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Airbnb Suffers Big Defeat in Jersey City

• armitron 7y ago
  Airbnb destroyed my neighborhood (crime, noise and rent saw dramatic increases) and was a factor in me moving to Germany with my entire family. I am hoping more ppl get the message and ban them outright.
  • OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    > Airbnb destroyed my neighborhood (crime, noise and rent saw dramatic increases) Where was this?
    • armitron 7y ago
      Colorado, sorry for not being more specific.
• neonate 7y ago
  http://archive.is/cP124 http://archive.is/cP124
• baby 7y ago
  That’s a shame. Airbnb really changed the game for my friends and I. We’ve been travelling all over the world with airbnb.
  • bnjms 7y ago
    Then you've no loss. You can still stay in houses with people living in the home. Just not the fake ones where someone pretends to live on site and all the stuff is an Ikea show room.
    • thallium205 7y ago
      Why would I want to stay with some rando on vacation?
      • nlh 7y ago
        Because it's often an excellent experience and makes the vacation better. I rented out a bedroom in my 2BR apartment in NYC for several years and it was truly a wonderful experience. I had a one-week minimum and therefore hosted almost entirely tourists visiting NYC from overseas (as opposed to random people in NYC who needed a place to crash for a night). With very very few exceptions, I met warm friendly people. They liked have a local in the same place to talk about plans and get suggestions, I liked some new faces to have coffee with in the morning. Everyone won.
      • artursapek 7y ago
        I stayed in a room in Berlin once. It was nice to get to know a local a bit and get tips on what to go see. If you want a sterile experience, book a hotel.
        • cycrutchfield 7y ago
          Hotels are often located in touristy areas and lack nice amenities like kitchens. Is it that hard to understand that there exists demand for whole-home vacation rentals?
          • artursapek 7y ago
            I wasn't arguing that that demand doesn't exist; I've rented out whole houses on airbnb myself.
      • asah 7y ago
        Homestays are generally great: 1. interesting, respectful people / less "sterile" environments. 2. actually helpful in navigating the area. 3. broadens everybody's views (read: politics) to meet other people in person, see how they live and understand their viewpoints. 4. appliances/etc tend to work better, because they need them themselves. I've had nothing but good and great experiences with homestays. I've also hosted which has been ok-good: 100% respectful and kind, but not always that interesting. (I've been hosting/traveling for 15 years i.e. long before AirBnB)
    • ryanSrich 7y ago
      I used AirBnB when it first launched and was absolutely floored that people would actually want to spend the night(s) in a random strangers house with them present. This was after me experiencing it first hand. It was quite terrible. Fast forward to AirBnB becoming what it is today where the majority of users select “entire house” and it makes more sense. The problem now is that they are essentially the same price as a cheap hotel, which for my money is the far superior option (the hotel), so we’re back to AirBnB making no sense to me again. Perhaps I’m an outlier and the whole couch surfing market is that big, but it seems like AirBnB is balancing being a hotel (entire house) without really being a hotel. That’s a tricky spot to be in when regulators come knocking.
      • zamfi 7y ago
        For some people, the fact that it’s like a hotel (entire place to yourself) but a) in a residential neighborhood, and b) with a kitchen and other amenities of home that are usually missing or very expensive in a hotel (laundry, parking, etc.) If an actual hotel is the superior option to you, then, sure.
        • em-bee 7y ago
          exactly this. i'll take an airbnb serviced apartment over a hotel any time.
      • Krasnol 7y ago
        The real joke here is: those AirBnB apartments often belong to Hotels ;)
      • esotericn 7y ago
        My best stays have all been shared with the host. It's a way to experience another culture. I've also rented my own flat on Airbnb. "Couch surfing" is a weird way to put it, and so too is "random stranger". They're not random, you chose them, and you're generally in a bedroom. Maybe this is a cultural thing? Middle class families having lodgers is super normal in the UK, I figured it was the same everywhere. If I wanted a hotel, I'd book a hotel.
      • 7y ago
  • seattle_spring 7y ago
    I don't think anyone who is traveling the world to see interesting places will miss staying in Jersey City one bit.
    • g00gler 7y ago
      Staying in jersey city is a great alternative to NYC/Hoboken. Uber through the tunnel or to the ferry and you’re in Manhattan very quickly. I had an obligation in Hoboken a couple years back and stayed in a spare bedroom in jersey city for (I believe) $38/night.
