5 ms·

As a facilitator to these illegal dealings, Airbnb should be held responsible. It has turned from a quaint little company for bed and breakfasts to a massive il

As a facilitator to these illegal dealings, Airbnb should be held responsible. It has turned from a quaint little company for bed and breakfasts to a massive illegal hotel and scam website. At the very best they are a huge operation to transfer wealth to the owner class at the expense of everyone else.

nouveaux 7y ago
At the same time, not allowing an owner to rent is transferring wealth to corporate hoteliers. Why is that better? I rather transfer wealth to middle class and upper middle class than give it to the 1%. Does anyone know why its so hard to tax Airbnb? Airbnb should be responsible for collecting tax on behalf of the state and county. Tax them and pass it on to the little guys.
- ohazi 7y ago
  > At the same time, not allowing an owner to rent is transferring wealth to corporate hoteliers. If you truly want this level of freedom, you need to not buy a condo or a property with a HOA. Additional rules for owners makes sense for condos and buildings with obviously shared common infrastructure and resources. I think it makes less sense for detached housing. Apparently a large number of developers building new houses at the subdivision-scale (not in California, lol) are now putting in HOAs automatically. It's going to be a pretty shitty situation in 30 years.
  - thisisastopsign 7y ago
    I have a rental property that is in an HOA and I rent it out. What are you inferring?
    - tingletech 7y ago
      I'm not sure the exact point of the grand parent post -- but for a multi-unit building with the units titled as condos (which would usually have an owner's association) the rules for getting conventional financing in the US (I'm spacing on what those are called) dictate a certain percentage of the units must be owner occupied, lest the loans are not re-sellable in the secondary mortgage markets. Condo HOAs will thus sometimes try to pass rules or amend bylaws to establish rental restrictions of various sorts -- most commonly setting a minimum lease term, but sometimes trying to set percentages of units that must be owner occupied, limiting the numbers of units that can be owned by a single owner, or establishing a time frame a unit must be owner occupied before it can be rented. My understanding is that most of the new apartment buildings they are building around me in Oakland and trying to rent out are "pre-converted" or already titled as condos -- but as the investors are renting them out generally there is no HOA to speak of as there is one owner. But, should market conditions change, common areas and separate titles are already established so less paperwork would be required to sell off the units.
    - ohazi 7y ago
      Is your rental property a house or a condo? I'm asserting that buying a detached house that falls under an HOA is something that should generally be avoided. With a house, there are rarely shared resources that actually need to be managed so any potential benefit is minimal at best, and bad HOAs can be a nightmare, so the risk is high. I'm also lamenting the fact that developers building new neighborhoods of detached houses (e.g. in places like Austin) are apparently putting almost all of them under HOAs, perhaps because of some legal meme that doing so somehow reduces risk for the developer, or increases sale prices. I think this is an unfortunate trend.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        In my experience, most people want HOAs.
      - imtringued 7y ago
        Yes that sounds counterproductive. Multi-family buildings obviously need a central organisation because things like the elevator, roof, etc are shared infrastructure that requires funding from all occupants. A detached house can be fully owned by the occupant or the landlord. There is no need for middlemen.
      - thisisastopsign 7y ago
        Ya, I have a detached house. I’ve noticed the trend with HOAs being established by the builder. You’re right that there’s minimum shared property generally. Fortunately, every HOA I’ve been in has been good. On the other hand, I’ve looked in areas without HOAs and people didn’t take care of their property or yards, which drove their neighbor’s home value down (the deals seemed good enough to buy, until you drove up and saw your future neighbors).
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Why is it worse? I live somewhere that has huge inflows of tourists (something like 5-10x the population every year), and it is has utterly ravaged the property market. It isn't just that ~5% of the housing stock has disappeared (population growing 5%+ year and in an old city making it very hard to build new places cheaply) but that remaining stock has been converted to garbage (we now have HMOs...used to be a 2 bedroom? Converted into a 6 bedroom...again, this is a small city of a few hundred thousand...HMOs, didn't exist until five years ago, now everywhere). And yes, there are issues with the people who rent. I am not going to go into detail but I have lived in bad situations (above a homeless shelter, a policeman got shanked outside a place I used to live), it is genuinely unpleasant to have your place turn into a hotel around you. Part of this is negligent landlords (in any block of flats, AirBnb will lead to a build up of trash and abuse of common areas), part of this is unpleasant renters (I have had people ring my bell at 10pm asking for directions in broken English like I am a concierge) but the most obvious point is...why is this even a thing? These are houses. People live here. If you want to stay somewhere, stay in a hotel...that is why they exist (short-term letting in most places is a loophole to let people stay in houses for short to medium periods, not a few nights like a hotel). And yes, there are issues with tax. In many places in the world, hotel rooms are taxed. AirBnb is not (this will vary, I believe some places have specific taxes that hotels pay directly, others have varying rates of VAT, etc.). Unf, the local council has so many property-owners and people making money off this situation that I suspect nothing will be done. But, again, I live somewhere where this is huge, tourism has never been an issue (it is a huge part of the economy), and it is deeply unpopular. A lot of these landlords aren't local, they do nothing about the costs imposed on other residents...it is a cancer, it is like having a shitty landlord but you all have to live there. And btw, the place I live gets the same amount as vistors as always...AirBnb doesn't matter, no value is being created for the local economy, people don't come to stay in an AirBnb. Rant over. Fk AirBnb.
