7 ms·
Banning Airbnb considered as housing crisis bites in coastal towns
- jseliger 5y agoTowns will consider absolutely anything to lower costs except building new housing: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-end-homelessness-except-build-more-homes https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-will-do-anything-to-en.... Sadly, we're at the stage of this "crisis" where parody is the only appropriate response.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoI wonder if America will ever build new cities.
- jseliger 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28434514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28434514
- seattle_spring 5y agoThere are plenty of existing cities and towns that simply could use some revitalization.
- travisporter 5y agoAlways wondered if you could solve housing issues by high speed rail, like Sacramento-Bay area (not a local so I could be completely wrong)
- willcipriano 5y agoIf I was going to spend a few trillion on infrastructure, I'd look into build massive housing blocks on the distant outskirts of the most expensive cities and connect them via fully automated high speed rail lines. Eventually the areas around the housing blocks would become cities in and of themselves if you put them out far enough.
- nzrf 5y agoThat reminds me of book the way you put that with automated high speed rail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll It seems like we have wanted to solve the highway congestion problem since its inception, if that was published in 1940.
- eddiewithzato 5y agoHope they ban investment properties for residential addresses. Investment properties should really only be for business buildings.
- anamax 5y agoWhat definition of "investment properties" are you using? Does someone who rents two houses count as "investment properties"? How about someone who owns a complex with 50 units? How about a corporation that owns a complex with 500 units?
- jamil7 5y agoI thought the definition was fairly clear and agreed upon?
- anamax 5y agoIt's curious that you imply that "everyone agrees" on the relevant definition but you didn't classify my examples according to that definition or say that investment or not depends on other things. Of course, my examples are intended to show that there is no "clear and agreed upon" definition.
- Arainach 5y agoA residence which is both: 1) Occupied at least a certain portion (let's say 10%) of the year 2) Occupied by the owner at least twice as often as occupied by non-owners Can be considered a personal residence in my book. Anything not meeting this is an investment property.
- anamax 5y agoUnder that definition, almost all rental residences in the US are investment property, and thus would be banned under the proposal. Consider a friend of mine who owns two houses. If he lives in one, the other will be "investment property" if he rents it a significant fraction of the year and thus banned. He can't move back and forth to avoid that because there are only 12 months in the year and it takes at least 8 months (per house) to satisfy the "twice as often" requirement. The only way out is for him to leave the second house vacant the vast majority of the year. That pretty much defeats the purpose of owning a rental and it means that someone who'd want to rent is out of luck.
- anamax 5y agoMonterey CA (USA) bans all rentals of less than a month except for legal hotels.
- throw_m239339 5y agoI just want to say, I live in a country where there are laws for and against almost everything, where most Airbnb listings are basically illegal, yet the city I live in is one of the top Airbnb destination. What I mean, is that laws are useless if there is no means to for them to be seriously enforced, which is the case where I live. On the other hand, if I were to create my own Airbnb website in that same country, I'd be shut down by the end of the week and put in jail facilitating illegal renting listings, while Airbnb executives risk absolutely nothing since they live in USA.
- atatatat 5y agoWhy be upset? Instead, make a service breaking laws elsewhere but not your home jurisdiction.