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I don't really thing what this guy did was a bad thing: He had positive reviews, multiple maids to cleanup after guests, and willingly broke leases and lost mon

I don't really thing what this guy did was a bad thing: He had positive reviews, multiple maids to cleanup after guests, and willingly broke leases and lost money when there were complaints.

ceejayoz 8y ago
You'd probably feel differently if you were these folks: > “It’s been 3 a.m. and I’ve had people ringing my buzzer to get in,” said Ziograin Correa, 40, who lives in the building with his wife and six children. “They don’t have a key, so they ring my buzzer.” The other residents in the buildings can't leave an AirBnB review.
- jimrhods23 8y ago
  This has happened at my apartment complex when my neighbors invited some friends over. The residents have something even better: they can complain to the landlord.
jacques_chester 8y ago
On the description it appears that he and his partners (a) broke the law (b) broke his contracts with AirBnB and (c) took extraordinary measures to conceal (a) and (b) from legal scrutiny. Those are all, by and large, "bad things".
- jimrhods23 8y ago
  He violated new york regulations and an end user agreement. Nobody was hurt and from the sounds of it, he worked very hard to please his customers. There will be fines involved, because NYC wants their cut of the profits. I still don't consider what they did as 'bad things'.
  - jacques_chester 8y ago
    > Nobody was hurt First: You don't know that. In fact the neighbours would disagree. Second: laws are intended to be preventative. Some of them are to prevent the bad outcome (manslaughter is illegal), some of them to prevent things that commonly lead to a bad outcome (campfires in my bedroom are illegal). If I build a campfire in my room and this time it doesn't destroy my building, that doesn't excuse me in law or ethics. I still did a dangerous thing, knowingly and recklessly. > There will be fines involved, because NYC wants their cut of the profits. There are fines involved because NYC operates, even its own gloriously half-arsed way, under the rule of law.
    - jimrhods23 8y ago
      "First: You don't know that. In fact the neighbours would disagree." You don't know either. So I guess we are both speculating. "Second: laws are intended to be preventative. " Do you agree with all laws on the books? I sure don't. "I build a campfire in my room and this time it doesn't destroy my building, that doesn't excuse me in law or ethics. I still did a dangerous thing, knowingly and recklessly." Can you explain to me how having a legitimate business where nobody was scammed and the outcome was a happy customer is reckless? In addition to this, there were multiple jobs added to the economy as a result of their business venture. "There are fines involved because NYC operates, even its own gloriously half-arsed way, under the rule of law." The hotel lobby has lots of influence in NYC. It's a very similar situation to the taxicab unions. Some laws should be bent and broken..because they need to be changed.
mattzito 8y ago
It was no doubt a good thing for Airbnb users. It is much less likely a good thing for the building and other people who live there. I actually live a block away from the building in the article that was described as the #1 moneymaker and opted not to move to that building partially because it was obvious many apartments were being rented on Airbnb. In other words not only was the neighborhood losing access to housing inventory, but other landlords were losing access to qualified tenants who didn’t want to live in a building with a bunch of Airbnb rentals in it.
close04 8y ago
It's simple, he broke the law/city regulations that are there for a reason. I'll quote the relevant bit from the article: > New York regulations are supposed to keep apartments from being pulled out of an already-tight rental market to cater to the tourist trade. They specify that it is illegal to rent an entire apartment in most buildings for fewer than 30 days unless the permanent tenant is present while the renter is there. For one guy to make millions there are many city inhabitants that have to face ever increasing rents. And this harms the city because it increases unrest and puts off people from moving in. And the issue is also on a more "micro" scale. Imagine living in a building where several apartments are dedicated to Airbnb style renting full time. You would probably not enjoy renting or owning the other apartments there.
- jimrhods23 8y ago
  "For one guy to make millions there are many city inhabitants that have to face ever increasing rents. And this harms the city because it increases unrest and puts off people from moving in." The article also states that these apartments were in upscale areas, so it isn't really preventing anyone from moving in. "You would probably not enjoy renting or owning the other apartments there" If the inhabitants of those apartments are causing problems, the landlord should have the final say. This all really should be up to the landlord and not the government.
  - close04 8y ago
    > these apartments were in upscale areas, so it isn't really preventing anyone from moving in Of course it's preventing them. It's one less apartment in an already airtight market. For every apartment not available for renting, all the other rents go up another bit. Or a big bit since you can easily charge double via Airbnb. This means without any regulation the rents could surge to at least 80% of what you can get via Airbnb. And since this would seriously hurt the city the government gets involved. > should be up to the landlord and not the government It's the government's duty to protect its citizens from abuse. "The government" is behind every law and regulation. So every time I hear this I wonder if the people who say it realize what it implies. How easily it turns into "it's up to the [person who shafted you] not the government". I'm sure you are protected by so many of them you don't even realize. Just because renting in NY is not an issue for you doesn't mean it's not an issue.
cortesoft 8y ago
Sure, the people renting from him loved it; the neighbors, however, had to suffer. The reason we have hotel regulations is to help mitigate the externalities that hotel operations put on the nearby community. This guy was bypassing all of those. There are more people involved in the transaction than just the renter and the rentee.
- asdffdsa 8y ago
  Same thing with uber and taxi operations right?
- jimrhods23 8y ago
  "The reason we have hotel regulations is to help mitigate the externalities that hotel operations put on the nearby community" Hotels have hundreds of people coming in and out of the building on a daily basis. At most of these apartments you would have at most 3 or 4 people. The difference is scale. The only reason NYC even cares at all is because the hotel lobby is powerful and the city wants their tax money. They should just tax it and leave it up to the landlords/property owners.