  - kp98 7y ago
    You look at a place like Toronto or New York and see the amount of damage done. Airbnb has created an entirely new way to speculate in the housing market while skirting all sorts of consumer protections, taxes, and local laws. Frankly I’m starting to despise the company and can’t believe nothing has been done about this in more states
- jraby3 7y ago
  In many states Airbnb already does collect the tax from the guest and passes it onto the state and city. These governments are finally getting the other services like homeaway to do the same.
- ip26 7y ago
  However allowing them to rent in this fashion is also transferring wealth from their neighbors to them, as the appeal of the residential neighborhood drives the rent rate while the neighboring residents bear many of the costs of the short term rental (loud parties etc)
  - dcolkitt 7y ago
    Is there any real evidence that short-term rentals decrease the value of a neighborhood? On the flip-side, people on vacation tend to patronize restaurants, cafes, shops, museums, music venues, theaters, and sporting events at much higher rates than day-to-day residents. Even disregarding the economic benefits and jobs that creates, they're subsidizing a ton of cultural amenities for the local residents. It's pretty hard for me to believe that move visitors are a bad thing. I've certainly never heard of a city spending marketing dollars to get fewer tourists. ("Stay away from Nashville, it sucks here!")
    - fxtentacle 7y ago
      Look at Venice. They try very hard to keep short-term visitors out because all the locals hate them. Also, look at New Zealand closing off what used to be public parks to limit the pollution and environmental damage caused by tourists.
      - teruakohatu 7y ago
        In New Zealand they are closing off certain forests to stop the spread of a fungus. Our government is considering charging for entry to enter national parks to reduce visitors, but there is a lot of local opposition to this.
        fxtentacle 7y ago
        I was referring to the Wanaka tree story https://m.dpreview.com/news/3305755990/tourists-are-destroying-new-zealand-s-iconic-lake-wanaka-tree-for-instagram-photos https://m.dpreview.com/news/3305755990/tourists-are-destroyi...
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  > not allowing an owner to rent is transferring wealth to corporate hoteliers That doesn't seem right. There are a lot of mom & pop and SMBs offering legit accommodation, aside from those two ends of the spectrum
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  Hotels are much easier to regulate than if every person becomes a fake entrepreneur by renting out their apartment. Plus zoning rules help to keep an area livable. That's why people usually live in quiet areas and then walk over to the cafes down the road. In Germany, you are required to bring plastic bags so that you can take home your dog's poop. Many tourists don't know that, so ever since a neighbor started offering his spare room on Airbnb, our neighborhood became covered in dogsh. As a result, everyone now treats the AirBnb tourists with contempt, which I guess is also not nice for them. And why do you assume that AirBnb will not go to the top 1%? For entering the short-term-rental market you first and foremost need enough money to buy a nice city center apartment in addition to your actual home. That sounds like Chinese investment bubble to me, not like the struggling middle class.
  - ivanhoe 7y ago
    Just out of curiosity, did you try to talk to your neighbor and ask politely that he informs his guests to clean up after their dogs?
    - fxtentacle 7y ago
      Our neighbor is actually one of the better hosts because he still lives in the same house as his guests and talks to them in person. And he is trying hard to limit the bad effects from his guests, but with little success. The dogs are only one of many problems. As another example, in some countries it is still customary to throw your trash onto the main road where it will be burned at night. Most of the issues are due to guests that have a very different culture and do not speak German, French, or English. For newly rich Chinese, the host is understandably at a loss to explain our dos and donts. We also tried picture signs for explaining the dogs issue and there's a government-paid waste bag dispenser nearby. But a large part comes down to laziness and ignorance from the guests. If you never have to pick up your dog poop at home, would you do it while on vacation? Would you still do it even if nobody is watching? The peak of that attitude are UK tourists, notorious for their entitled "I am on vacation so I don't give a sh" approach. UK partying groups overdid it to the point where governments prohibit direct flights to keep them away. So how do you plan to re-educate them for a 3 day trip? In my opinion, the only good option is keeping impersonal tourists out of the residential areas. If they stay with friends and family, they will behave. But if they stay anonymously, no way to make them behave. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/858025/majorca-protest-mass-tourism-palma-without-limits-there-is-no-future https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/858025/majorca-protest-...

