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Airbnb must be making ZERO dollars right now. Wonder how long they can survive in this situation. They sure have a lot of funding but they were close to going p

Airbnb must be making ZERO dollars right now. Wonder how long they can survive in this situation. They sure have a lot of funding but they were close to going public and returning money to their investors. If this continues they will need to raise more cash and that round is going to be severely discounted. In general I am not sure how their business will pan out over the next year or so.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
Not zero dollars, but certainly less. I'm in an Airbnb in The Canary Islands, and will be through at least May. When I found out the lockdown was happening, I scrambled to rent Airbnbs thru May because I didn't have a place to return to, and staying in Spain felt safer to me than returning to the USA.
- standardUser 7y ago
  I was in an AirBnB abroad when the lockdowns started and I'll likely be in one again soon (I have no permanent residence currently and am staying with family). Unfortunately, some cities are putting limitations on rentals so I may have limited options.
- thulecitizen 7y ago
  > staying in Spain felt safer to me than returning to the USA Because of better adherence to social distancing rules? Are you a SWE working remotely?
  - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
    Yes to both.
dehrmann 7y ago
They did raise $2B in the last month. That should help.
almost_usual 7y ago
Airbnb missed the IPO window in 2019. They will not IPO for years now if ever.
- amiga_500 7y ago
  They have pivoted to new tech that took all of 3 weeks, surely Buffet will be straight in there for this "moat"!
amiga_500 7y ago
The bigger problem is going to be the people holding the bag: accommodation owners. They have a mortgage and no income.
- SaxonRobber 7y ago
  Airbnb was supposed to be a platform for sharing your house, not starting your own distributed hotel.
  - amiga_500 7y ago
    I totally agree. However that is not what it became. This cannot have been a surprise to AirBnb, as it must have required huge lobbying across many countries. The three stages of airbnb: - actual sharing of spare capacity on a temporary basis (for example effectively a house swap while on holiday) - rental of permanent properties by "early adopters" who saw the loophole and the gap in the market - inundation of full time speculators who own many properties and lots of highly leveraged "owners" who have one or a handful of properties, plus landlords who couldn't add up and had negative yield on their long-term rentals and bailed to short term The last layer here are going to get hit hard. Many will retreat to long-term rentals again, which will see rents fall. For those who already had negative yield before moving to airbnb, this will be even worse now. Also many airbnb rentiers will have a low skill set, with bad qualifications. They got into it because it seemed like easy money, and they will be the first to suffer in the coming recession. Forced sellers. ----- I'll add my comment here as I mentioned unearned income, which hacker news really don't like, so they gave me the fake "you're posting too fast" even though I've posted nothing for over 20 minutes. They used Ireland as a proxy to avoid tax? God these people have zero shame.
    - hwh 7y ago
      Here in Germany, the last mentioned tier will also have looked fondly upon getting the money wired in from Ireland and may have lived with the assumption that they don't have to think about taxes at all. At least some of the "owners" of those basic, Ikea-equipped flats did not really strike me as being quite up to it. There has also grown a job market for "room service" agencies, cleaning and equipping AirBnB rental objects for many "owners". I've seen their actual check lists (think restroom cleaning checklist) pinned to the object's door.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

Not zero dollars, but certainly less. I'm in an Airbnb in The Canary Islands, and will be through at least May. When I found out the lockdown was happening, I scrambled to rent Airbnbs thru May because I didn't have a place to return to, and staying in Spain felt safer to me than returning to the USA.

standardUser 7y ago
I was in an AirBnB abroad when the lockdowns started and I'll likely be in one again soon (I have no permanent residence currently and am staying with family). Unfortunately, some cities are putting limitations on rentals so I may have limited options.
thulecitizen 7y ago
> staying in Spain felt safer to me than returning to the USA Because of better adherence to social distancing rules? Are you a SWE working remotely?
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  Yes to both.

dehrmann 7y ago

They did raise $2B in the last month. That should help.

almost_usual 7y ago

Airbnb missed the IPO window in 2019. They will not IPO for years now if ever.

amiga_500 7y ago
They have pivoted to new tech that took all of 3 weeks, surely Buffet will be straight in there for this "moat"!

amiga_500 7y ago

The bigger problem is going to be the people holding the bag: accommodation owners. They have a mortgage and no income.

SaxonRobber 7y ago
Airbnb was supposed to be a platform for sharing your house, not starting your own distributed hotel.
- amiga_500 7y ago
  I totally agree. However that is not what it became. This cannot have been a surprise to AirBnb, as it must have required huge lobbying across many countries. The three stages of airbnb: - actual sharing of spare capacity on a temporary basis (for example effectively a house swap while on holiday) - rental of permanent properties by "early adopters" who saw the loophole and the gap in the market - inundation of full time speculators who own many properties and lots of highly leveraged "owners" who have one or a handful of properties, plus landlords who couldn't add up and had negative yield on their long-term rentals and bailed to short term The last layer here are going to get hit hard. Many will retreat to long-term rentals again, which will see rents fall. For those who already had negative yield before moving to airbnb, this will be even worse now. Also many airbnb rentiers will have a low skill set, with bad qualifications. They got into it because it seemed like easy money, and they will be the first to suffer in the coming recession. Forced sellers. ----- I'll add my comment here as I mentioned unearned income, which hacker news really don't like, so they gave me the fake "you're posting too fast" even though I've posted nothing for over 20 minutes. They used Ireland as a proxy to avoid tax? God these people have zero shame.
  - hwh 7y ago
    Here in Germany, the last mentioned tier will also have looked fondly upon getting the money wired in from Ireland and may have lived with the assumption that they don't have to think about taxes at all. At least some of the "owners" of those basic, Ikea-equipped flats did not really strike me as being quite up to it. There has also grown a job market for "room service" agencies, cleaning and equipping AirBnB rental objects for many "owners". I've seen their actual check lists (think restroom cleaning checklist) pinned to the object's door.