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In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. Back to the topic - removing listings isn’t a sufficient enough puni

In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. Back to the topic - removing listings isn’t a sufficient enough punishment imho. And how would you even prove it from the guests side? Take a picture I suppose? But how do you stop bad actors? Not sure what the correct solution is. Someone who wants to spy can purchase a spy camera which is very abundant these days.

bombcar 3y ago
AirBNB "when it started" was quite likely to find you quirky and cheap options. Now it's commoditized and a business, and the quirky and cheap options are few and far between. Part of the degradation is both the company, the sellers, and the buyers - back in the very beginning it wasn't well known and most of the customers were well behaved - I'm not sure that's entirely the case now, as the customer base has grown.
- casenmgreen 3y ago
  I'm a digital nomad. One luggage, no permanent home, been fifteen years. I used to use AirBnB all the time. They gradually become more and more, well, "large company". Governments gradually made AirBnB illegal or effectively illegal, largely or wholly killing off AirBnB in given cities, or countries. For example, it used to be about impossible to get into Amsterdam, because of rent control and renting regulations; no supply of places to let. Then AirBnB came along, and everyone and their dog let places on AirBnB. You could get in, and at a good price. Then AirBnB was essentially banned, and now you can't get into Amsterdam. It was always that there were a lot of people offering places who didn't know how to price what they had; so you'd see a lot of properties, but a lot were crazy money. Still, if there were enough, there would be enough places at sane prices you'd get somewhere. These days, I still look at AirBnB, but I see that their fees have continually risen over time, and are now like 10% or 15%, and there's just no content. I was in Paris last couple of months. There was nothing viable on AirBnB, unless you wanted to pay several thousand a month. There was one what I concluded was a scam, a very dodgy letting agency, who had lots of apartments, all with no ratings, but very bad reviews on-line. I think they were continually deleting and remaking their lets on AirBnB, to get rid of negative reviews. Finally, AirBnB itself, regarding "large company", became unreliable as a service, in that I never knew, when I came to us it, if log-in would still work. I recall the first time log-in failed for no obvious reason, and the and the only option was "email support and we'll contact you in a few days" - and I was looking to move in about two weeks time. After that, I put up my own HTTPS proxy, which I now use whenever I use AirBnB, to avoid AirBnB suspending my account for a few days, until support get back to me. I also recall one episode about ten years ago where I had to phone support. It was a three hour long screaming nightmare of hell and madness. So - fees are now rather high, support don't bother - anything but support - I had to backdoor my own net traffic to use the service, no viable apartments in most locations. It was great, but now it's really not. The one and critical thing AirBnB got right was building into their platform the expectation owners would offer discounts for stays over a week, or over a month. I don't see this on other platforms, and it makes pricing on other platforms crazy. If I come and stay for three months, I expect a discount for giving full occupancy over that time. If you don't offer that, you're off the menu.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    All of the above makes total sense (to me) when you realize that people don't know how to price rentals at all - just like the average person doesn't know how to price restaurant food. When you know truly how to price (and cost!) something, you know when and where you can offer discounts. If cost to acquire a tenant is $2k, then the discount to preserve a good tenant should be about $2k per tenant turnover time.
    - adolph 3y ago
      > people don't know how to price rentals And "helping" them is a lawsuit magnet: Big landlords are colluding to raise rents, D.C. lawsuit alleges https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38155840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38155840
      - bombcar 3y ago
        If I had a group of graduate students at my beck and call I'd love to try to factor out what effect single-family rentals have had on the rental market in toto - because once you remove appreciation, they're often losing money each month, which means they're subsidizing the renters (and willing to do so because they're making it up on highly-leveraged appreciation).
        downWidOutaFite 3y ago