nouveaux 7y ago

At the same time, not allowing an owner to rent is transferring wealth to corporate hoteliers. Why is that better? I rather transfer wealth to middle class and upper middle class than give it to the 1%. Does anyone know why its so hard to tax Airbnb? Airbnb should be responsible for collecting tax on behalf of the state and county. Tax them and pass it on to the little guys.

ohazi 7y ago
> At the same time, not allowing an owner to rent is transferring wealth to corporate hoteliers. If you truly want this level of freedom, you need to not buy a condo or a property with a HOA. Additional rules for owners makes sense for condos and buildings with obviously shared common infrastructure and resources. I think it makes less sense for detached housing. Apparently a large number of developers building new houses at the subdivision-scale (not in California, lol) are now putting in HOAs automatically. It's going to be a pretty shitty situation in 30 years.
- thisisastopsign 7y ago
  I have a rental property that is in an HOA and I rent it out. What are you inferring?
  - tingletech 7y ago
    I'm not sure the exact point of the grand parent post -- but for a multi-unit building with the units titled as condos (which would usually have an owner's association) the rules for getting conventional financing in the US (I'm spacing on what those are called) dictate a certain percentage of the units must be owner occupied, lest the loans are not re-sellable in the secondary mortgage markets. Condo HOAs will thus sometimes try to pass rules or amend bylaws to establish rental restrictions of various sorts -- most commonly setting a minimum lease term, but sometimes trying to set percentages of units that must be owner occupied, limiting the numbers of units that can be owned by a single owner, or establishing a time frame a unit must be owner occupied before it can be rented. My understanding is that most of the new apartment buildings they are building around me in Oakland and trying to rent out are "pre-converted" or already titled as condos -- but as the investors are renting them out generally there is no HOA to speak of as there is one owner. But, should market conditions change, common areas and separate titles are already established so less paperwork would be required to sell off the units.
  - ohazi 7y ago
    Is your rental property a house or a condo? I'm asserting that buying a detached house that falls under an HOA is something that should generally be avoided. With a house, there are rarely shared resources that actually need to be managed so any potential benefit is minimal at best, and bad HOAs can be a nightmare, so the risk is high. I'm also lamenting the fact that developers building new neighborhoods of detached houses (e.g. in places like Austin) are apparently putting almost all of them under HOAs, perhaps because of some legal meme that doing so somehow reduces risk for the developer, or increases sale prices. I think this is an unfortunate trend.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      In my experience, most people want HOAs.
    - imtringued 7y ago
      Yes that sounds counterproductive. Multi-family buildings obviously need a central organisation because things like the elevator, roof, etc are shared infrastructure that requires funding from all occupants. A detached house can be fully owned by the occupant or the landlord. There is no need for middlemen.
    - thisisastopsign 7y ago
      Ya, I have a detached house. I’ve noticed the trend with HOAs being established by the builder. You’re right that there’s minimum shared property generally. Fortunately, every HOA I’ve been in has been good. On the other hand, I’ve looked in areas without HOAs and people didn’t take care of their property or yards, which drove their neighbor’s home value down (the deals seemed good enough to buy, until you drove up and saw your future neighbors).
hogFeast 7y ago
Why is it worse? I live somewhere that has huge inflows of tourists (something like 5-10x the population every year), and it is has utterly ravaged the property market. It isn't just that ~5% of the housing stock has disappeared (population growing 5%+ year and in an old city making it very hard to build new places cheaply) but that remaining stock has been converted to garbage (we now have HMOs...used to be a 2 bedroom? Converted into a 6 bedroom...again, this is a small city of a few hundred thousand...HMOs, didn't exist until five years ago, now everywhere). And yes, there are issues with the people who rent. I am not going to go into detail but I have lived in bad situations (above a homeless shelter, a policeman got shanked outside a place I used to live), it is genuinely unpleasant to have your place turn into a hotel around you. Part of this is negligent landlords (in any block of flats, AirBnb will lead to a build up of trash and abuse of common areas), part of this is unpleasant renters (I have had people ring my bell at 10pm asking for directions in broken English like I am a concierge) but the most obvious point is...why is this even a thing? These are houses. People live here. If you want to stay somewhere, stay in a hotel...that is why they exist (short-term letting in most places is a loophole to let people stay in houses for short to medium periods, not a few nights like a hotel). And yes, there are issues with tax. In many places in the world, hotel rooms are taxed. AirBnb is not (this will vary, I believe some places have specific taxes that hotels pay directly, others have varying rates of VAT, etc.). Unf, the local council has so many property-owners and people making money off this situation that I suspect nothing will be done. But, again, I live somewhere where this is huge, tourism has never been an issue (it is a huge part of the economy), and it is deeply unpopular. A lot of these landlords aren't local, they do nothing about the costs imposed on other residents...it is a cancer, it is like having a shitty landlord but you all have to live there. And btw, the place I live gets the same amount as vistors as always...AirBnb doesn't matter, no value is being created for the local economy, people don't come to stay in an AirBnb. Rant over. Fk AirBnb.
