6 ms·

I’m genuinely interested to hear what are the specific harms you have suffered due to this.

miguelazo 4y ago
Gee, how about having a parade of random people showing up at all hours of the day/night just to start? The erosion of community. Further commodification of housing so that only the rich and upper middle class can buy a house in any city?
- zbrozek 4y ago
  That last point - that housing is too expensive - is not something that airbnb causes or can fix. That's a supply side problem and the solution is housing construction. It may marginally exacerbate the symptom by providing liquidity.
  - jerjerjer 4y ago
    It removes liquidity from housing market, by repurposing flats/houses into hotels.
    - zbrozek 4y ago
      It's creating liquidity, just not the kind you value. It's liquidity of short term housing rather than long term housing.
      - tekknik 4y ago
        Ok, then more accurately it’s moving liquidity. The next question is which is more valuable to society?
        zbrozek 4y ago
        The United States is short O(10M) housing units[0], primarily due to anti-construction policies. Airbnb has O(100k) listings[1] in the US. Banning short-term rentals is a 1% solution. That's a policy distraction, not a useful lever to pull. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-gap-cost-affordability-big-cities/672184/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing... [1] https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/airbnb-statistics/ https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/airbnb-statistics/
        miguelazo 4y ago
        There are plenty of empty luxury condos in every major city. They mostly serve as bank accounts for foreign investors. There's plenty of construction, just the wrong type.
        zbrozek 4y ago
        Maybe so, but can you show any data that it's a significant or meaningful problem and not a visible scapegoat? The data I found (above) makes clear that deleting the short-term rental market would not even dent the housing shortage problem in the United States. I could believe (and maybe someone in this thread has data!) that in some extremely over-constrained markets that units are disproportionately used for short-term rentals. But I haven't seen any numbers. And in those cases, you still should be building homes to solve the root cause problem. Americans persistently seem to want to find any reason at all to absolve themselves of responsibility for the housing crisis. It's investors! It's short-term rentals! It's corporate landlords! But it's never the locals who oppose construction.
        tekknik 4y ago
        Adding more houses to the market certainly will decrease pricing pressure. Nobody said banning Airbnb was suddenly going to make housing affordable but decrease prices. And my question remains, which is more valuable to society, short term rentals or homes?
        4y ago
      - miguelazo 4y ago
        Liquidity for short term housing is valuable to who? Do you think most people here or otherwise care about speculators? We don't.
- thefounder 4y ago
  I think the ownership is not encouraged anymore. Instead we have social mobility so that we can move anytime when better opportunities arise. That may be a good or a bad thing depending on which side you are.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Moving every time a better opportunity comes up is a privilege enjoyed by a small section of the population. The vast majority of people move rarely, and when they do move it's usually within the same locality.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Even for people who can, family (spouse, kids in school, nearby relatives, etc.), friends, and so forth tend to make moving cities a pretty significant decision at some point.
      - thefounder 4y ago
        It's a cultural issue. Give it 1-2 generations and people won't care that much about nearby relatives, friends etc.
        ghaff 4y ago
        Th trend line has been toward significantly less mobility relative to past decades--though you'd probably want to correct the numbers for demographics given that 20 somethings move the most (as one would expect).
        miguelazo 4y ago
        Exactly-- the number of young people still living at home has surged in the last decade. This is not surprising given that "starter homes" are one of the main targets of housing speculators. People who would buy their first house rent longer, driving up rental rates and putting the transition from family to independence further out of reach for many.
HarryHirsch 4y ago
Airbnb greatly contributed to the housing shortage in Vermont.
- seattle_spring 4y ago
  Is there some unbiased literature you can share that demonstrates this conclusively?
  - HarryHirsch 4y ago
    Long-term rentals getting converted to short-term rentals in a constrained, inelastic market drives up prices, prices are set at the margin. You don't publications for that, that's just a basic fact.
    - seattle_spring 4y ago
      If it’s a basic fact then surely there is literature that backs it up?
moloch-hai 4y ago
A cabin across the street from me was an AirBnB rental: very loud parties all weekend, running long after midnight. Then COVID came, and now AirBnB has gone down the toilet, so the problem has not returned. Yet.
- mythhouse 4y ago
  does the town/city not have noise ordinances ?
  - nubinetwork 4y ago
    Good luck finding a bylaw officer to enforce it, I've made many complaints in my city only to be told there's only one person and they never showed up... and this is in a city of 700k.
- streetdumpling 4y ago
  curious where you're located? AFAIK Airbnb now banned all parties but it's hard to enforce
rootusrootus 4y ago
Is it difficult to imagine? Living next to a regular long-term rental has some of the same issues, AirBNB short term rentals just magnify that. Personally, one of the best things I ever did to improve my quality of life was move to a newly constructed mid/upper neighborhood where all houses are owner-occupied. It's amazing how much better people act and treat their property when it's actually their own.
- IIsi50MHz 4y ago
  Yes, it can be difficult to imagine for some people, based on their lived experiences. Those who have observed little or no unwanted behaviours from short-term renters wild tend to assume "It works." or "It works the vast majority' of the time.". Some combinations of hosts, their rules, and guests can be successful and completely non-problematic. I, having lived some problematic places long before AirBnB existed, sympahise with your experience. I've been fortunate to see primarily successes.
oplav 4y ago
I used to live in a 4 unit apartment in SF. One of the units in the building was a full time Airbnb. On several occasions, the different Airbnb renters parked in the wrong spot in our small garage, which disrupted the parking situation for the non-Airbnb tenants in the unit. On another occasion, a renter got locked out of the front gate. I watched from my window as they bent the gate bars so they could open the gate without using the key. When I went down to the gate to ask them what they were doing, they denied damaging the property. Where I live now is area of all single family homes. One house on my street is also a full time Airbnb. There have been fewer issues, but there was one occasion where some people rented the house, threw a party in the house, shots were fired, and bullets went through a neighboring house. There have never been issues at this level in the neighborhood, so this was out of the ordinary. Not all short term, full time Airbnbs are disrespectful. Not all long term, non-Airbnb neighbors are respectful. But IMO, with non-Airbnb neighbors, you have a better chance of working something out since they are there for the long haul.
rr808 4y ago
Aside from the annoyance of the lifestyle of tourists vs residents, you miss out on having a normal neighbor who you can build a relationship over time with. Our neighbors keep a key, water plants while we're away, babysit our kids, generally look out for each other.

