5 ms·

Why all the hatred on Airbnb? I think the fact that housing is treated as an investment vehicle rather than... a home should be dealt with first. Just walking a

Why all the hatred on Airbnb? I think the fact that housing is treated as an investment vehicle rather than... a home should be dealt with first. Just walking around my neighborhood you can see who is renting and who owns based on the upkeep and effort put into the property. Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in.

DeBraid 5y ago
Likely because of the outliers. If you live in a "nice quiet neighbourhood" and an airbnb party house emerges, everyone freaks out. Horror stories on sites like https://www.airbnbhell.com/ https://www.airbnbhell.com/ are remarkable. Clearly these aren't typical host/guest experiences, but they seem more societally acceptable at hotels vs houses.
- baby 5y ago
  Interesting, kind of like poverty is acceptable if it's quarantined downtown/in skid row and tenderloin types of districts (or in suburbs in Europe), but if it's in my district then HOLY SHIT.
AlexandrB 5y ago
> Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in. The two are related. Airbnb makes owning investment properties more lucrative. You can generally make more money and you don't have to worry about tenant protection laws that make eviction and raising rent harder for traditional long-term rentals.
baby 5y ago
This a million time, I truly believe AirBnB has changed the world for the better. The real problem in the US is that cities are not built for density, and thus are not prepared for tourism. Tourism is usually good from the point of view of people and commerces: it brings money and life to districts.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  Well there have been several studies which concluded that the economic costs out weight the benifits. This has also nothing to do with density US vs Europe. In fact I suspect that many European cities are hit much worse than most US cities, because they are much more popular tourist destinations (the city with the most Airbnb lisings is London). Centres of some popular destinations (e.g. Nice) are now almost completely short term rental. The knock-on effect is that, even for the few long term residents the city is becoming less liveable because supermarkets are moving out and tourist shops are moving in. Essentially, short term rentals are turning many old city centres into something akin to Disneyland, an attraction park with nobody actually living there, because they can't afford to.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    This exact thing actually happened in the States already. Gatlinburg, Tennessee is a prime example of it. 50 years ago the workers in the area lived there, now they've all been driven out by short term rentals and everything is pretty much tourist hell.
  - baby 5y ago
    > the economic costs out weight the benifits That feels very subjective. I’d rather live in lively city than a ghost town.
    - dorchadas 5y ago
      A lively city of tourists? Because there certainly aren't locals living in that city because they're all being driven out. Also lively cities existed well before AirBnB, and AirBnB isn't essential to having a 'lively city'. In fact, I'd argue it's detrimental as all the actual residents that give the city its color get pushed out.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        Writing from Prague, where the # of tourists has gone significantly down (to the levels of late 90s or so), life is so much better. In my opinion, there is such a thing as overtourism and we have entered that territory right before covid. Narrow medieval streets stuffed chock-full of people (sometimes I wondered how no one gets trampled to death). So, so many tourist traps selling weird shit. Flocks of Segway riders dispersing pedestrians. Locals living there for decades were pushed out by short term rentals. Plus, the unhappy fact that especially young British guys arrived with only one objective, to get monumentally sloshed on (relatively) cheap booze. Then fight the police or random civilians, puke everywhere etc. Oh the joy, straight out of William Hogarth's morality pictures, only with modern clothing. Tourism makes money, yes. But it can be overdone. And I wonder what the effects are for further development of the country. If you have a choice between studying something hard (engineering) and getting your money from neverending flocks of tourists that come your way, the end result may be societal laziness.
dorchadas 5y ago
Why do I hate AirBnB? Because I've been at the other end, where I wasn't able to find long term accommodation in a city because so much of it had been ported to short term rentals to give the tourists. The sooner AirBnB is gone and these short term rentals get back on the long term market, the better. And, the numbers from the pandemic in Dublin show it's quite a decent amount: the supply literally doubled once all those short-term rentals went to long-term because lack of tourism. And that's likely just the more over-leveraged owners, so there's still a lot that's being used as AirBnB than for the locals. Tourists shouldn't feel entitled to live like locals; they're not locals.
- zamfi 5y ago
  This isn’t an Airbnb problem. This is a regulatory problem. Tons of people want to visit a city, airbnb makes it possible for short-term rentals to find short-term tenants. Getting rid of airbnb doesn’t solve your problem because some new service for finding short-term tenants will take its place. Restricting short-term rentals by regulation does solve your problem.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    AirBnB is the reason the short term rental problem exists. It exacerbates it. Short term rentals were nowhere near as popular as they are before AirBnB. If AirBnB doesn't exist, they won't be anywhere near as popular as they currently are. And the issue is these aren't short term rentals. They're long term rentals that are being used for short term. That's the whole issue. These were never short term until AirBnB made it super easy to make them so. Without AirBnB, or some other similar service, this isn't as big of an issue. Also, in several cities AirBnB allows owners to operate short term rentals illegally because they don't enforce anything or aid in much enforcement at all.
    - zamfi 5y ago
      > Without AirBnB, or some other similar service, this isn't as big of an issue. Emphasis mine — this is my point. The barn door is open; the horses are gone. Get rid of Airbnb and others will follow. Music piracy didn’t magically stop with the end of Napster.
asdff 5y ago
Why would a renter do any unpaid upkeep for a property they don't own? That's the job of the land owner if they want to increase the value of their asset. The renter doesn't see any of that increase in appraisal for a well maintained front yard. For some neighborhoods, Airbnb do make up a much larger share of the finite housing stock. You are adding hotel capacity where there hasn't been any zoned, so you have to make that capacity out of the finite housing stock available, limiting housing available to people who are longer term members of the local economy. That's the fundamental issue with it.

