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I'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. The

I'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 ago
Short 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 ago
  Why should government make it harder to go on vacation?
  - mym1990 4y ago
    It’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.
    - itake 4y ago
      I have multiple friends that rent out rooms and ADUs to support their mortgages on Airbnb in their own home so they can afford to live near work. People should do what they want in their own home
      - mym1990 4y ago
        Again, if you read my comment, you would understand that I think it is totally fine that humans are acting towards what is incentivized. But for those that see this behavior as detrimental, it is no use to point fingers at the owners of those properties, but instead to aim at the overarching structures.
        bruce511 4y ago
        In concept Airbnb is fine. Renting out spare rooms, renting unused time on your holiday pad at Cape cod, all make complete sense. It's making more space available, at a cheaper rate, while maximizing utilisation, and return, on an existing asset. Equally there's some place for buy-to-rent investing to exist. There is, and will always be, a segment of the population who cannot, or doesn't want to, buy and this segment rely on rental for housing. If there was no invest-to-rent then that segment would be homeless. The problem happens when there's an imbalance. When there's too much Airbnb (like Barcelona), locals get squeezed out of their own city. Some supply is good, too much is bad. The solution to this is regulation. By regulating supply (prioritize in-home, limited permits for others etc) one can balance the three markets such that ultimately everyone wins.
        mym1990 4y ago
        Agreed, I would say once the threshold was crossed where people specifically sought out to buy 2-10 properties in different cities to make a business out of it, it was time to scale back. Renting a room in a place one lives or while one is on vacation seems reasonable enough.
        4y ago
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    It shouldn't. But it should enact rules that govern certain types of goods, like local housing. Housing and rentals are different because unlike most goods, there really isn't a good alternative to not purchasing the good, and because the supply side of the market is necessarily slow, and constrained by geography. In other words housing in your local area is an entirely different good than housing 100 miles away, and we should recognize that ensuring the opportunity for shelter to all people is a moral necessity higher than ensuring that pleasure travelers can stay in any given place. We place a mountain of restrictions on real estate in most of the western world. Requiring that housing be used as housing is a pretty reasonable take. If you think that people should be able to use their property for anything they want, fine, but don't get upset when someone wants to open a 24 hour go kart track nextdoor.
- pavel_lishin 4y ago
  > 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 We see this all the time. People don't act like economic automatons; people do plenty of things for other people without any economic benefit to themselves. I don't know why so many people hold this poisonous viewpoint.
  - marricks 4y ago
    > I don't know why so many people hold this poisonous viewpoint. Because it lets their own selfish behavior get a pass which they feel guilty for. I most commonly see this view point in bosses, go figure.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > people do plenty of things for other people without any economic benefit to themselves True, but you can't build a functioning economy out of that. Many have tried - it just doesn't work.
    - paulryanrogers 4y ago
      Is the economy still functioning when externalities are socialized until one literally cannot breath the air or drink the water?
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        There's no reason why a free market can't be set up to internalize the externalities. The easiest way to do it is to tax things like pollution.
        paulryanrogers 4y ago
        Hmm, taxes sound like a government action, not a market correction.
        4y ago
- hackernewds 4y ago
  > If you're looking for someone to aim at here's another scapegoat: companies like vacasa that buy up entire apartments and own 20000+ units in a city to put up on Airbnb. They're not beholden to the zoning laws or employment restrictions, compliance, etc that hotels are bound to. Yet operate basically the same way. not to mention cleaning fees scoot by, while resort fees are getting banned
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- xtiansimon 4y ago
  > “Since when is the default economic behavior for humans a benevolent…” For any human activity we can make an ethical judgment—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness sort of thing.
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
> I'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. This is the Wall Street Journal we're talking about, it's the paper for plutocrats and wannabe plutocrats.

mym1990 4y ago

Short 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 ago
Why should government make it harder to go on vacation?
- mym1990 4y ago
  It’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.
  - itake 4y ago
    I have multiple friends that rent out rooms and ADUs to support their mortgages on Airbnb in their own home so they can afford to live near work. People should do what they want in their own home
    - mym1990 4y ago
      Again, if you read my comment, you would understand that I think it is totally fine that humans are acting towards what is incentivized. But for those that see this behavior as detrimental, it is no use to point fingers at the owners of those properties, but instead to aim at the overarching structures.
      - bruce511 4y ago
        In concept Airbnb is fine. Renting out spare rooms, renting unused time on your holiday pad at Cape cod, all make complete sense. It's making more space available, at a cheaper rate, while maximizing utilisation, and return, on an existing asset. Equally there's some place for buy-to-rent investing to exist. There is, and will always be, a segment of the population who cannot, or doesn't want to, buy and this segment rely on rental for housing. If there was no invest-to-rent then that segment would be homeless. The problem happens when there's an imbalance. When there's too much Airbnb (like Barcelona), locals get squeezed out of their own city. Some supply is good, too much is bad. The solution to this is regulation. By regulating supply (prioritize in-home, limited permits for others etc) one can balance the three markets such that ultimately everyone wins.
        mym1990 4y ago
        Agreed, I would say once the threshold was crossed where people specifically sought out to buy 2-10 properties in different cities to make a business out of it, it was time to scale back. Renting a room in a place one lives or while one is on vacation seems reasonable enough.
        4y ago
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  It shouldn't. But it should enact rules that govern certain types of goods, like local housing. Housing and rentals are different because unlike most goods, there really isn't a good alternative to not purchasing the good, and because the supply side of the market is necessarily slow, and constrained by geography. In other words housing in your local area is an entirely different good than housing 100 miles away, and we should recognize that ensuring the opportunity for shelter to all people is a moral necessity higher than ensuring that pleasure travelers can stay in any given place. We place a mountain of restrictions on real estate in most of the western world. Requiring that housing be used as housing is a pretty reasonable take. If you think that people should be able to use their property for anything they want, fine, but don't get upset when someone wants to open a 24 hour go kart track nextdoor.
pavel_lishin 4y ago
> 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 We see this all the time. People don't act like economic automatons; people do plenty of things for other people without any economic benefit to themselves. I don't know why so many people hold this poisonous viewpoint.
- marricks 4y ago
  > I don't know why so many people hold this poisonous viewpoint. Because it lets their own selfish behavior get a pass which they feel guilty for. I most commonly see this view point in bosses, go figure.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > people do plenty of things for other people without any economic benefit to themselves True, but you can't build a functioning economy out of that. Many have tried - it just doesn't work.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Is the economy still functioning when externalities are socialized until one literally cannot breath the air or drink the water?
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      There's no reason why a free market can't be set up to internalize the externalities. The easiest way to do it is to tax things like pollution.
      - paulryanrogers 4y ago
        Hmm, taxes sound like a government action, not a market correction.
        4y ago
hackernewds 4y ago
> If you're looking for someone to aim at here's another scapegoat: companies like vacasa that buy up entire apartments and own 20000+ units in a city to put up on Airbnb. They're not beholden to the zoning laws or employment restrictions, compliance, etc that hotels are bound to. Yet operate basically the same way. not to mention cleaning fees scoot by, while resort fees are getting banned
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
xtiansimon 4y ago
> “Since when is the default economic behavior for humans a benevolent…” For any human activity we can make an ethical judgment—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness sort of thing.

ElfinTrousers 4y ago

> I'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. This is the Wall Street Journal we're talking about, it's the paper for plutocrats and wannabe plutocrats.