Gee, how about having a parade of random people showing up at all hours of the day/night just to start? The erosion of community. Further commodification of housing so that only the rich and upper middle class can buy a house in any city?

zbrozek 4y ago
That last point - that housing is too expensive - is not something that airbnb causes or can fix. That's a supply side problem and the solution is housing construction. It may marginally exacerbate the symptom by providing liquidity.
- jerjerjer 4y ago
  It removes liquidity from housing market, by repurposing flats/houses into hotels.
  - zbrozek 4y ago
    It's creating liquidity, just not the kind you value. It's liquidity of short term housing rather than long term housing.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      Ok, then more accurately it’s moving liquidity. The next question is which is more valuable to society?
      - zbrozek 4y ago
        The United States is short O(10M) housing units[0], primarily due to anti-construction policies. Airbnb has O(100k) listings[1] in the US. Banning short-term rentals is a 1% solution. That's a policy distraction, not a useful lever to pull. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-gap-cost-affordability-big-cities/672184/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing... [1] https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/airbnb-statistics/ https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/airbnb-statistics/
        miguelazo 4y ago
        There are plenty of empty luxury condos in every major city. They mostly serve as bank accounts for foreign investors. There's plenty of construction, just the wrong type.
        zbrozek 4y ago
        Maybe so, but can you show any data that it's a significant or meaningful problem and not a visible scapegoat? The data I found (above) makes clear that deleting the short-term rental market would not even dent the housing shortage problem in the United States. I could believe (and maybe someone in this thread has data!) that in some extremely over-constrained markets that units are disproportionately used for short-term rentals. But I haven't seen any numbers. And in those cases, you still should be building homes to solve the root cause problem. Americans persistently seem to want to find any reason at all to absolve themselves of responsibility for the housing crisis. It's investors! It's short-term rentals! It's corporate landlords! But it's never the locals who oppose construction.
        tekknik 4y ago
        Adding more houses to the market certainly will decrease pricing pressure. Nobody said banning Airbnb was suddenly going to make housing affordable but decrease prices. And my question remains, which is more valuable to society, short term rentals or homes?
        4y ago
    - miguelazo 4y ago
      Liquidity for short term housing is valuable to who? Do you think most people here or otherwise care about speculators? We don't.
thefounder 4y ago
I think the ownership is not encouraged anymore. Instead we have social mobility so that we can move anytime when better opportunities arise. That may be a good or a bad thing depending on which side you are.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Moving every time a better opportunity comes up is a privilege enjoyed by a small section of the population. The vast majority of people move rarely, and when they do move it's usually within the same locality.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Even for people who can, family (spouse, kids in school, nearby relatives, etc.), friends, and so forth tend to make moving cities a pretty significant decision at some point.
    - thefounder 4y ago
      It's a cultural issue. Give it 1-2 generations and people won't care that much about nearby relatives, friends etc.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Th trend line has been toward significantly less mobility relative to past decades--though you'd probably want to correct the numbers for demographics given that 20 somethings move the most (as one would expect).
        miguelazo 4y ago
        Exactly-- the number of young people still living at home has surged in the last decade. This is not surprising given that "starter homes" are one of the main targets of housing speculators. People who would buy their first house rent longer, driving up rental rates and putting the transition from family to independence further out of reach for many.