        Why would the math be different for apartment buildings? They also appreciate and they usually have better accountants to make sure no money is left on the table if it's available.
        bombcar 3y ago
        Apartment buildings get handled in a business-like manner, but are also apartments (which have downsides for the renters). My theory is that single family homes get rented below what it costs to rent them and the landlords make it up via appreciation. It's pretty obvious that there are places like this, where the rental prices are substantially below 1% of the purchase price (one of the "rule of thumbs").
- nytesky 3y ago
  I mean this is the zeitgeist for AirBnb, the first word of the SNL sketch is BLAND. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw
- rchaud 3y ago
  > most of the customers were well behaved ...because back then they were dealing with a single homeowner, where there was a certain level of mutual respect. Once "Airbnb host" became synonymous with party houses, cleaning fees and multi-unit short term rental empires, that changed.
ransom1538 3y ago
"In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available." I still, can not wrap my head around this. The idea behind airbnb was to rent out unused parts of your house. You STILL can not do this. Motel 6 is cheaper all day everyday. I will keep giving my $80 to Motel 6, but, I KNOW there is someone out there that has a room and needs $80. The original problem still exists. I can't pay $120 + $30 in cleaning fees, plus do your house chores Sarah.
- smelendez 3y ago
  My suspicion is those cheap single rooms were never worth it for the hosts once you consider the long tail of things that can go wrong. One bad guest who upsets the other residents and leaves the property in bad condition will sap your earnings and throw off your life. Airbnb might eventually reimburse you for damage, but there’s still your time and aggravation. Also any household maintenance issue, like an internet outage or finicky toilet or a microwave on the fritz becomes an emergency if it’s an amenity you promised to a guest. Even realizing the guest towels are getting a little worn might be a cause for panic. Motel 6 has a handyman on call, maybe the owner or a relative, and can take a room out of rotation if they’re not booked solid, but Joe Airbnb is stuck begging a plumber to come out on short notice or rushing to Target before check in time.
  - shagie 3y ago
    > My suspicion is those cheap single rooms were never worth it for the hosts once you consider the long tail of things that can go wrong. They stay too long, and now they're a tenant rather than a guest - and you can't evict them. https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/airbnb-tenant-squatter-ca-la-18476228.php https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/airbnb-tenant-squatter... https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/805 https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/805
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I suspect that people in general are very bad about factoring in fully amortized costs--especially for expensive things that may be unpredictable and likely only happen once in a great while. I was having a discussion not that long ago about how a house that's paid off actually costs a lot of money.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. I think it depends. For relatively short stays of one or two people, a hotel is nearly always a better deal in my opinion (for short stays the cleaning fee alone can be a big percentage of the total price). But for week or longer stays with a family or larger, they usually come out ahead given multiple bedrooms and the fact that the cleaning fee is amortized over more nights (not to mention access to a kitchen can save a ton of money). In this segment, though, they're really no different from VRBO or a host of other vacation rental providers that have been around for a long time.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The whole house thing for a group is where I see Airbnb (or VRBO) etc. being a big win over most hotel options. But for most singles or couples traveling, predictability and lack of issues is pretty much the priority. That's not to say I only stay in chain hotels--I've stayed in plenty of B&Bs and small inns--but I don't like rolling the dice on that aspect of my travel more than I need to.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    Absolutely. Most of the Airbnb/VRBO that we’ve done was to accommodate 12-15 people including 5-7 children. Only other time I do Airbnb is for specialty situations like a beach house where we can have a big patio with a grill etc.