4 ms·

> Airbnb messes up the rental market for locals. Like all "gig economy" services, it exploits legal loopholes to avoid proper classification and extract value f

> Airbnb messes up the rental market for locals. Like all "gig economy" services, it exploits legal loopholes to avoid proper classification and extract value from the commons. Interesting thing about this argument is, I feel like this assumes there are no benefits of short term rentals for locals. Specially, I see this closely in a small tourist town (not sure how it changes with a big city), but in a small tourist town there's limited supply of hotels and they are generally much more expensive. If you allow airbnb, some home owners prefer short term rentals and so affects supply for long term rentals but, that also means it benefits local home owners, also generate more taxes as most places now have higher taxes for short term rentals, which one can argue is used back to fund stuff in the local community. Also in a small town, many businesses depend on the tourists, so more tourists mean more benefit for local businesses and where locals are employed. So, keeping long term rental prices down for locals by suppressing short term rentals comes at an expense of locals, isn't it?

malermeister 3y ago
It benefits a subsection of locals (the ones working in tourism or renting out their apartments) to the detriment of the rest of them. You can see this play out in cities like Barcelona: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-inv...
- assvdsevavs 3y ago
  > benefits a subsection of locals .... to the detriment of the rest of them That was my point, the "rest of them" is another subsection of the same local population. I am not sure I understand why some think benefiting one subsection is OK while not the other. Anyway, this entire comment sub thread seems to head towards incorrect/inadequate incentives/regulation. Seems like fixing that is perhaps a better course than to throw out an entire industry that obviously many locals and visitors want and use.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    The issue is that the benefit that subsection gets is parasitic, by damaging the host society for their own benefit. I'm not against them benefiting. I'm against them driving up rents and driving people out of their homes to do so.
    - assvdsevavs 3y ago
      Home owner and renter are both part of the society, lets say a% of home owners opt into short term rental and increase their income by b% and tax revenues go up by c%, that drives rents go up by d% and f% of renters are priced out, also the added tourist traffic support local economy by f%. I do not see any analysis that even tries to obtain/study these numbers, measure the trade offs and evaluate the net impact on a society. I feel these are more emotional arguments than rational, seeming to stem from home owner must be richer, and so we got to help the renter. There's so much nuance, is it a small tourist town, mid tier city, big city, available housing supply, home owner and renter demographics - a small ski town might have lot of seasonal workers for half a year, renters might not even be locals in that case, obviously different in other places. Who are the home owners? locals, out of town investment home owners, corporations owning fleets of houses, how can there be one size fit all answer without evidence/data.

malermeister 3y ago

It benefits a subsection of locals (the ones working in tourism or renting out their apartments) to the detriment of the rest of them. You can see this play out in cities like Barcelona: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-inv...

assvdsevavs 3y ago
> benefits a subsection of locals .... to the detriment of the rest of them That was my point, the "rest of them" is another subsection of the same local population. I am not sure I understand why some think benefiting one subsection is OK while not the other. Anyway, this entire comment sub thread seems to head towards incorrect/inadequate incentives/regulation. Seems like fixing that is perhaps a better course than to throw out an entire industry that obviously many locals and visitors want and use.
- malermeister 3y ago
  The issue is that the benefit that subsection gets is parasitic, by damaging the host society for their own benefit. I'm not against them benefiting. I'm against them driving up rents and driving people out of their homes to do so.
  - assvdsevavs 3y ago
    Home owner and renter are both part of the society, lets say a% of home owners opt into short term rental and increase their income by b% and tax revenues go up by c%, that drives rents go up by d% and f% of renters are priced out, also the added tourist traffic support local economy by f%. I do not see any analysis that even tries to obtain/study these numbers, measure the trade offs and evaluate the net impact on a society. I feel these are more emotional arguments than rational, seeming to stem from home owner must be richer, and so we got to help the renter. There's so much nuance, is it a small tourist town, mid tier city, big city, available housing supply, home owner and renter demographics - a small ski town might have lot of seasonal workers for half a year, renters might not even be locals in that case, obviously different in other places. Who are the home owners? locals, out of town investment home owners, corporations owning fleets of houses, how can there be one size fit all answer without evidence/data.