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Airbnb removes 80% of advertisements in Amsterdam after registration obligation
- quotemstr 5y agoIt's really sad how throughout the western world governments have come to rely on big tech monopolies to act as their enforcers instead of just enforcing the law using the normal machinery of the state. Once the state becomes addicted to enforcement via big tech, it becomes reluctant to break up those big tech companies and promote competition.
- elzbardico 5y agoAirbnb is great when traveling, but it made things more difficult for renters in cities with even a slightly moderate amount of tourism. Better houses with amenities like pools are almost completely out of the long-term rental market, or have insane prices. For the professional urban renter this just means a less fancy rental, but this less fancy rental now is out of the reach for lower income people.
- airza 5y agoIt says advertisements in the article, but maybe a more clear term is 'listing'?
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoYes that confused me too.
- b112 5y agoIt may flow through the days of newspapers for apartment rentals. A person wanted to sublet, to rent, an ad in the paper was the way. And listings are ads, just with deferred payment (eg, once rented, then you kick a percent at the platform). Another "common person" thinks of it differently than we do, thing?
- em500 5y agoDon't overthink it. The article was probably translated from Dutch, or done by a Dutch person, and there isn't direct equivalent for "listings" in Dutch.
- amelius 5y agoIf there isn't a distinction between ads and listings in some language, isn't that more evidence that both are actually the same thing?
- wccrawford 5y agoSome cultures don't distinguish between green and blue and don't have a word for blue. That doesn't mean that blue is the same as green.
- Cederfjard 5y agoAnother example is that in some languages they just have one word for ”leg” and ”foot”, and one for ”arm” and ”hand”. But obviously in English there’s a distinction.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoThat's interesting. So how would a Dutch person describe Google search results listings with ads in between?
- arkades 5y agoIt expands on the various forms of advertising (eg, Expedia, TripAdvisor) and goes on to state that these sites are the majority places of advertising one’s airbnb.
- djbebs 5y agoShame that local councils are once again meddling in things they have no business being in.
- philliphaydon 5y agoAfter being screwed over by Airbnb, I welcome the meddling.
- wombatmobile 5y agoWhat was your experience with Airbnb?
- philliphaydon 5y agoI needed a serviced apartment, and decided to use Airbnb because between Agoda and Airbnb, it was ever-so-slightly cheaper. When I searched it said the 100% refundable cancellation policy. So I made the booking, I adjusted the dates to 30 days, it didn't tell me that changing the date range to > 28 days changes the cancellation policy to an entirelly different policy that is dictated by the host. So when the Taiwan border opened by 3 weeks before I was due to go to the serviced apartment, I couldn't cancel without losing 100% of the money as the 'new' cancellation policy was 100% non-refundable. Contacting Airbnb they said there's a different policy if the booking is for more than 28 days, and so it's up to the host, so in the end the host reluctantly agreed to a 75% refund. I could have paid 10% extra on Agoda for the same serviced apartment, and cancelled 24 hours before checking in and got 100% refund. Airbnb letting hosts dictate cancellation policies, and not properly relaying information when paying, prevents me ever touching airbnb again.
- saiya-jin 5y agoSo you agreed to a contract, didn't bother to read the fine print, this fired back and so your emotional response is schadenfreude... I believe you can do better than that
- difosfor 5y agoGood riddance
- jikbd 5y agoYeah… who are the owners of a flat to decide what to do with it, eh?
- srmarm 5y agoWe have planning, zoning and safety laws for a reason. The owners of a flat can decide to do what they like within those parameters.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gerikson 5y agoA flat owner is not an atomic actor. If you purchase a flat, it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. I live in Sweden and most "condo" associations (bostadsrätt) have rules regarding short-term hires and subletting. I imagine it is the same in the Netherlands.
- iofiiiiiiiii 5y ago> it's under the implicit assumption that you or your family will be the only ones occupying it. Says who? This is a rather bold assumption to make and does not have any connection with the reality in most of the world.
- gerikson 5y agoMy comments were made from my experience as a renter and condo owner in Stockholm, Sweden. I did speculate that similar norms were present in the Netherlands, but I must confess I have not studied the issue deeply.
- saddlerustle 5y agoIf I were a western city, I would simply build enough housing for residents and visitors.
- that_guy_iain 5y agoHow about we have non-expensive hotels for visitors? Having the apartment next to you suddenly turn into a hotel with a rolving door of people who may or may not act like they're on holiday partying would drive most people nuts. It's not just about the housing shortage but also the fact most people don't want to live in a hotel.
