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As a home owner that was only able to afford to buy a house because we were able to rent out the spare rooms on AirBnb I find fault in your logic. I think you'

As a home owner that was only able to afford to buy a house because we were able to rent out the spare rooms on AirBnb I find fault in your logic. I think you'll find that zoning/planning permission is the real bad guy here. That and a failure to understand Adam Smith and implement the ideas of Henry George.

sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y ago
> because we were able to rent out the spare rooms on AirBnb Unless you were the very first person in the entire area to think to do so, then the existence of that very market for you to rent spare rooms on is actually driving up the prices of properties so you have to do so. It's also driving up the prices of long term rental, because landlords make more money in the short-term rental market. The prices of long-term rental also affect the floor price of permanent ownership.
- etothepii 2y ago
  I have friends and family. From time to time I would like to host them when they visit so we can drink alcohol and stay up late. Consequently it is always likely that one might want at least one more room than is needed by the family. It additionally provides buffer overflow should the pitter-patter of tiny drains on one's resources appear. In such circumstances renting out a spare room on a longish licence should necessarily reduce rents since now there is an option which is likely to be cheaper. Renting out a spare room for other people visiting ones city should similarly have had a depressive impact on the price of hotels or an improvement in their offering. Given the inconvenience and reduced amenity one gains from living in a house under multiple occupation there is further no specific reason why it should be the case that this does not more than offset the cash remuneration meaning there is no in principle reason why the capital cost of such a property should increase.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    Yours is not a common case. That was the original dream of AirBNB and the appeal of staying with a family in some far away place made it cool. The vast majority of AirBNBs are the entire house or some separate guest cottage. Many are owned and managed by larger companies. Or by people who own multiple houses. The individual home owner renting out a room so they can cover their mortgage has become more of an outlier.
    - etothepii 2y ago
      I agree with your statements but believe the solution to be the abolition, or substantial reduction, of planning controls and the introduction of a Georgist Land Tax. Airbnb demonstrates that there was clearly substantial demand for "house style" hotel rooms but hotels chose not to provide them. In most hotels where a room is $400 a suite with a space to work, watch tv and cook, might be $10,000. The hotel market optimised for the business man travelling alone to conferences and paid a price for it. Even my favourite hotel on earth does not provide an "ordinary menu" for the nights where you just want to curl up with your loved one and watch a film - it's Michelin star dining or bust. In most hotels the only amenity that a hotel offers that is "better" than the home experience is a swimming pool and daily housekeeping. Who, but the richest amongst us, has their bed linen changed _every day_? If hotels had been built as apartments with no zoning restrictions arbitrarily placed upon them there would have been an option for the hotels to adapt by offering their rooms up on a long lease.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
> As a home owner that was only able to afford to buy a house because we were able to rent out the spare rooms on AirBnb I find fault in your logic. Then you're a landlord who has purchased more of a scarce resource than they require (a house larger than you need) who has then turned around and rented access to the extra you have to people who can't afford a home of their own, and in so doing have driven the cost of homeowner-ship just slightly higher, which was the reason you couldn't afford it in the first place. Repeat that a few thousand times and that's a huge contributing factor to why housing is in such a dire state here. You haven't solved anything. You just went from being an exploited person to being an exploiter instead, taking advantage of people you should have solidarity with and inflicting the harm the system was inflicting on you, onto them instead. The system will continue feasting on people who can't manage the same as you did, and you now posses wealth you did not earn.
- kelnos 2y ago
  Homes on the market aren't infinitely customizable. It seems perfectly likely that GP would have been happy to buy a home with exactly the amount of space they needed, but such a home was not available at a price they could pay. (Maybe they settled for a slightly less-nice neighborhood, or a slightly less-nice house, that just happened to provide an extra room or two.) Even if that wasn't the case, I don't see a problem with buying slightly larger than is necessary, because (for example) perhaps they're planning to have a couple kids in the next few years, but will rent out the extra space until then. Moving is transactionally expensive, and expecting someone to move every few years as their space needs change is unreasonable. Regardless, you seem a bit overly judgmental about this entire situation, and about someone you don't know at all.
- lacy_tinpot 2y ago
  You need to really distinguish between rent seeking landowners, and value add landowners. Landowners that have made improvements to the land and seek financial compensation for those improvements, in this case in the form of providing a service, is NOT rent seeking behavior. That is NOT exploitation. This is even basic economics from an extremely leftist POV, where those that have added labor value, that is improvements to the land, in this case providing a service and perhaps building a unit, managing them, etc. should be compensated for their labor. Like this is extremely basic stuff.

sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y ago

> because we were able to rent out the spare rooms on AirBnb Unless you were the very first person in the entire area to think to do so, then the existence of that very market for you to rent spare rooms on is actually driving up the prices of properties so you have to do so. It's also driving up the prices of long term rental, because landlords make more money in the short-term rental market. The prices of long-term rental also affect the floor price of permanent ownership.

etothepii 2y ago
I have friends and family. From time to time I would like to host them when they visit so we can drink alcohol and stay up late. Consequently it is always likely that one might want at least one more room than is needed by the family. It additionally provides buffer overflow should the pitter-patter of tiny drains on one's resources appear. In such circumstances renting out a spare room on a longish licence should necessarily reduce rents since now there is an option which is likely to be cheaper. Renting out a spare room for other people visiting ones city should similarly have had a depressive impact on the price of hotels or an improvement in their offering. Given the inconvenience and reduced amenity one gains from living in a house under multiple occupation there is further no specific reason why it should be the case that this does not more than offset the cash remuneration meaning there is no in principle reason why the capital cost of such a property should increase.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Yours is not a common case. That was the original dream of AirBNB and the appeal of staying with a family in some far away place made it cool. The vast majority of AirBNBs are the entire house or some separate guest cottage. Many are owned and managed by larger companies. Or by people who own multiple houses. The individual home owner renting out a room so they can cover their mortgage has become more of an outlier.
  - etothepii 2y ago
    I agree with your statements but believe the solution to be the abolition, or substantial reduction, of planning controls and the introduction of a Georgist Land Tax. Airbnb demonstrates that there was clearly substantial demand for "house style" hotel rooms but hotels chose not to provide them. In most hotels where a room is $400 a suite with a space to work, watch tv and cook, might be $10,000. The hotel market optimised for the business man travelling alone to conferences and paid a price for it. Even my favourite hotel on earth does not provide an "ordinary menu" for the nights where you just want to curl up with your loved one and watch a film - it's Michelin star dining or bust. In most hotels the only amenity that a hotel offers that is "better" than the home experience is a swimming pool and daily housekeeping. Who, but the richest amongst us, has their bed linen changed _every day_? If hotels had been built as apartments with no zoning restrictions arbitrarily placed upon them there would have been an option for the hotels to adapt by offering their rooms up on a long lease.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

> As a home owner that was only able to afford to buy a house because we were able to rent out the spare rooms on AirBnb I find fault in your logic. Then you're a landlord who has purchased more of a scarce resource than they require (a house larger than you need) who has then turned around and rented access to the extra you have to people who can't afford a home of their own, and in so doing have driven the cost of homeowner-ship just slightly higher, which was the reason you couldn't afford it in the first place. Repeat that a few thousand times and that's a huge contributing factor to why housing is in such a dire state here. You haven't solved anything. You just went from being an exploited person to being an exploiter instead, taking advantage of people you should have solidarity with and inflicting the harm the system was inflicting on you, onto them instead. The system will continue feasting on people who can't manage the same as you did, and you now posses wealth you did not earn.

kelnos 2y ago
Homes on the market aren't infinitely customizable. It seems perfectly likely that GP would have been happy to buy a home with exactly the amount of space they needed, but such a home was not available at a price they could pay. (Maybe they settled for a slightly less-nice neighborhood, or a slightly less-nice house, that just happened to provide an extra room or two.) Even if that wasn't the case, I don't see a problem with buying slightly larger than is necessary, because (for example) perhaps they're planning to have a couple kids in the next few years, but will rent out the extra space until then. Moving is transactionally expensive, and expecting someone to move every few years as their space needs change is unreasonable. Regardless, you seem a bit overly judgmental about this entire situation, and about someone you don't know at all.
lacy_tinpot 2y ago
You need to really distinguish between rent seeking landowners, and value add landowners. Landowners that have made improvements to the land and seek financial compensation for those improvements, in this case in the form of providing a service, is NOT rent seeking behavior. That is NOT exploitation. This is even basic economics from an extremely leftist POV, where those that have added labor value, that is improvements to the land, in this case providing a service and perhaps building a unit, managing them, etc. should be compensated for their labor. Like this is extremely basic stuff.