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Four Stars for Peeling Paint and Broken Doors? What’s Behind High Airbnb Ratings
- amadeuspagel 4y agoMaybe reviews should be anonymous.
- optimalsolver 4y agoThere are bigger issues to worry about with Airbnb: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/what-happens-when-you-find-cameras-your-airbnb/585007/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/what-...
- wahnfrieden 4y ago>Airbnb’s rules allow cameras outdoors and in living rooms and common areas, but never in bathrooms or anywhere guests plan to sleep jeez, didn't realize I should expect to have hidden cameras on me everywhere in an airbnb besides toilet/bed without recourse. and that it's fine for these cameras to be located in a living room with view of bedroom interiors. have to treat everything outside your bedroom or toilet door as being out in public...
- vineyardmike 4y agoThey have to declare any cameras, but they're allowed to have them. If you go somewhere and there's an undeclared camera, its against AirBnB rules, and likely government laws too (depending in jurisdiction).
- wahnfrieden 4y agoThe article says that a “declaration” can be satisfied by having the cameras within the frame of any photos in the listing. So you’re taking their word at face value for what they mean by declaring cameras.
- vineyardmike 4y agoForget the article, AirBnBs actual rules say “Any device monitoring a common space should be installed in a visible manner and disclosed in the listing description.” So I hidden camera that is technically within frame of normal photos is not installed visibly and certainly not disclosed in the description.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoYou’re more concerned with the letter of their policy than how they execute on it in practice
- stonegray 4y agohttps://archive.is/LMMME https://archive.is/LMMME
- throwaway290 4y agoI am Airbnbs prime target because I am on and off digital nomading, now I am renting for over a year short term (weeks to months). I stopped using Airbnb however since positive experiences were outweighed by bad ones. In the past year there was a salty host when I gave detailed feedback highlighting good and bad (he only wanted me to mention the good stuff I guess?), a host who took the total for a week in advance and refused to refund anything after I found it's unlivable and left first morning (I am not rich enough to spend half a grand per night), etc. I have a feeling that with a "right" approach it's possible to make money off Airbnb with people almost never actually staying at your place: establish good rating then charge in advance and refuse refunds. Tired travelers would rather leave than fight you so you probably don't get a hit. Switched to Booking and good old word of mouth/on location scouting.
- benatkin 4y agoI use AirBnb in the US and booking.com outside the US. I usually prefer a boutique hotel type place to an AirBnb but those are more than I want to pay most of the time in the US. I avoid staying in places where the rent market is really tight but realize my being there still causes rents to rise. I also stay in touristy places in the off season, such as Jersey Shore in the winter or Miami in the summer (just have to be aware of the IV indexes). The hotels and the regulatory industry surrounding them and making it expensive without always being nicer are free to win back more of my business in the US. Their move.
- a_c 4y agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lHr7GXuqzm0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lHr7GXuqzm0 How short term rental kills cities. The same channel also constantly boast about "transportation revolution" as something "trains, but less efficient, nice demo" Maybe the solution is hotel
- ambientqtns 4y agoI'm not really sympathetic to the way that this article suggests the owners of excess housing are suffering from too many rentals on the short term market. These are folks who are wealthy enough to own excess housing stock, and they are using it not to house people but for vacationers. Prices low for short term rentals? Good. Hopefully they'll enter the long term housing market (or be sold to home owners).
- mym1990 4y agoShort term rental opportunities are just a reflection of investors seeing high enough yields from a particular activity. Since when is the default economic behavior for humans a benevolent and unselfish one? You don’t see people just hanging out the extra cash in their bank account, so why should they do the same thing with an extra property? If you’re looking for someone to aim at, it should be various levels of government and the corporate entities which make this behavior possible, and with relatively little friction. The humans are just doing what is incentivized and what they see other humans doing. FWIW interest rates on mortgages for investment properties/vacation properties are typically a good deal higher than primary residences, and this is one to reduce demand for such things.
- jtbayly 4y agoWhy should government make it harder to go on vacation?