- majjam 5y agoNo you cant, there isn't any room.
- saddlerustle 5y agoYes there is. Amsterdam has about a quarter the population density of Paris
- eecc 5y agoAmsterdam is closer in concept to a Flemish trade town than to an imperial core like the French capital.
- bidirectional 5y agoYes, first raze everything to the ground so we can rebuild at a different density.
- Hendrikto 5y agoAnd you think that means 3/4 of the plots are empty?
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoThat's why we MADE room: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland
- nikanj 5y agoSo essentially 80% were not properly registered and paying taxes? I’m not that surprised, once a good double-digit number are cheating, cheating becomes the only viable way to remain competitive.
- saddlerustle 5y agoIt's not about taxes, its about making it easier for the city to enforce the ban on short-term rentals.
- eecc 5y agoIt is definitely about both. And about returning the city to citizens who've been priced out by the tourism industry. There's nothing wrong with being a cultural hot-ground, a travel destination, a mindshare icon... but turning a city into an intensive farming Disneyland is another thing.
- toshk 5y agoIt was already obligated to register every time you rented.
- eecc 5y agoFor what I know, it was rarely done for very short stays as it was meant and organized around the concept of traditional seasonal rents (i.e. students, workers on short assignment dispatches, transitions between longer stable residential arrangements. This is especially designed around the distributed hotel business model, for which the previous tracking and enforcement infrastructure was not qualified for.
- Hendrikto 5y ago> The number is linked to an address, which makes it possible to check whether landlords are complying with municipal regulations regarding the maximum number of rental nights allowed. I think the problems wasn‘t that they were not paying taxes, but that they operated private apartments as hotels without permission.
- cyberpsybin 5y agoGood. Another scam american corporation folding on first legislation to benefit common people.
- sumedh 5y agoWhat makes it a scam?
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoProviding a service without following the laws. In this case, a hotel booking site without hotels. It's like uber, a taxi service without drivers/cars.
- sumedh 5y ago> In this case, a hotel booking site without hotels. It did not start out as a hotel booking service though.
- jacquesm 5y agoHow it started out is irrelevant, how it is today is what matters.
- dorchadas 5y agoAnd didn't AirBnB start out in dubious circumstances too? I seem to recall reading something about it, but can't find it now.
- jacquesm 5y agohttps://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-dollar-company/ https://davegooden.com/2011/05/how-airbnb-became-a-billion-d...
- sumedh 5y ago
- hesselink 5y agoIt is worth noting that according to a (Dutch language) article I read this morning, 90% of the listings that were removed had not been booked in the last year according to an Airbnb spokesperson. Paywalled Dutch language link: https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/airbnb-raakt-driekwart-van-zijn-adressen-kwijt-in-amsterdamse-strijd-tegen-overtoerisme~b8de3164/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/airbnb-raakt-dr...
- tgv 5y agoAlmost as if there was some global event preventing travel.
- Vinnl 5y agoNon-paywalled Dutch language link: https://www.ad.nl/amsterdam/verhuurplatforms-door-registratieplicht-driekwart-adressen-kwijt-in-amsterdam~a602ec6f/ https://www.ad.nl/amsterdam/verhuurplatforms-door-registrati... > Het gaat vooral om slapende advertenties van woningen die al een tijd niet verhuurd werden. > It mainly concerns sleeping listings of units that have not been rented out for a while. The number of listings is also expected to increase again if the number of tourists bounces back up after Covid. Of course, the linked article also mentions this, albeit without claims of it being large part of the number: > This may concern ‘dormant’ advertisements of which the tenant is no longer active. For example, because the corona pandemic has shut down tourism in Amsterdam for a long time.
- srmarm 5y agoAirbnb was amazing to start with, I stayed with some many interesting people and in interesting places. It's a shame that it's now so commoditised.
- em500 5y agoLot's of experiences are amazing and wonderful when very few people do it, but they morph into something different when the masses come in. National parks. A rustic cafe in an old town. A picknick along a river bank. High signal internet forums. Venice. Zhangjiajie. Driving cars. I don't know if any solution exists. It seems to me that the only way to preserve the original experience is via some sort of exclusiveness, which immediately provokes a backlash. Especially exclusions based on money.
- TorKlingberg 5y agoI don't think it's the number of people by itself. It's when it's becomes an established business that people have to start optimizing for low cost, max profit and fighting to get to the top of listings. Then the general niceness and interestingness goes away.