      • therealx 7y ago
        Hoboken is so interesting. It was once a fairly poor neighborhood, but as real estate in NYC became what it is, many moved to Hoboken and now houses that were 300k when I was younger are 1mil+. The views are astounding.
        • g00gler 7y ago
          Yes very nice place. You could say it’s lost some of its charm or that its greatly improved. Originally from there and would love to go back but it’s prohibitively expensive, even for software developers!
      • cpascal 7y ago
        There's also the PATH which is a subway that goes straight into Manhattan from Jersey City.
• zarkowsky 7y ago
  You can still rent out a room of your apartment if you are living in it yourself. The issue is about units that the owners are not residing in themselves.
  • cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Why would I want to stay in a room of somebody's apartment?
    • danielbarla 7y ago
      This was the entire premise of Airbnb; you get a cheap lodging (sometimes literally on an air bed), and the owner (optionally) might even make you breakfast. It then kind of evolved into a gray area, with some businesses essentially running large numbers of apartments. Many argue that at that scale, it is disruptive to others living nearby, and should be regulated as a normal hotel operation, etc.
    • therealx 7y ago
      Have you never heard of a traditional BnB? The charm is a welcoming host, home cooked breakfast, a small group of like minded travelers to talk to, and unique accommodations. Usually there's 2-8 bedrooms. They've been together since the dawn of modern civilization. As long as the host stays out of your way when you need (eg, anytime other than when you need them), it's rather quite nice. It's hard to beat the conversation you have over a glass of wine after dinner. I've made lifelong friends this way. Sure, no one wants to stay in someone's studio with a wall divider, but thats absurd.
    • tirpen 7y ago
      Why not? If you don't want that, get a hotel room.
    • nkrisc 7y ago
      Because presumably it's cheaper and a more personal experience than a hotel. Hotel's aren't going away if the idea of staying in a room in someone's apartment isn't appealing to you. Vacation rental homes have been around long before the internet as well if you need a larger place to stay.
• shartshooter 7y ago
  70 percent of voters supported the new regulations. The new restrictions allow homeowners to rent out portions of their homes as long as they’re present during a guest’s stay. But they prohibit renters from listing their apartment and bar owners from renting a property on a short-term basis most of the year if they don’t live on-site, effectively banning large-scale Airbnb operators who had converted hundreds of condos and townhouses into makeshift hotels. It would, however, hurt residents who were making extra cash by renting out a second home for days at a time through Airbnb. It sounds reasonable to me. I used to love staying in Airbnb’s but can’t stand the cheapness of it all as of late due to them turning into pure investments and no longer real homes.
  • bnjms 7y ago
    I was going to post this section too. It sounds like a good law making the best of what Air BnB is best at. As for the last problem those residents could be helped by allowing only 1+ month renting of homes which may help people who haven't been able to unload their house yet or who are new to an area. Either way the point is to discourage home owners from owning multiple houses.
  • jessriedel 7y ago
    I love both kinds of AirBnBs.
  • cycrutchfield 7y ago
    > I used to love staying in Airbnb’s but can’t stand the cheapness of it all as of late due to them turning into pure investments and no longer real homes. That's nice that you prefer one type of rental over the other. Why not allow both, so that others who prefer not having a homeowner intruding on their privacy don't need to deal with that?
    • sleepychu 7y ago
      Those are called hotels :-)
    • baot 7y ago
• cddotdotslash 7y ago
  Airbnb will loathe the day it decided not to fight back against people buying 10 to 15 apartments and renting them via large scale operations on their platform. They had to know it was happening, and, while it may have helped them achieve their initial growth rates, it's dramatically turned public opinion against them. I don't know a single renter or home owner in NYC who actually wants Airbnb guests in their building.
  • asah 7y ago
    Owner-occupied, full-time rental and part-time rental can co-exist, but not if all sides "dig in." Consider the urban reaction if (a) buildings got to tax AirBnB stays and use the proceeds for improvements and/or reduce owner HOA costs, (b) the profile/reputation/support system were shared between AirBnB and building staff/management, so guests weren't unaccountable strangers and building staff and AirBnB could coordinate during emergencies. As travelers, owners have also benefitted from AirBnB, which has been life-changing for providing kitchens, affordability and traveling with friends and family. AirBnB also solved the problem of large events taking away housing stock needed for everyday travel.