- mym1990 4y agoIt’s very easy to go on vacation: rent from a motel or hotel, which is infrastructure that is in place specifically for vacationing. Go camping. Go rent a van or RV. Single family housing should not be seen as an investment vehicle apart from the equity one builds in their own home. There are zoning laws in place for a reason and when you bypass those laws to turn residential areas into businesses, it does not end in a positive experience for either side.
- 4y ago
- monero-xmr 4y agoAirbnb is a roll of the dice every time. No idea if it will be canceled the day of, the quality inside, hostile neighbors. We only use Airbnb for rural places without hotels, where our money is appreciated and there aren’t other options. In cities, hotels of known quality are just as expensive and much more reliable.
- roflyear 4y agoLast Airbnb our host stalked us and mentioned us having 3 guests not 2, and gave us shit for dirt on the carpet in the entrance
- iambateman 4y agoI had a similar experience. The host offered a free photo shoot for staying at her house, which was a weird perk but hey…whatever. While we stayed there she watched the camera and counted each person who went in the house, and then claimed we threw a party (we didn’t). She wanted $1000 extra dollars and it had to go to Airbnb arbitration. And I never even got the photo shoot.
- roflyear 4y agoLol. At least my host only asked for $100 for the inconvenience of having to vacuum his entryway
- benatkin 4y agoAirbnb hasn't been a roll of the dice for me, but reading the text of the reviews is much more important than looking at the rating count.
- mc32 4y agoWith the money they[AB&B] make, could they not afford some kind of Zaggat-like roving rating staff who go around unannounced once per year to rate these places[1]. Not necessarily stay there, but go in and look around for basics. This would be the "hard" rating and then you could also have the guest generated "soft" ratings as well. It need not be mandatory, but optional and eventually those not opting in are evaluated more suspiciously. [1] places that rent out at least 100 days per year or some such cutoff.
- bradleyjg 4y agoThe mantra of tech businesses is zero marginal cost. Any kind of expense that is linear with revenue is anathema.
- xwdv 4y agoMake the host pay for this pro reviewer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arecurrence 4y agoFundamentally, similar to freelancing sites that learned their customers were really the businesses paying for work... airbnb has learned its customers are the businesses renting out rooms. There's an unlimited supply of people seeking work or a place to stay. There is a limited supply of paying for work or renting out rooms. Hence, it's very much not in airbnb's interest to "crack down" on people renting out rooms. They know it's a problem as they have all the data. They willingly refuse to act.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y agoAnybody who uses an airbnb instead of a hotel which has regulations is just asking to get murdered.
- BizarreByte 4y agoMillions of people use Airbnb without getting murdered. The worst most people have is an unpleasant experience, but for me that isn’t even the norm. I’ll roll the dice with airbnbs given how much hotels cost.
- twelve40 4y agodo you feel the same way about long-term rentals as well?
- jspash 4y agoI think you're getting down voted due to the tone of your comment, not the content. When 6% of complaints are for "unsafe conditions", something is afoot. source: https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb/ https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb/
- ramraj07 4y agoIt was clear a long time back that you can’t just go by the rating alone. I’ve Airbnb’Ed regularly and here’s my tips: 1. Stop renting whole homes. Stop being part of the problem. Airbnb is good for someone letting out their spare room and that’s all I use it for. 2. Avoid any place with less than 30 ratings. Hard to tell with anything fewer. 3. Try your best to stick to superhosts. 4. Avoid places where you share bathrooms. Seems like a good filter. 5. Read through at least ten (if not all) of the non five star reviews. Read fully. Most people tend to leave somewhat positive reviews even if they had a less than positive experience but they WILL mention the problems they had in the last sentence or in a mellow way. Exaggerate and read between the lines to understand the reality. If you’re not willing to do all of this just book a hotel (though I have a similarly complex process for them as well).
- hackernewds 4y agothese are rather limiting. why 1?