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Myself, wife, and most of both of our whole families find all hotels lifeless and impersonal and uninteresting. Sure nice ones are nicer than bad ones, and it's fun to do that once in a while just as an experience, but generally the nicest hotel with impeccable staff isn't prefferable to a cozy appartment even if it has a few problems. The dice roll is way better. Even the bad ones once in a while are at least different and fun to mock. It's funny how almost the whole families have the same gut response to stuff like that. Look at something and what is the most immediate natural reaction to an idea or the look of a thing. And some other family might all have the same some other natural reaction. Like one person finds gold attractive and another finds it gawdy, and so do their whole family & friends groups. For me, hotels are only good for work. That's the only time the predictability matters. I avoid scheduling as much as possible on vacation. There are events of course but I don't try to tetris pack the days. But for a few days or a week at a customer, then a hotel just something I need like a highway rest stop bathroom.
zeroonetwothree 3y ago
It’s much cheaper for larger spaces. If you want a 2 bedroom living space Airbnb is probably 3-4x less than a hotel.
jupp0r 3y ago
It's not about the price. Hotel suites with multiple bedrooms are extremely hard to find or cater more to the super luxury segment.
jupp0r 3y ago
Unless somebody is making serious efforts and running hidden data wires, spy cams are pretty easy to find by the average nerd equipped with a cheapish spectrum analyzer by their RF signature.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  Are they? Many are wifi connected, but record onto an sd card, which means they shouldn't be easily detectable, except when accessed, right?
  - jupp0r 3y ago
    Even if they are not sending data, there will be periodic communication between the access point and the device. Wifi power saving modes are pretty advanced and described here: https://howiwifi.com/2020/06/25/power-save-methods/ https://howiwifi.com/2020/06/25/power-save-methods/.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
Airbnb has a normal fridge, a microwave, a washing machine, a dishwasher and 700-100 sq ft area. A similarly priced hotel room will have 250 sq ft area and none of the above amenities.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Suite hotels have all that except maybe the washing machine and are often pretty comparable in price to "regular" hotel rooms. Those tend to be my preference although I use the refrigerator more than the rest of the kitchen.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    > Suite hotels have all that except maybe the washing machine and are often pretty comparable in price to "regular" hotel rooms. I have not found this to be the case at all. Getting a suite with a kitchen usually involves paying a large premium to a regular hotel room.
    - klausa 3y ago
      They don't mean upgrading to a suite at a "regular" hotel; there are chains specializing in renting out "home-style" rooms ("extended-stay" is the industry term, I believe), and I've seen them referred to suite hotels sometimes. The biggest chains have these sub-brands in the space, based off three minutes of googling/wikiing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Inn_by_Marriott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Inn_by_Marriott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staybridge_Suites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staybridge_Suites https://www.hyatt.com/development/ourbrands/hyatthouse https://www.hyatt.com/development/ourbrands/hyatthouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homewood_Suites_by_Hilton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homewood_Suites_by_Hilton I never stayed at one, so can't comment how accurate the OP was re/price.
      - TulliusCicero 3y ago
        I was thinking of those options too. I do tend to look for them when I'm searching for hotel rooms.
happymellon 3y ago
> In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. For me it has absolutely nothing to do with being cheaper, but simply hotels generally don't cater for families. I have an under 10, and either I go to bed by 9 because that's when they want to go to bed, or I make the stay up and we all have a really shitty time as they are too exhausted to enjoy it. Two rooms with an adjoining door would work, but most hotels don't have this. AirBNB is simply the only option.
- jvvw 3y ago
  Likewise. It's also really useful having some self-catering facilities with children and other self-catering options are often unavailable totally or only in week blocks outside Airbnb in many places. Plus the cost is often the same or less than two hotel rooms.
vidarh 3y ago
Convenience, for me. A flat is better than two rooms when travelling with my son and my girlfriend, for example. For families it has plenty of upsides in places where family rooms or suites are hard to come by.
theknocker 3y ago
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bombcar 3y ago

