry, but people who believe that 1 promile decrease in supply could cause tens of percent increase in prices are just dumb beyond salvation.