- Cederfjard 5y agoI mean yes, but for some things also the number of people by itself, surely? I can imagine having to queue to go up Mount Everest takes away some of the charm, for example. Crowds, wait times, littering etc. Large numbers can ruin a lot of things.
- abyssin 5y agoIn the case of CouchSurfing, it kept being genuine for a number of years despite and even thanks to the large user base. What destroyed the community is greed that lead to implementing incentives that go against what made the experience wonderful.
- amelius 5y agoAir travel was great in the early days.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sAbakumoff 5y agoAmsterdam is trying hard to fight against tourism. They even plan to move the red light district and possibly demand dutch ID in coffeeshops. Nice to see that. 20M tourists per year for 1.2M city is too much.
- vadfa 5y agoYeah, who cares about those who make a living off tourism. They should learn to code.
- sAbakumoff 5y agoFortunately these people had their chance to learn new ways to earning wages during the pandemic :)
- vadfa 5y agoThe condescension and lack of humanity that some people here have is baffling.
- hnuser847 5y agoAnd you know every single person on this site likes to use their FAANG salaries to see the word, so the hate for tourists is oddly self-referential.
- sAbakumoff 5y agonot for me though, I quit travelling a long time ago after realizing that tourism is just another form of consumption that is essentially no different from purchasing useless stuff
- sAbakumoff 5y agohow does noticing that a lot of people changed their occupation during the pandemic connect to lack of humanity? I am puzzled.
- streamofdigits 5y agoRegulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons. While many of the efficiencies and attractions of re-inventing various businesses for the "digital age" seem genuine, their deployment within a fog of regulatory risk seems like a lose-lose proposition for anybody but the most short-term minded.
- cblconfederate 5y agoIt was there from the start, piracy was rampant in most companies that appear "serious" today, youtube is the most memorable.
- throw_m239339 5y ago> Regulatory arbitrage of some sort seems to be involved in many recent digital business models. Whether it concerns or involves (lack of) data privacy regulation, "reinventing" labour contracts or undercutting taxation frameworks, it is a most cruel reminder of how poor the management of the commons. Well here is the thing, in my country the majority of Airbnb rental are(at least were) illegal. Authorities knew this but hypocritically, illegal rentals were good for tourism, so the state cracked down on a few illegal rentals, for the example, while allowing 99% of them. This is regulatory arbitrage. Uber on the other hand, didn't have the same luck since legal taxi drivers started to beat up Uber drivers so Uber quickly shut down their operation, as they were running illegal taxis and they couldn't have their cake and eat it too with the justice system... Sometimes it does backfire. One of the reasons why all these SV tech business got away with it is the fact that they are all located in US, only the landlord or the driver are taking real risks legally. As I said before, if I tried such an operation in my own country, I'll be shut down in no time and sent straight to jail for running illegal hotels. "it's just an app" wouldn't work. I still think that my government could have banned these apps if they really wanted to at first place, they are so eager to shutdown torrent/illegal VOD websites for instance, but they didn't.
- 5y ago
- Pinegulf 5y agoIf not AirBnb, then where the adds went? I doubt that the rental space would be left unused.
- dorchadas 5y agoHopefully to the long-term market.
- Etheryte 5y agoAs an expat living in the Netherlands I've seen this up close, but in most part it seems this is temporary. Many properties that were previously Airbnb-d were put up for rental, but only for short contracts of a year or two at most. This leads me to believe that many of those listings hope to return to Airbnb once tourism and the like picks up again.
- dorchadas 5y agoThat's what seems to have happened in Dublin too. Last August saw a doubling of long-term rentals, most in the areas most hard hit by AirBnB. I don't think it's lasted, given how bad things currently are here, sadly. Something really needs to be done to move them and keep them on the long-term market where they belong.
- elzbardico 5y agoYes, they are probably just waiting for the pandemics to end to go back to short term.
- qwerty456127 5y agoAirBnB and everything around it has mutated into something big and ugly since where it began. Seems like we need good old couch surfing forums back.
- Loughla 5y ago>AirBnB and everything around it has mutated into something big and ugly since where it began. Now I am 100% out of the sphere of technology, but isn't skirting regulation to make money exactly how AirBnB got started?
- qwerty456127 5y agoIt started as a convenience for people willing to let people they like crash at their place while they are away and get some pocket money for their own travel. Mostly unofficially, yes, and I feel no problem with this. But they turnt it into big business. Now whole buildings are built for AirBnB, professional landlords take mortgages to buy apartments just to let them at AirBnB, it's all over in the news, the prices are on par with hotels and the landlords seemingly don't care about any "face control" (as they normally would if it was about letting their actual home for a weekend) so even thugs can have the keys.
