5 ms·

Clearly they're spending a lot of money, and maybe they'll need to do layoffs and/or other budget cuts to make it through this, but I imagine Airbnb will actual

by cactus2093 7y ago

Clearly they're spending a lot of money, and maybe they'll need to do layoffs and/or other budget cuts to make it through this, but I imagine Airbnb will actually come out of this even stronger relative to the rest of the hotel industry. They don't own or lease buildings the way other hotel chains do, or have their own maintenance or cleaning staff, so they've got to be losing less money per unit right now while everything is shut down. If some hosts over-extended themselves on mortgages for their rental properties and get foreclosed on, that's not really Airbnb's problem. They may even get bailed out by the government, which then directly benefits Airbnb. And in the medium term, I think their booking rates might bounce back quicker than other hotels. In a world where the lockdowns have lifted but we're still recommending/enforcing social distancing in most places, which could last years, I imagine the demand to go and stay in a traditional, crowded hotel in Paris or NYC is still going to be pretty low. Business travel may not pick back up very quickly, as companies cut costs in the recession plus they've seen how meetings can mostly be done fine remotely. Massive conferences with thousands of people seem unlikely to happen for a very long time. But people will still want some kind of leisure and vacation. Renting a house or cottage a couple hours away on a lake or in a small vacation town is a relatively safe thing to do where you can maintain social distancing pretty well, which is the scenario where I'm most likely to use Airbnb instead of a hotel. On top of that, local governments have bigger problems to worry about than short-term rentals right now, so Airbnb may also get a couple years break from their constant legal battles with various cities.