AirBNB "when it started" was quite likely to find you quirky and cheap options. Now it's commoditized and a business, and the quirky and cheap options are few and far between. Part of the degradation is both the company, the sellers, and the buyers - back in the very beginning it wasn't well known and most of the customers were well behaved - I'm not sure that's entirely the case now, as the customer base has grown.

casenmgreen 3y ago
I'm a digital nomad. One luggage, no permanent home, been fifteen years. I used to use AirBnB all the time. They gradually become more and more, well, "large company". Governments gradually made AirBnB illegal or effectively illegal, largely or wholly killing off AirBnB in given cities, or countries. For example, it used to be about impossible to get into Amsterdam, because of rent control and renting regulations; no supply of places to let. Then AirBnB came along, and everyone and their dog let places on AirBnB. You could get in, and at a good price. Then AirBnB was essentially banned, and now you can't get into Amsterdam. It was always that there were a lot of people offering places who didn't know how to price what they had; so you'd see a lot of properties, but a lot were crazy money. Still, if there were enough, there would be enough places at sane prices you'd get somewhere. These days, I still look at AirBnB, but I see that their fees have continually risen over time, and are now like 10% or 15%, and there's just no content. I was in Paris last couple of months. There was nothing viable on AirBnB, unless you wanted to pay several thousand a month. There was one what I concluded was a scam, a very dodgy letting agency, who had lots of apartments, all with no ratings, but very bad reviews on-line. I think they were continually deleting and remaking their lets on AirBnB, to get rid of negative reviews. Finally, AirBnB itself, regarding "large company", became unreliable as a service, in that I never knew, when I came to us it, if log-in would still work. I recall the first time log-in failed for no obvious reason, and the and the only option was "email support and we'll contact you in a few days" - and I was looking to move in about two weeks time. After that, I put up my own HTTPS proxy, which I now use whenever I use AirBnB, to avoid AirBnB suspending my account for a few days, until support get back to me. I also recall one episode about ten years ago where I had to phone support. It was a three hour long screaming nightmare of hell and madness. So - fees are now rather high, support don't bother - anything but support - I had to backdoor my own net traffic to use the service, no viable apartments in most locations. It was great, but now it's really not. The one and critical thing AirBnB got right was building into their platform the expectation owners would offer discounts for stays over a week, or over a month. I don't see this on other platforms, and it makes pricing on other platforms crazy. If I come and stay for three months, I expect a discount for giving full occupancy over that time. If you don't offer that, you're off the menu.
- bombcar 3y ago
  All of the above makes total sense (to me) when you realize that people don't know how to price rentals at all - just like the average person doesn't know how to price restaurant food. When you know truly how to price (and cost!) something, you know when and where you can offer discounts. If cost to acquire a tenant is $2k, then the discount to preserve a good tenant should be about $2k per tenant turnover time.
  - adolph 3y ago
    > people don't know how to price rentals And "helping" them is a lawsuit magnet: Big landlords are colluding to raise rents, D.C. lawsuit alleges https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38155840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38155840
    - bombcar 3y ago
      If I had a group of graduate students at my beck and call I'd love to try to factor out what effect single-family rentals have had on the rental market in toto - because once you remove appreciation, they're often losing money each month, which means they're subsidizing the renters (and willing to do so because they're making it up on highly-leveraged appreciation).
      - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
        Why would the math be different for apartment buildings? They also appreciate and they usually have better accountants to make sure no money is left on the table if it's available.
        bombcar 3y ago
        Apartment buildings get handled in a business-like manner, but are also apartments (which have downsides for the renters). My theory is that single family homes get rented below what it costs to rent them and the landlords make it up via appreciation. It's pretty obvious that there are places like this, where the rental prices are substantially below 1% of the purchase price (one of the "rule of thumbs").
nytesky 3y ago
I mean this is the zeitgeist for AirBnb, the first word of the SNL sketch is BLAND. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw
rchaud 3y ago
> most of the customers were well behaved ...because back then they were dealing with a single homeowner, where there was a certain level of mutual respect. Once "Airbnb host" became synonymous with party houses, cleaning fees and multi-unit short term rental empires, that changed.

ransom1538 3y ago

"In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available." I still, can not wrap my head around this. The idea behind airbnb was to rent out unused parts of your house. You STILL can not do this. Motel 6 is cheaper all day everyday. I will keep giving my $80 to Motel 6, but, I KNOW there is someone out there that has a room and needs $80. The original problem still exists. I can't pay $120 + $30 in cleaning fees, plus do your house chores Sarah.

smelendez 3y ago
My suspicion is those cheap single rooms were never worth it for the hosts once you consider the long tail of things that can go wrong. One bad guest who upsets the other residents and leaves the property in bad condition will sap your earnings and throw off your life. Airbnb might eventually reimburse you for damage, but there’s still your time and aggravation. Also any household maintenance issue, like an internet outage or finicky toilet or a microwave on the fritz becomes an emergency if it’s an amenity you promised to a guest. Even realizing the guest towels are getting a little worn might be a cause for panic. Motel 6 has a handyman on call, maybe the owner or a relative, and can take a room out of rotation if they’re not booked solid, but Joe Airbnb is stuck begging a plumber to come out on short notice or rushing to Target before check in time.
- shagie 3y ago
  > My suspicion is those cheap single rooms were never worth it for the hosts once you consider the long tail of things that can go wrong. They stay too long, and now they're a tenant rather than a guest - and you can't evict them. https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/airbnb-tenant-squatter-ca-la-18476228.php https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/airbnb-tenant-squatter... https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/805 https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/805
- ghaff 3y ago
  I suspect that people in general are very bad about factoring in fully amortized costs--especially for expensive things that may be unpredictable and likely only happen once in a great while. I was having a discussion not that long ago about how a house that's paid off actually costs a lot of money.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

> In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. I think it depends. For relatively short stays of one or two people, a hotel is nearly always a better deal in my opinion (for short stays the cleaning fee alone can be a big percentage of the total price). But for week or longer stays with a family or larger, they usually come out ahead given multiple bedrooms and the fact that the cleaning fee is amortized over more nights (not to mention access to a kitchen can save a ton of money). In this segment, though, they're really no different from VRBO or a host of other vacation rental providers that have been around for a long time.