DeBraid 5y ago

Likely because of the outliers. If you live in a "nice quiet neighbourhood" and an airbnb party house emerges, everyone freaks out. Horror stories on sites like https://www.airbnbhell.com/ https://www.airbnbhell.com/ are remarkable. Clearly these aren't typical host/guest experiences, but they seem more societally acceptable at hotels vs houses.

baby 5y ago
Interesting, kind of like poverty is acceptable if it's quarantined downtown/in skid row and tenderloin types of districts (or in suburbs in Europe), but if it's in my district then HOLY SHIT.

AlexandrB 5y ago

> Airbnb is a minuscule fraction compared to the torrent of homes that are purchased as investments vs for living in. The two are related. Airbnb makes owning investment properties more lucrative. You can generally make more money and you don't have to worry about tenant protection laws that make eviction and raising rent harder for traditional long-term rentals.

baby 5y ago

This a million time, I truly believe AirBnB has changed the world for the better. The real problem in the US is that cities are not built for density, and thus are not prepared for tourism. Tourism is usually good from the point of view of people and commerces: it brings money and life to districts.

cycomanic 5y ago
Well there have been several studies which concluded that the economic costs out weight the benifits. This has also nothing to do with density US vs Europe. In fact I suspect that many European cities are hit much worse than most US cities, because they are much more popular tourist destinations (the city with the most Airbnb lisings is London). Centres of some popular destinations (e.g. Nice) are now almost completely short term rental. The knock-on effect is that, even for the few long term residents the city is becoming less liveable because supermarkets are moving out and tourist shops are moving in. Essentially, short term rentals are turning many old city centres into something akin to Disneyland, an attraction park with nobody actually living there, because they can't afford to.
- dorchadas 5y ago
  This exact thing actually happened in the States already. Gatlinburg, Tennessee is a prime example of it. 50 years ago the workers in the area lived there, now they've all been driven out by short term rentals and everything is pretty much tourist hell.
- baby 5y ago
  > the economic costs out weight the benifits That feels very subjective. I’d rather live in lively city than a ghost town.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    A lively city of tourists? Because there certainly aren't locals living in that city because they're all being driven out. Also lively cities existed well before AirBnB, and AirBnB isn't essential to having a 'lively city'. In fact, I'd argue it's detrimental as all the actual residents that give the city its color get pushed out.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      Writing from Prague, where the # of tourists has gone significantly down (to the levels of late 90s or so), life is so much better. In my opinion, there is such a thing as overtourism and we have entered that territory right before covid. Narrow medieval streets stuffed chock-full of people (sometimes I wondered how no one gets trampled to death). So, so many tourist traps selling weird shit. Flocks of Segway riders dispersing pedestrians. Locals living there for decades were pushed out by short term rentals. Plus, the unhappy fact that especially young British guys arrived with only one objective, to get monumentally sloshed on (relatively) cheap booze. Then fight the police or random civilians, puke everywhere etc. Oh the joy, straight out of William Hogarth's morality pictures, only with modern clothing. Tourism makes money, yes. But it can be overdone. And I wonder what the effects are for further development of the country. If you have a choice between studying something hard (engineering) and getting your money from neverending flocks of tourists that come your way, the end result may be societal laziness.

dorchadas 5y ago

Why do I hate AirBnB? Because I've been at the other end, where I wasn't able to find long term accommodation in a city because so much of it had been ported to short term rentals to give the tourists. The sooner AirBnB is gone and these short term rentals get back on the long term market, the better. And, the numbers from the pandemic in Dublin show it's quite a decent amount: the supply literally doubled once all those short-term rentals went to long-term because lack of tourism. And that's likely just the more over-leveraged owners, so there's still a lot that's being used as AirBnB than for the locals. Tourists shouldn't feel entitled to live like locals; they're not locals.

zamfi 5y ago
This isn’t an Airbnb problem. This is a regulatory problem. Tons of people want to visit a city, airbnb makes it possible for short-term rentals to find short-term tenants. Getting rid of airbnb doesn’t solve your problem because some new service for finding short-term tenants will take its place. Restricting short-term rentals by regulation does solve your problem.
- dorchadas 5y ago
  AirBnB is the reason the short term rental problem exists. It exacerbates it. Short term rentals were nowhere near as popular as they are before AirBnB. If AirBnB doesn't exist, they won't be anywhere near as popular as they currently are. And the issue is these aren't short term rentals. They're long term rentals that are being used for short term. That's the whole issue. These were never short term until AirBnB made it super easy to make them so. Without AirBnB, or some other similar service, this isn't as big of an issue. Also, in several cities AirBnB allows owners to operate short term rentals illegally because they don't enforce anything or aid in much enforcement at all.
  - zamfi 5y ago
    > Without AirBnB, or some other similar service, this isn't as big of an issue. Emphasis mine — this is my point. The barn door is open; the horses are gone. Get rid of Airbnb and others will follow. Music piracy didn’t magically stop with the end of Napster.

asdff 5y ago

Why would a renter do any unpaid upkeep for a property they don't own? That's the job of the land owner if they want to increase the value of their asset. The renter doesn't see any of that increase in appraisal for a well maintained front yard. For some neighborhoods, Airbnb do make up a much larger share of the finite housing stock. You are adding hotel capacity where there hasn't been any zoned, so you have to make that capacity out of the finite housing stock available, limiting housing available to people who are longer term members of the local economy. That's the fundamental issue with it.