dumbfounder 7y ago
Agreed. Where do you want to be, in a hotel around a bunch of strangers? Or in a house where you can keep distance from other families? We tried to rent a house down south (SC, GA, FL) where we could have a pool and our kids could swim, but most states have no short term rental orders in effect. As soon as those lift I think you will see certain properties bounce back. No hotels for us until this thing clears up.
- r00fus 7y ago
  This makes sense, but honestly I thought about post-COVID airbnb and my trust of hosts or other guests - and that trust is pretty dang low. The fact that anyone hosting an airbnb may be more likely to be one of those reckless "open up America" folks is more likely than a properly organized hotel chain that can enforce cleanliness and social distance. It's sad - I can't foresee staying anywhere other than my home anytime in the medium term.
  - nyczomg 7y ago
    I totally agree with you. I think for the foreseeable future, people will be very risk averse. Going with a larger organization that is regulated, likely has more standards in place for safety, better training, etc. will be a natural choice for people. A similar example that I've seen recently is the restaurant industry. I have been trying to support a local restaurant that switched to take-out. They really are trying, and I'm rooting for them, but... I've seen an employee almost use her mouth to pull the cap off a pen for a customer to sign their credit card receipt. I've been at the takeout window paying for my order while they called up another customer to come sign a credit card receipt - obviously negating any distancing we were observing in line. Contrast that to Burger King, which I stopped at the other day on the way home from buying groceries. Their contactless drive thru game is much better, I'm sure because they have people in an office dedicated to creating new procedures, training staff, etc. When things open back up, expect to see lots of hotels advertising and touting all of the cleaning precautions they are taking, new checkin procedures, etc. Airbnb will not be able to offer any of those assurances.
    - cactus2093 7y ago
      Kind of a tangent, but the fact that signing credit card receipts is still a thing during this pandemic is absurd. Doing this was useless enough during normal times. I don't actually know the reason, but it does seem like small businesses are more likely to require signatures than chains. Why is that?
      - r00fus 7y ago
- Barrin92 7y ago
  >Agreed. Where do you want to be, in a hotel around a bunch of strangers? Personally in a hotel because I at least know that the hotel is going to be cleaned.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - shalmanese 7y ago
    A hotel being cleaned is a person you don't know entering your room every day and breathing all over everything. I'd much rather a single house where you can do a deep clean yourself on the day you move in and then be sure nobody except yourselves have entered the house until you've left.
    - lasgsf 7y ago
      Same here. What if Airbnb has option where you pay extra for a deep clean before you check-in from approved vendors?
  - lasgsf 7y ago
    Do you trust that the housekeeper who gets paid $15/hour and prob cleans 50 rooms a shift is really going to clean your place throughly? Also the amount of traffic in the hotel, the check-in counter, the people in the elevator, the room service food that has gone through multiple sets of hands....yeah sure this is safer. I rather have an Airbnb that does remote check-in. Once there I will do my own cleaning and not worry about unknown traffic in my place for rest of the stay. In addition I can buy my own groceries therefore reducing another vector point of transmission. Seems like a better proposition then the hotel IMHO if you really are scared of getting infected.
fredophile 7y ago
I disagree. Do homeowners want to be renting out property on AirBnB if we still have social distancing in place? Professional AirBnB landlords are going to have serious financial trouble soon if they continue to have no or very low bookings. How long can they stay solvent? AirBnB could have a big supply problem before this is done.
- dorchadas 7y ago
  I also think local governments will see a lot of the apartments re-enter the long-term rent market, helping fix some of the housing problem... And then make laws to make sure they don't leave it again. I know they're already starting to re-enter the market in Dublin, where I'm currently in contact with people about housing as I'm looking at moving for school, and I don't think the populace would easily give those back up to let tourists come run them out of their town and Jack up prices again.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    > I don't think the populace would easily give those back up to let tourists come run them out of their town and Jack up prices again. This assumes people value having greater supply of housing, and low housing costs. If this were true, wouldn't they just support building more housing generally? Yet almost every city tends to oppose building lots of new housing. It seems like it could easily go in exactly the opposite direction. People seeing how hard the local economy has been hit, and wanting the tourism to pick back up at any cost. Homeowners see their property values have fallen, and want to reduce the housing supply to make them go back up. Of course, many people don't even believe in basic supply and demand at all when it comes to housing, so even this level of analysis may be applying too much logic to how the average person will react.
    - toofy 7y ago
      > This assumes people value having a greater supply of housing... If this were true, wouldn't they just support building more housing generally? I’m not sure most people (or most cities) are saying they want a greater supply of housing. I suspect most people want to keep the character of a city and keep prices reasonable by mitigating against vampiric tendencies of some landowners/horders.
lasgsf 7y ago
I agree 100% as well. A couple things: 1. They already own the short-term rental market. Why not expand to the long-term rental market and undercut the broker fee that currently occur right now. 2. Pent up demand for travel: Reality is that once/if vaccine hit you can bet consumers are going to travel like crazy due to pent-up demand after being stuck at home for months. 3. Movement to WFH: The movement to WFH will only become more pronounce after Covid. If this is the case you will see a bunch of consumers ask why bother staying in the city I was working at if I can WFH anywhere in the world? Thus AirBnb rentals would be the key to doing this. 4. Fear of the crowds: If you had a choice of staying in a crowded hotel where perhaps the cleaning is slightly better vs. staying at a home where minimal crowd what would you chose in a world with Covid? In fact what they should do is offer an extra add-on for guest to pay for a more deep clean of the unit prior to rental. 5. Hotels with fixed cost are going to drop like flies: Means less hotel inventory globally as they go out of business. 6. Due to loss of jobs/income: More folks will need to securize their fix assets meaning house for additional income which means more inventory for Airbnb Anyway this all assumes that a vaccine comes out and in the near-term it is going to be pretty brutal for them.

dumbfounder 7y ago

Agreed. Where do you want to be, in a hotel around a bunch of strangers? Or in a house where you can keep distance from other families? We tried to rent a house down south (SC, GA, FL) where we could have a pool and our kids could swim, but most states have no short term rental orders in effect. As soon as those lift I think you will see certain properties bounce back. No hotels for us until this thing clears up.