- dorchadas 4y agoBecause AirBnB is destroying the housing market for the people who actually live and work in an area. It's pushing them out and destroying cities because tourists feel entitled to have a home to stay at instead of a hotel
- tiahura 4y ago1. Stop renting whole homes. Stop being part of the problem. Why is this a problem?
- mariosisters 4y agoIt’s not. If “too many vacationers” and short term rentals have priced you out, you can’t afford it. Tough shit, welcome to life. It’s insane to me that people feel entitled to own a home in whatever part of whatever city they desire, for whatever price they’ve decided is reasonable. If you want cheaper housing build more houses.
- jmyeet 4y agoThere are five basic problems here with these rating systems in general: 1. Not everyone leaves ratings so there's a selection bias; 2. Everyone uses a different standard. The number of times I've seen a restaurant 1-star review that basically said "the food was great but we have to wait 15 minutes for a table when turning up unannounced with a party of 12 on a Friday night" is astounding; 3. Psychology makes people disinlined to leave bad reviews. The article mentions this with the woman trapped in a room. To me that's a safety issue and should be an automatic 1-star and a complaint to AirBnB and possibly to authorities. She didn't want to hurt the owner's business? The owner is a parasite; 4. Ratings inflation is a real problem; and 5. The platform is incentivized to having high ratings. The last one is a big one and not talked about as much. Think about it: if you, as a user of AirBnB (for example) leave low ratings, that's bad for the platform. Other users feel less confident about using the platform. The side effect of this (intentional or unintentional) is that you want to make it harder for these people to use the platform. If you're Uber, you might not match them to a driver. If you're AirBnB, you might hide certain properties or make it more likely that the owner won't accept their reservation.
- janalsncm 4y agoThe problem is very simple: AirBnb has outsourced the job of management to the customer. Of course this is to cut costs and save money. The gig economy depends on customers doing this extra work, and maybe in the beginning it made some sense. Airbnb wasn’t pitched as a hotel replacement, it was supposed to be a no-frills way to match up homeowners who were gone for a weekend with backpackers who were there for a weekend. Uber wasn’t pitched as a taxi replacement, it was supposed to be a hip new way to car pool. Well, things have changed. Some apartments are now permanently for rent. Uber drivers typically drive regularly and depend on Uber for income. Airbnb and Uber are billion dollar companies listed on NYSE. I don’t feel the same way about doing favors like cleaning up an Airbnb now as I would’ve a few years ago, when it felt like the host was doing a favor for me. And I certainly don’t feel like doing a favor for these huge middleman platforms which traditionally would’ve needed to have some internal rating system but now don’t even have to do that.
- vineyardmike 4y ago> Uber wasn’t pitched as a taxi replacement, it was supposed to be a hip new way to car pool. This actually isn't true. It was advertised as being as such, because directly saying your business model is to cut out taxi regulation is problematic. Uber planned to be a phone-based taxi service, and originally planned to use professional drivers. It likely realized skirting labor laws through contractors was more scalable. AirBnB was actually pitched as a way for individuals to make extra cash, however. I agree with you now about the "Favors" and view on workers. Now that AirBnb hosting is a full-time status for people/apartments, I feel like people should be professional. If you're a professional investor with houses on AirBnB (aka its not your spare room), then you should be cleaning your own damn units (or charging commensurate rates). >I certainly don’t feel like doing a favor for these huge middleman platforms which traditionally would’ve needed to have some internal rating system but now don’t even have to do that. I expect we're a few years away from getting a "credit bureau" type regulation regarding these systems. I've seen people advocate for them as punishing people who treat service workers poorly, but I think it's too easy to enable discrimination or improper behavior. https://www.vox.com/2017/8/23/16189048/uber-pitch-deck-2008-ubercab-travis-kalanick-founder-startup https://www.vox.com/2017/8/23/16189048/uber-pitch-deck-2008-... https://www.slideshare.net/PitchDeckCoach/airbnb-first-pitch-deck-editable https://www.slideshare.net/PitchDeckCoach/airbnb-first-pitch...