I don't really thing what this guy did was a bad thing: He had positive reviews, multiple maids to cleanup after guests, and willingly broke leases and lost money when there were complaints.

ceejayoz 8y ago

You'd probably feel differently if you were these folks: > “It’s been 3 a.m. and I’ve had people ringing my buzzer to get in,” said Ziograin Correa, 40, who lives in the building with his wife and six children. “They don’t have a key, so they ring my buzzer.” The other residents in the buildings can't leave an AirBnB review.

jimrhods23 8y ago
This has happened at my apartment complex when my neighbors invited some friends over. The residents have something even better: they can complain to the landlord.

jacques_chester 8y ago

On the description it appears that he and his partners (a) broke the law (b) broke his contracts with AirBnB and (c) took extraordinary measures to conceal (a) and (b) from legal scrutiny. Those are all, by and large, "bad things".

jimrhods23 8y ago
He violated new york regulations and an end user agreement. Nobody was hurt and from the sounds of it, he worked very hard to please his customers. There will be fines involved, because NYC wants their cut of the profits. I still don't consider what they did as 'bad things'.
- jacques_chester 8y ago
  > Nobody was hurt First: You don't know that. In fact the neighbours would disagree. Second: laws are intended to be preventative. Some of them are to prevent the bad outcome (manslaughter is illegal), some of them to prevent things that commonly lead to a bad outcome (campfires in my bedroom are illegal). If I build a campfire in my room and this time it doesn't destroy my building, that doesn't excuse me in law or ethics. I still did a dangerous thing, knowingly and recklessly. > There will be fines involved, because NYC wants their cut of the profits. There are fines involved because NYC operates, even its own gloriously half-arsed way, under the rule of law.
  - jimrhods23 8y ago
    "First: You don't know that. In fact the neighbours would disagree." You don't know either. So I guess we are both speculating. "Second: laws are intended to be preventative. " Do you agree with all laws on the books? I sure don't. "I build a campfire in my room and this time it doesn't destroy my building, that doesn't excuse me in law or ethics. I still did a dangerous thing, knowingly and recklessly." Can you explain to me how having a legitimate business where nobody was scammed and the outcome was a happy customer is reckless? In addition to this, there were multiple jobs added to the economy as a result of their business venture. "There are fines involved because NYC operates, even its own gloriously half-arsed way, under the rule of law." The hotel lobby has lots of influence in NYC. It's a very similar situation to the taxicab unions. Some laws should be bent and broken..because they need to be changed.

mattzito 8y ago

It was no doubt a good thing for Airbnb users. It is much less likely a good thing for the building and other people who live there. I actually live a block away from the building in the article that was described as the #1 moneymaker and opted not to move to that building partially because it was obvious many apartments were being rented on Airbnb. In other words not only was the neighborhood losing access to housing inventory, but other landlords were losing access to qualified tenants who didn’t want to live in a building with a bunch of Airbnb rentals in it.

close04 8y ago

It's simple, he broke the law/city regulations that are there for a reason. I'll quote the relevant bit from the article: > New York regulations are supposed to keep apartments from being pulled out of an already-tight rental market to cater to the tourist trade. They specify that it is illegal to rent an entire apartment in most buildings for fewer than 30 days unless the permanent tenant is present while the renter is there. For one guy to make millions there are many city inhabitants that have to face ever increasing rents. And this harms the city because it increases unrest and puts off people from moving in. And the issue is also on a more "micro" scale. Imagine living in a building where several apartments are dedicated to Airbnb style renting full time. You would probably not enjoy renting or owning the other apartments there.

jimrhods23 8y ago
"For one guy to make millions there are many city inhabitants that have to face ever increasing rents. And this harms the city because it increases unrest and puts off people from moving in." The article also states that these apartments were in upscale areas, so it isn't really preventing anyone from moving in. "You would probably not enjoy renting or owning the other apartments there" If the inhabitants of those apartments are causing problems, the landlord should have the final say. This all really should be up to the landlord and not the government.
- close04 8y ago
  > these apartments were in upscale areas, so it isn't really preventing anyone from moving in Of course it's preventing them. It's one less apartment in an already airtight market. For every apartment not available for renting, all the other rents go up another bit. Or a big bit since you can easily charge double via Airbnb. This means without any regulation the rents could surge to at least 80% of what you can get via Airbnb. And since this would seriously hurt the city the government gets involved. > should be up to the landlord and not the government It's the government's duty to protect its citizens from abuse. "The government" is behind every law and regulation. So every time I hear this I wonder if the people who say it realize what it implies. How easily it turns into "it's up to the [person who shafted you] not the government". I'm sure you are protected by so many of them you don't even realize. Just because renting in NY is not an issue for you doesn't mean it's not an issue.

cortesoft 8y ago

Sure, the people renting from him loved it; the neighbors, however, had to suffer. The reason we have hotel regulations is to help mitigate the externalities that hotel operations put on the nearby community. This guy was bypassing all of those. There are more people involved in the transaction than just the renter and the rentee.

asdffdsa 8y ago
Same thing with uber and taxi operations right?
jimrhods23 8y ago
"The reason we have hotel regulations is to help mitigate the externalities that hotel operations put on the nearby community" Hotels have hundreds of people coming in and out of the building on a daily basis. At most of these apartments you would have at most 3 or 4 people. The difference is scale. The only reason NYC even cares at all is because the hotel lobby is powerful and the city wants their tax money. They should just tax it and leave it up to the landlords/property owners.