- strix_varius 5y agoPurely anecdotal, but my earliest experiences with AirBnB were all staying as a guest in someone's home, which typically doesn't violate local regulations. You're allowed to have occasional guests crashing in your guest room in most residential areas. Now, of course, AirBnB encourages fully investing in it as a landlord platform, where you rent and automate multiple whole properties and never meet the guests. That behavior lowers the quality of life in many tourist destinations today.
- mxstbr 5y agoI'd be surprised if a large % of those that no longer rent out on Airbnb can just leave their properties empty. I wonder whether those properties have shifted to other short-term rental platforms or whether they've gone back into long-term renting and what impact that the latter (would) have on the local rental market...
- jacquesm 5y agoThe 20% yoy housing price increases in NL have made it more than profitable to leave properties dormant. This is another factor in the housing crisis here, savings are taxed so wealthy individuals are all investing in property.
- WJW 5y agoOnly your primary residence gets to be tax-free in box 1 though? Any other real estate you own falls under box 3 and and is thus subject to the wealth tax ("vermogensbelasting"). See https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontentnl/belastingdienst/prive/werk_en_inkomen/interneteconomie/ik-verhuur-mijn-huis/verhuur-2e-woning https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontentnl/... for details (Dutch page)
- jacquesm 5y agoWealth tax is a very small fraction of the value of the property.
- yunohn 5y agoI think there’s a clear imbalance between stagnant money in a bank account versus rent-generating property - both being taxed as wealth tax. Hence, demand for real estate.
- jacquesm 5y agoNot to mention that the Dutch wealth tax assumes that you are making a quite specific return on your capital, whether you actually do or not isn't something the tax man cares about. With 'savings' as an asset class now a liability there is a huge flight of capital into real estate, which so far has been pretty resilient against this.
- andybak 5y ago"Advertisement" = "Property" if I'm reading this correctly. Seems a fairly ambiguous way to word it.
- Oarch 5y agoIt's not always 1:1, sometimes each room in an apartment is advertised as a separate listing. We've been misled by this assumption before.
- debarshri 5y agoIt was really weird walking in Amsterdam during summer this time around. Generally for past few year, I had seen explosions of tourists doing a weekend tours. There used to be barely any foot space to walk near dam square and shopping streets. This time I just was able to be make an appoint for Anne Frank museum a day before and simply walk in without a queue. This is the conundrum of tourism. If you too much tourist in the city then if feels like a Disney land, if there too little then there is no business. I wouldn't just blame Airbnb for the tourist explosion but in general there are lot of cheaper hotels, hostels which attract not so nice tourists. This summer was great for me but not that good for the local businesses. Balancing this ecosystem is I think pretty hard. One of the things i was thinking how you could solve would be purpose make navigating throughout the city difficult. That forces people to stay longer, therefore limits people who come for short haul.
- pintxo 5y agoSame in Berlin in 2020. What a strange feeling it was to walk through the city almost alone. A big disaster for hotels & business, but a small wonder for the local crowd.
- HPsquared 5y agoIt often seems to be the case that, in cities, the interests of businesses are opposed to the interests of residents.
- jmercouris 5y agoUnless you live in mitte, which basically nobody does, there didn’t feel much difference to me.
- azemetre 5y agoAren't you forgetting the massive global pandemic that has surely impacted how, where, and when people vacation? Kinda hard to blame too much "disney-ification" on lack of tourists when tourism is being hit hard every where.
- 5y ago
- mysterydip 5y agoI find it interesting that the law has been in place since April, but only enforced as of October, which is presumably when all these listings were removed.
- colechristensen 5y agoPretty common practice, give folks a decent chance to comply and develop a history of not doing so before starting to enforce a regulation, especially when compliance is really low (80% of listings after half a year noncompliant... jeez)
- Reason077 5y agoSomeone needs to remove 80% of advertisements from "ruetir.com". Personally I don't mind a reasonable level of advertising on the web, but that site has gone way overboard. Looks like some kind of spam/scam site.
- btbuildem 5y agoBooking.com is where the most desperate landlords and the real scumbags post. It's a cesspool. No wonder it's the only one where number of listings has increased given the circumstances.
- hellweaver666 5y agoThats actually not true. Booking is based in Amsterdam and has been working closely with the city to ensure regulatory requirements are met. The "most desperate" landlords as you put it have all been approved by the city unlike the thousands on other platforms thats why Booking has been able to continue growing, they're actually way more selective on who they allow.