- kp98 7y ago
  You look at a place like Toronto or New York and see the amount of damage done. Airbnb has created an entirely new way to speculate in the housing market while skirting all sorts of consumer protections, taxes, and local laws. Frankly I’m starting to despise the company and can’t believe nothing has been done about this in more states
jraby3 7y ago
In many states Airbnb already does collect the tax from the guest and passes it onto the state and city. These governments are finally getting the other services like homeaway to do the same.
ip26 7y ago
However allowing them to rent in this fashion is also transferring wealth from their neighbors to them, as the appeal of the residential neighborhood drives the rent rate while the neighboring residents bear many of the costs of the short term rental (loud parties etc)
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  Is there any real evidence that short-term rentals decrease the value of a neighborhood? On the flip-side, people on vacation tend to patronize restaurants, cafes, shops, museums, music venues, theaters, and sporting events at much higher rates than day-to-day residents. Even disregarding the economic benefits and jobs that creates, they're subsidizing a ton of cultural amenities for the local residents. It's pretty hard for me to believe that move visitors are a bad thing. I've certainly never heard of a city spending marketing dollars to get fewer tourists. ("Stay away from Nashville, it sucks here!")
  - fxtentacle 7y ago
    Look at Venice. They try very hard to keep short-term visitors out because all the locals hate them. Also, look at New Zealand closing off what used to be public parks to limit the pollution and environmental damage caused by tourists.
    - teruakohatu 7y ago
      In New Zealand they are closing off certain forests to stop the spread of a fungus. Our government is considering charging for entry to enter national parks to reduce visitors, but there is a lot of local opposition to this.
      - fxtentacle 7y ago
        I was referring to the Wanaka tree story https://m.dpreview.com/news/3305755990/tourists-are-destroying-new-zealand-s-iconic-lake-wanaka-tree-for-instagram-photos https://m.dpreview.com/news/3305755990/tourists-are-destroyi...
cookie_monsta 7y ago
> not allowing an owner to rent is transferring wealth to corporate hoteliers That doesn't seem right. There are a lot of mom & pop and SMBs offering legit accommodation, aside from those two ends of the spectrum
fxtentacle 7y ago
Hotels are much easier to regulate than if every person becomes a fake entrepreneur by renting out their apartment. Plus zoning rules help to keep an area livable. That's why people usually live in quiet areas and then walk over to the cafes down the road. In Germany, you are required to bring plastic bags so that you can take home your dog's poop. Many tourists don't know that, so ever since a neighbor started offering his spare room on Airbnb, our neighborhood became covered in dogsh. As a result, everyone now treats the AirBnb tourists with contempt, which I guess is also not nice for them. And why do you assume that AirBnb will not go to the top 1%? For entering the short-term-rental market you first and foremost need enough money to buy a nice city center apartment in addition to your actual home. That sounds like Chinese investment bubble to me, not like the struggling middle class.
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  Just out of curiosity, did you try to talk to your neighbor and ask politely that he informs his guests to clean up after their dogs?
  - fxtentacle 7y ago
    Our neighbor is actually one of the better hosts because he still lives in the same house as his guests and talks to them in person. And he is trying hard to limit the bad effects from his guests, but with little success. The dogs are only one of many problems. As another example, in some countries it is still customary to throw your trash onto the main road where it will be burned at night. Most of the issues are due to guests that have a very different culture and do not speak German, French, or English. For newly rich Chinese, the host is understandably at a loss to explain our dos and donts. We also tried picture signs for explaining the dogs issue and there's a government-paid waste bag dispenser nearby. But a large part comes down to laziness and ignorance from the guests. If you never have to pick up your dog poop at home, would you do it while on vacation? Would you still do it even if nobody is watching? The peak of that attitude are UK tourists, notorious for their entitled "I am on vacation so I don't give a sh" approach. UK partying groups overdid it to the point where governments prohibit direct flights to keep them away. So how do you plan to re-educate them for a 3 day trip? In my opinion, the only good option is keeping impersonal tourists out of the residential areas. If they stay with friends and family, they will behave. But if they stay anonymously, no way to make them behave. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/858025/majorca-protest-mass-tourism-palma-without-limits-there-is-no-future https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/858025/majorca-protest-...