r00fus 7y ago
This makes sense, but honestly I thought about post-COVID airbnb and my trust of hosts or other guests - and that trust is pretty dang low. The fact that anyone hosting an airbnb may be more likely to be one of those reckless "open up America" folks is more likely than a properly organized hotel chain that can enforce cleanliness and social distance. It's sad - I can't foresee staying anywhere other than my home anytime in the medium term.
- nyczomg 7y ago
  I totally agree with you. I think for the foreseeable future, people will be very risk averse. Going with a larger organization that is regulated, likely has more standards in place for safety, better training, etc. will be a natural choice for people. A similar example that I've seen recently is the restaurant industry. I have been trying to support a local restaurant that switched to take-out. They really are trying, and I'm rooting for them, but... I've seen an employee almost use her mouth to pull the cap off a pen for a customer to sign their credit card receipt. I've been at the takeout window paying for my order while they called up another customer to come sign a credit card receipt - obviously negating any distancing we were observing in line. Contrast that to Burger King, which I stopped at the other day on the way home from buying groceries. Their contactless drive thru game is much better, I'm sure because they have people in an office dedicated to creating new procedures, training staff, etc. When things open back up, expect to see lots of hotels advertising and touting all of the cleaning precautions they are taking, new checkin procedures, etc. Airbnb will not be able to offer any of those assurances.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    Kind of a tangent, but the fact that signing credit card receipts is still a thing during this pandemic is absurd. Doing this was useless enough during normal times. I don't actually know the reason, but it does seem like small businesses are more likely to require signatures than chains. Why is that?
    - r00fus 7y ago
Barrin92 7y ago
>Agreed. Where do you want to be, in a hotel around a bunch of strangers? Personally in a hotel because I at least know that the hotel is going to be cleaned.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- shalmanese 7y ago
  A hotel being cleaned is a person you don't know entering your room every day and breathing all over everything. I'd much rather a single house where you can do a deep clean yourself on the day you move in and then be sure nobody except yourselves have entered the house until you've left.
  - lasgsf 7y ago
    Same here. What if Airbnb has option where you pay extra for a deep clean before you check-in from approved vendors?
- lasgsf 7y ago
  Do you trust that the housekeeper who gets paid $15/hour and prob cleans 50 rooms a shift is really going to clean your place throughly? Also the amount of traffic in the hotel, the check-in counter, the people in the elevator, the room service food that has gone through multiple sets of hands....yeah sure this is safer. I rather have an Airbnb that does remote check-in. Once there I will do my own cleaning and not worry about unknown traffic in my place for rest of the stay. In addition I can buy my own groceries therefore reducing another vector point of transmission. Seems like a better proposition then the hotel IMHO if you really are scared of getting infected.

fredophile 7y ago

I disagree. Do homeowners want to be renting out property on AirBnB if we still have social distancing in place? Professional AirBnB landlords are going to have serious financial trouble soon if they continue to have no or very low bookings. How long can they stay solvent? AirBnB could have a big supply problem before this is done.

dorchadas 7y ago
I also think local governments will see a lot of the apartments re-enter the long-term rent market, helping fix some of the housing problem... And then make laws to make sure they don't leave it again. I know they're already starting to re-enter the market in Dublin, where I'm currently in contact with people about housing as I'm looking at moving for school, and I don't think the populace would easily give those back up to let tourists come run them out of their town and Jack up prices again.
- cactus2093 7y ago
  > I don't think the populace would easily give those back up to let tourists come run them out of their town and Jack up prices again. This assumes people value having greater supply of housing, and low housing costs. If this were true, wouldn't they just support building more housing generally? Yet almost every city tends to oppose building lots of new housing. It seems like it could easily go in exactly the opposite direction. People seeing how hard the local economy has been hit, and wanting the tourism to pick back up at any cost. Homeowners see their property values have fallen, and want to reduce the housing supply to make them go back up. Of course, many people don't even believe in basic supply and demand at all when it comes to housing, so even this level of analysis may be applying too much logic to how the average person will react.
  - toofy 7y ago
    > This assumes people value having a greater supply of housing... If this were true, wouldn't they just support building more housing generally? I’m not sure most people (or most cities) are saying they want a greater supply of housing. I suspect most people want to keep the character of a city and keep prices reasonable by mitigating against vampiric tendencies of some landowners/horders.

lasgsf 7y ago

I agree 100% as well. A couple things: 1. They already own the short-term rental market. Why not expand to the long-term rental market and undercut the broker fee that currently occur right now. 2. Pent up demand for travel: Reality is that once/if vaccine hit you can bet consumers are going to travel like crazy due to pent-up demand after being stuck at home for months. 3. Movement to WFH: The movement to WFH will only become more pronounce after Covid. If this is the case you will see a bunch of consumers ask why bother staying in the city I was working at if I can WFH anywhere in the world? Thus AirBnb rentals would be the key to doing this. 4. Fear of the crowds: If you had a choice of staying in a crowded hotel where perhaps the cleaning is slightly better vs. staying at a home where minimal crowd what would you chose in a world with Covid? In fact what they should do is offer an extra add-on for guest to pay for a more deep clean of the unit prior to rental. 5. Hotels with fixed cost are going to drop like flies: Means less hotel inventory globally as they go out of business. 6. Due to loss of jobs/income: More folks will need to securize their fix assets meaning house for additional income which means more inventory for Airbnb Anyway this all assumes that a vaccine comes out and in the near-term it is going to be pretty brutal for them.