- btbuildem 5y agoMy experience two years ago was very different, I'm glad to hear they've cleaned up their act.
- AlwaysRock 5y agoI'm a power user of Airbnb. I have never disliked a service as much that I pay continue to pay for other than LinkedIn. Both of these are because I have/had little choice. What it all comes down to is getting a shitting experience and paying a premium for it. I have a 30+ day stay that had been booked close to 6 months in advanced canceled 7 days before my stay because the user sold their house. Airbnb said they would help me find a new comparable place. What they meant was they would send me a $200 gift card and say tough shit that all the comparable houses are booked already. I hope they get regulated hard. Maybe someday they will start giving a shit about their users too.
- dcgudeman 5y agoWhat? Kind of a illogical reaction to a tough situation right? What is AirBnb supposed to do if one of their hosts sells their house without notifying them and all similar listing are already booked? Would more compensation satisfy you? Honestly confused why you would want to punish a service you admit to using frequently.
- zachrip 5y agoI think the ethical failure here is on behalf of the house owners. They knew they were selling the house and could've told their customers that but I'm sure they didn't just in case the sale didn't go through.
- AlwaysRock 5y agoAirbnb said they would help find a comparable place for us to stay. A comparable place was $2000+ more than the place we had booked initially (due to most places being booked 6 days before a holiday trip). They gave us a $200 coupon. Which meant we spent $1800 more on a place than we planed to. I expected them to have some plan to ensure users don't get fucked if someone sells their house. Dozens of similar, but more expensive, places sat empty during that holiday. Airbnb could have given us a coupon for the difference between one of those and what we pair for our original place. That is what their initially made it sound like they were going to do. That is not what they did. I'm a frequent user but not because I like them as a company. Because they are a monopoly.
- matthewfelgate 5y agoStupid over-reaching bureaucracy.
- cletus 5y agoYou see a lot of millenials in particular complain about how they're basically screwed, financially. Houses are unaffordable, they have a mountain of debt, etc. Probably the only reason you don't hear this so much from Gen-Z yet is they're either too young or just in shock and denial about their position. I'm truly sympathetic. I compare how I could live post-university and it's just not achievable now. Here's the rub: if you support the view that housing is too expensive and people can't find places to live then you should be absolutely against AirBnB. At least, AirBnB of whole units. I'm completely fine with someone renting out rooms in their house or an additional unit on their property. It is undeniable that AirBnB makes houses more expensive and reduces supply to buyers and renters. Cities should be first and foremost for the people who live in them. AirBnB facilitates running illegal hotels. I'm also against people using residential property to park their money. We given real estate exemptions from reporting requirements that no other asset class has. Landlords need to exist otherwise who will provide rental stock. Those landlords should be residents of those cities and not some faceless hedge fund.
- datavirtue 5y agoThese companies are going to screw themselves by not policing the behavior of landlords. The government will do it for them, as evidenced by this move. I know VRBO does nothing to protect renters (unless they get raped/assaulted and need to head off bad PR). There needs to be transparency about who owns and is ultimately responsible for the property. VRBO currently insulates owners/operators from accountability to renters. I got ripped off for $2100 and had no recourse from VRBO. No way to file a complaint and it was clear once I went looking for support that it was 100% focused on helping owners/operators use their platform. The current requirement to assure that a renter doesn't get ripped off is to use a credit card that will refund their money in the event the owner tries to rip them off. Good luck to the un-banked and working poor.
- RNCTX 5y agoI've often thought that municipal regulations would be the best way to get rid of unsavory American corporations. Another one that I'm not surprised has happened yet is a ~$5,000 dollar per day fine for an unattended cash register. That would get rid of CVS and Walgreens overnight.
- dickfickling 5y agoI’m sure i’m being dense here, but can you please explain the justification for fining a retailer for an unattended cash register? Also what’s unsavory about CVS/Walgreens?
- vkdelta 5y agoHave you ever been to Walgreens with 10+ registers but just one attendee?
- missedthecue 5y agoNo. Walgreens only has two registers and one self register in the stores near me.
- RNCTX 5y agoIt creates a theft nuisance, they attract shoplifters to nearby stores. In that way you don't want a Walgreens or CVS in your neighborhood in the same way you don't want a 24 hour liquor store in your neighborhood.
- darkwizard42 5y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but most theft at Walgreens/CVS isn't from the cash register being unattended, its from people just loading up and walking out with unpaid goods (which the local store security doesn't engage with due to fear of being sued)
- RNCTX 5y ago