    • cddotdotslash 7y ago
      Agreed, in theory, but what has Airbnb done to implement anything close to what you've described? From what I've seen, it's expansion without regard for existing residents.
    • xxxtentachyon 7y ago
      I mean, maybe? But how many buildings want to take the additional technological burden of coordinating this sort of thing
    • OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      This sounds great, but since AirBnB is still private we don't know enough about their financials to know how viable this is for them. How much of a tax could they pay while still operating profitably (I do not mean they have to maintain their valuation or to continue to grow - I mean for them to be a self-sustaining company)? Investors holds up AirBnB on a pedestal, but I've always been suspicious their numbers are not nearly good enough to justify their latest valuation. Apart from their continuing damage to their brand in an increasingly crowded space, I am just amazed that they only just barely made a profit in 2017. I fully understand it takes a ton of money, time, effort, and luck to grow a company to that size - but AirBnB was already 9 years old then, had been operating in a space by illegally skirting regulations, not only did they not play by the rules but they didn't pay competitive taxes, and all the while they own no expensive infrastructure! People have been suspicious their reviews are unreliable going back years, so they had already started to erode trust in their users. They are experimenting with creating their own hotels now, which is just utterly bizarre since their entire purpose was to offer an alternative to hotels (I mean it's okay to experiment when you're that big, but this is not one I can understand). I really, really look forward to AirBnB's IPO.
• tempsy 7y ago
  I’ve been consistently surprised how insulated Airbnb has been to the level of criticism that Uber and Lyft have more publicly faced for many years now...maybe a part of it is that the impact Airbnb has on a city is much more subtle so most don’t necessarily pay attention unless it’s directly impacting their life.
  • TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Have they been? I don't know if they were anti-AirBnB protests on the streets, but their meatspace ads have been defaced in the past. At least on HN, AirBnB has been getting comparable levels of criticism to Uber, for roughly the same reason - they're burning down society for profit, piece by piece.
  • sek 7y ago
    You don't know exactly how much they have to do with it, they could just be a symptom and a scapegoat. AirBnB has about 10 Billion in gross bookings (fees are about a quarter) worldwide now, so when they started out it was less. Real estate values have risen in the trillions since the financial crisis and the low interest policy. The money from AirBnB goes mostly to renters, the ones who didn't benefit from those value increases. Also some of the money went to higher prices in the Hotel industry, who faces more competition now. So I think it's much more complicated with AirBnB.
• docdeek 7y ago
  While more than 96,100 Jersey FTA: City residents use Airbnb when traveling, the defeat underscored the difficulty that sharing economy companies increasingly face in mobilizing users as a constituency. Seems a bit NIMBYish doesn't it? As in residents happy to use AirBnB in someone else's neighborhood but damned if they'll extend the same to people visiting their own.
  • sek 7y ago
    Exactly those are the ones who could legitimately use it, without driving rents. That is the original idea for AirBnB anyhow. Why not put a limit for 30 Days in the Regulation for when you are not home? It would be easy for AirBnB to limit and it would not be economical for commercial offerings.
  • baot 7y ago
    This isn't actually an attack on their political stance though, it's just attacking their personal morals. In my opinion, if you say that a company unfairly avoids costs of regulations then it makes perfect sense to use them and transfer that saving to your own pocket. You're just confirming that you really believe it's an unfair market.
  • greenbush 7y ago
    Of course, AirBnB doesn't reveal the period of time that 96,100 residents used it and what percentage are still active. AirBnB has been around for more than 10 years, so the 96,100 users are over that long span of time!
    • docdeek 7y ago
      Indeed, though the population of Jersey City is about 270,000 so it’s about a third of that population - that’s a significant number even if some have used it only once and then never again 9 years ago.
  • chongli 7y ago
    I applaud this decision by Jersey City and yet I’m about to stay in an Airbnb for 4 months beginning in January. Why? Because there’s not much other choice. People who used to offer rooms for short to medium terms to students, interns, and other non-rich business travellers have switched over to Airbnb and found they can make way more money doing it. The only places I see that are not in Airbnb are clear scams (photos literally stolen from some developer showroom site, refusing to let you see the place without a deposit) or they’re slums that target only the most desperate renters. So I wouldn’t describe them as “happy to use Airbnb.” Airbnb is pretty bad. It’s just less bad than everything else.