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I can't say that I'm at all surprised. Moreover, I would expect to see more judges, as well as legislatures, pass such rules. I've discovered (full-disclosure

by reuven 13y ago

I can't say that I'm at all surprised. Moreover, I would expect to see more judges, as well as legislatures, pass such rules. I've discovered (full-disclosure: through consulting work with a site similar to AirBNB) that many vested interests -- typically hotels and real-estate organizations -- don't want such sites to operate. Until and unless the legislators are convinced to change the rules by a popular, grass-roots demand to allow it, things won't change so fast. And you know what? I'm not sure if they should. My family has used VRBO ("vacation rental by owner") to rent apartments in Paris, Amsterdam, and Budapest over the last three summers. We loved the experience, and would never even consider going to a hotel in the future, for all of the reasons you can imagine -- we save money, cook our own meals, and feel at "home" in a foreign city. It's a marvelous feeling. But that marvelous feeling is probably less-than-marvelous for a city's permanent residents. When we stayed in Paris, we were told that short-term rentals there are illegal partly because housing is in short supply, and is thus astronomically expensive. Forbidding short-term rentals, in theory, can increase the pool for annual rentals, thus bringing the cost down. (We were also told that rental law was 100 years old, but was only now going to be enforced. Amusingly, we were also told that the French justice minister lived in our building...) Plus, I don't know if I would want an apartment in my building to be occupied by new people each week. We have enough trouble with the neighbors we know. Bottom line, AirBNB is a brilliant idea, and many people clearly love it. But I don't think that they, or we, can expect laws to change immediately to accommodate this new idea. And when the laws do change, we can probably expect them to still impose some restrictions, or even taxes, on the homeowners.

yardie 13y ago
There are so many problems with housing in Paris that I feel that short term rentals are only a small percentage of a percentage of a contributing factor. Even if short term rentals were forbidden it still wouldn't put a dent in the costs. I do agree with you on the constantly new people problem. I recently found out that the reason the front door to my building is broken is because one of our neighbors is a prostitute and the johns were letting themselves in and buzzing random doors to get the second door unlocked. Since we aren't a hotel the burden of safety and security has been placed on her neighbors.
deleted 13y ago
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Variance 13y ago
> Forbidding short-term rentals, in theory, can increase the pool for annual rentals, thus bringing the cost down. That's completely contrary to how supply and demand would work--if you forbid short-term rentals you move all the short-term demand into the annual market, increasing annual demand, which drives up prices and causes more scarcity. Since short-term housing can house multiple people each year and annual housing can house only one per year, each new annual housing unit added will be accompanied by multiple new demanders that were previously in the short-term market and could have been all housed in one year by that apartment as a short-term rental. You increase annual supply by one and increase annual demand by more than one--likely by more than half a dozen--and so prices skyrocket as demand outstrips supply and the shortage is exacerbated. Of course, city governments are not exactly the gold standard of understanding economics when passing housing laws.

by reuven 13y ago

yardie 13y ago

There are so many problems with housing in Paris that I feel that short term rentals are only a small percentage of a percentage of a contributing factor. Even if short term rentals were forbidden it still wouldn't put a dent in the costs. I do agree with you on the constantly new people problem. I recently found out that the reason the front door to my building is broken is because one of our neighbors is a prostitute and the johns were letting themselves in and buzzing random doors to get the second door unlocked. Since we aren't a hotel the burden of safety and security has been placed on her neighbors.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Variance 13y ago

> Forbidding short-term rentals, in theory, can increase the pool for annual rentals, thus bringing the cost down. That's completely contrary to how supply and demand would work--if you forbid short-term rentals you move all the short-term demand into the annual market, increasing annual demand, which drives up prices and causes more scarcity. Since short-term housing can house multiple people each year and annual housing can house only one per year, each new annual housing unit added will be accompanied by multiple new demanders that were previously in the short-term market and could have been all housed in one year by that apartment as a short-term rental. You increase annual supply by one and increase annual demand by more than one--likely by more than half a dozen--and so prices skyrocket as demand outstrips supply and the shortage is exacerbated. Of course, city governments are not exactly the gold standard of understanding economics when passing housing laws.