ghaff 3y ago
The whole house thing for a group is where I see Airbnb (or VRBO) etc. being a big win over most hotel options. But for most singles or couples traveling, predictability and lack of issues is pretty much the priority. That's not to say I only stay in chain hotels--I've stayed in plenty of B&Bs and small inns--but I don't like rolling the dice on that aspect of my travel more than I need to.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Absolutely. Most of the Airbnb/VRBO that we’ve done was to accommodate 12-15 people including 5-7 children. Only other time I do Airbnb is for specialty situations like a beach house where we can have a big patio with a grill etc.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Myself, wife, and most of both of our whole families find all hotels lifeless and impersonal and uninteresting. Sure nice ones are nicer than bad ones, and it's fun to do that once in a while just as an experience, but generally the nicest hotel with impeccable staff isn't prefferable to a cozy appartment even if it has a few problems. The dice roll is way better. Even the bad ones once in a while are at least different and fun to mock. It's funny how almost the whole families have the same gut response to stuff like that. Look at something and what is the most immediate natural reaction to an idea or the look of a thing. And some other family might all have the same some other natural reaction. Like one person finds gold attractive and another finds it gawdy, and so do their whole family & friends groups. For me, hotels are only good for work. That's the only time the predictability matters. I avoid scheduling as much as possible on vacation. There are events of course but I don't try to tetris pack the days. But for a few days or a week at a customer, then a hotel just something I need like a highway rest stop bathroom.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago

It’s much cheaper for larger spaces. If you want a 2 bedroom living space Airbnb is probably 3-4x less than a hotel.

jupp0r 3y ago

It's not about the price. Hotel suites with multiple bedrooms are extremely hard to find or cater more to the super luxury segment.

jupp0r 3y ago

Unless somebody is making serious efforts and running hidden data wires, spy cams are pretty easy to find by the average nerd equipped with a cheapish spectrum analyzer by their RF signature.

bmicraft 3y ago
Are they? Many are wifi connected, but record onto an sd card, which means they shouldn't be easily detectable, except when accessed, right?
- jupp0r 3y ago
  Even if they are not sending data, there will be periodic communication between the access point and the device. Wifi power saving modes are pretty advanced and described here: https://howiwifi.com/2020/06/25/power-save-methods/ https://howiwifi.com/2020/06/25/power-save-methods/.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

Airbnb has a normal fridge, a microwave, a washing machine, a dishwasher and 700-100 sq ft area. A similarly priced hotel room will have 250 sq ft area and none of the above amenities.

ghaff 3y ago
Suite hotels have all that except maybe the washing machine and are often pretty comparable in price to "regular" hotel rooms. Those tend to be my preference although I use the refrigerator more than the rest of the kitchen.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  > Suite hotels have all that except maybe the washing machine and are often pretty comparable in price to "regular" hotel rooms. I have not found this to be the case at all. Getting a suite with a kitchen usually involves paying a large premium to a regular hotel room.
  - klausa 3y ago
    They don't mean upgrading to a suite at a "regular" hotel; there are chains specializing in renting out "home-style" rooms ("extended-stay" is the industry term, I believe), and I've seen them referred to suite hotels sometimes. The biggest chains have these sub-brands in the space, based off three minutes of googling/wikiing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Inn_by_Marriott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residence_Inn_by_Marriott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staybridge_Suites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staybridge_Suites https://www.hyatt.com/development/ourbrands/hyatthouse https://www.hyatt.com/development/ourbrands/hyatthouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homewood_Suites_by_Hilton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homewood_Suites_by_Hilton I never stayed at one, so can't comment how accurate the OP was re/price.
    - TulliusCicero 3y ago
      I was thinking of those options too. I do tend to look for them when I'm searching for hotel rooms.

happymellon 3y ago

> In my experience Airbnb isn’t even cheaper, just has more “interesting” housing available. For me it has absolutely nothing to do with being cheaper, but simply hotels generally don't cater for families. I have an under 10, and either I go to bed by 9 because that's when they want to go to bed, or I make the stay up and we all have a really shitty time as they are too exhausted to enjoy it. Two rooms with an adjoining door would work, but most hotels don't have this. AirBNB is simply the only option.

jvvw 3y ago
Likewise. It's also really useful having some self-catering facilities with children and other self-catering options are often unavailable totally or only in week blocks outside Airbnb in many places. Plus the cost is often the same or less than two hotel rooms.

vidarh 3y ago

Convenience, for me. A flat is better than two rooms when travelling with my son and my girlfriend, for example. For families it has plenty of upsides in places where family rooms or suites are hard to come by.

theknocker 3y ago

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