HarryHirsch 4y ago

Airbnb greatly contributed to the housing shortage in Vermont.

seattle_spring 4y ago
Is there some unbiased literature you can share that demonstrates this conclusively?
- HarryHirsch 4y ago
  Long-term rentals getting converted to short-term rentals in a constrained, inelastic market drives up prices, prices are set at the margin. You don't publications for that, that's just a basic fact.
  - seattle_spring 4y ago
    If it’s a basic fact then surely there is literature that backs it up?

moloch-hai 4y ago

A cabin across the street from me was an AirBnB rental: very loud parties all weekend, running long after midnight. Then COVID came, and now AirBnB has gone down the toilet, so the problem has not returned. Yet.

mythhouse 4y ago
does the town/city not have noise ordinances ?
- nubinetwork 4y ago
  Good luck finding a bylaw officer to enforce it, I've made many complaints in my city only to be told there's only one person and they never showed up... and this is in a city of 700k.
streetdumpling 4y ago
curious where you're located? AFAIK Airbnb now banned all parties but it's hard to enforce

rootusrootus 4y ago

Is it difficult to imagine? Living next to a regular long-term rental has some of the same issues, AirBNB short term rentals just magnify that. Personally, one of the best things I ever did to improve my quality of life was move to a newly constructed mid/upper neighborhood where all houses are owner-occupied. It's amazing how much better people act and treat their property when it's actually their own.

IIsi50MHz 4y ago
Yes, it can be difficult to imagine for some people, based on their lived experiences. Those who have observed little or no unwanted behaviours from short-term renters wild tend to assume "It works." or "It works the vast majority' of the time.". Some combinations of hosts, their rules, and guests can be successful and completely non-problematic. I, having lived some problematic places long before AirBnB existed, sympahise with your experience. I've been fortunate to see primarily successes.

oplav 4y ago

I used to live in a 4 unit apartment in SF. One of the units in the building was a full time Airbnb. On several occasions, the different Airbnb renters parked in the wrong spot in our small garage, which disrupted the parking situation for the non-Airbnb tenants in the unit. On another occasion, a renter got locked out of the front gate. I watched from my window as they bent the gate bars so they could open the gate without using the key. When I went down to the gate to ask them what they were doing, they denied damaging the property. Where I live now is area of all single family homes. One house on my street is also a full time Airbnb. There have been fewer issues, but there was one occasion where some people rented the house, threw a party in the house, shots were fired, and bullets went through a neighboring house. There have never been issues at this level in the neighborhood, so this was out of the ordinary. Not all short term, full time Airbnbs are disrespectful. Not all long term, non-Airbnb neighbors are respectful. But IMO, with non-Airbnb neighbors, you have a better chance of working something out since they are there for the long haul.

rr808 4y ago

Aside from the annoyance of the lifestyle of tourists vs residents, you miss out on having a normal neighbor who you can build a relationship over time with. Our neighbors keep a key, water plants while we're away, babysit our kids, generally look out for each other.