9 ms·

Huge victory in New York for Nigel Warren and our host community

54 points by lennysan 13y ago

gkoberger 13y ago
I love AirBnb. I use it all the time. But, I understand the laws in big cities. Let's say you rent an apartment in a building, which virtually anyone in NYC is doing. Would you want random people having access to your building? Random people getting a copy of the keys? It's your home, and your neighbor is treating the space like a hotel. You'll have random people all over who don't necessarily respect your space. Additionally, it raises rates for apartments. $150/night is nothing for a nice AirBnb place, but it makes for some pretty expensive rent.
- pnathan 13y ago
  Yes, I am fine with random people coming into my apartment building into other people's apartments, so long as they don't get a key to my apartment.
  - badclient 13y ago
    Are you okay if 50% of the units in your apartment and apartments across the city were used for this purpose? Are you fine with the rent increase you will incur because of the demand for units from folks who want to make a profit and can afford to pay much higher rent than someone like you?
    - pnathan 13y ago
      > Are you okay if 50% of the units in your apartment and apartments across the city were used for this purpose? Yes. I fundamentally don't want a gated community. > Are you fine with the rent increase you will incur because of the demand for units from folks who want to make a profit and can afford to pay much higher rent than someone like you? I'm not convinced your premise is correct. But I'll roll with the punches.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      ...apartments across the city were used for this purpose? Are you fine with the rent increase... ISTM that contracts can enforce one's preferences with respect to a particular building, but only in a very few exceptional neighborhoods could they do anything to hold down rent. After all, one can't very well demand contract terms for the building across the street.
    - thekid314 13y ago
      Your second claim that this would increase rents doesn't make sense on the larger scale. For every apartment that is rented out on Air Bnb a hotel room goes vacant. After a bit of time the hotel industry would decrease it's capacity to meet the decrease in demand. That would open up former hotels as new apartments. The possible increase in flexibility and therefor efficiency is more likely to lower rental costs across the city, and increase income opportunities when apartments have a room to rent.
      - pessimizer 13y ago
        No, as the hotels shrink capacity, unless there's a corresponding rise in amount of residential property, it'll be more people packed into a smaller space. The higher end hotels and rooms will go first, and that's the money that will end up sloshing around the residential and rental market. All that's left will be shitty motels, insanely expensive apartments and houses for purchase or long term rental, and short-term rental at current rates or maybe a tiny bit lower (I agree that the market will force short term rates down.) >and increase income opportunities when apartments have a room to rent. This will increase income opportunities for landlords. Especially all of those cash buyers that were riding the upside of this last rally, buying hundreds of properties at a time. In cash. Edit: Even though, now that I think about it, there's a lot of shadow inventory that will come back into the system with price rises. Residential might be able to keep up with demands for a while.
      - vacri 13y ago
        For every apartment that is rented out on Air Bnb a hotel room goes vacant. This isn't true. NYC already prevents a lot of short-term visits because of the high nightly hotel rentals. If that price becomes cheaper, then more people will travel there.
  - smokinjoe 13y ago
    Well, a lot of people aren't ok with that - and they live where they live specifically because they were sold on that 'feature' of the building.
    - pnathan 13y ago
      I guess gated communities are popular too, but I don't like the idea at all.
- earbitscom 13y ago
  The friends of my neighbors are every bit the stranger to me that a renter is, and there are easier ways to get into an apartment building than Airbnb.
  - danso 13y ago
    Uh, it's not the amount of familiarity that is the factor here. The main factor to think about is the distance people are shitting from where they sleep. Your neighbors may be strangers, but they have more incentive to be on good terms with their landlord for many, many legal reasons that their subleasers do not. They also have personal reasons to not screw things up too much with their neighbors, reasons which are ephemeral for their renters. Yes yes, you might say, that's why your neighbors have an incentive to only rent to the best. And I agree. Funny how things slip when third parties are involved though, best intentions be damned. Note: I've only had good experiences with Airbnb (and Craigslist, for that matter)...I just think your reasoning doesn't quite address the issues here.
- tks2103 13y ago
  I betcha the market will take care of the "random people" thing. There will be some buildings that advertise as "No AirBnB places". They will capture some portion of the market that is interested. If the law does not support a landlord doing that, we could probably work something out. There will be other buildings that allow AirBnB type short-term renting. I can think of lots of folks that would like that type of housing, or be fine with the rent decrease that would probably be associated with it. My opinion, the "random" people allegation is a problem in people's minds more than it is a problem in real life.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb. Short term rentals present risk to landlord - damage of common property, excessive resource consumption (electric, hot water, gas, etc, that may not be paid directly by lease-holder). How high this risk is is a topic of hot debate, but it's certainly a non-zero number. Considering that the landlord sees nothing from the AirBnb'ing, and they have some legal ability to classify their building as "no AirBnb", what sane landlord wouldn't do it? This goes doubly if rents in non-AirBnb buildings are, as you suggested, higher. This leads naturally to the thought that we can incentivize landlords to allow AirBnbs (read: kickbacks) - at which point AirBnb starts looking an awwwwful lot like traditional hotels, or worse, the slum-tels of old. Side note: giant companies like AirBnb keep using the word "sharing economy", which I find highly disingenuous. This isn't early-stage eBay, where you list things you don't need. It also isn't Craigslist. The vast majority of places on AirBnb aren't "I'll be out of town and I'd like to make some money on my apartment", the vast majority of AirBnbs are dedicated operations. A far cry from the "peer to peer" "efficient use of excess resources" that Lyft, Sidecar, AirBnb, et al, like to talk about. We hate it when politicians use doublespeak, why do we so readily allow it when it's being done by a company that's on our good side?
    - cinquemb 13y ago
      >* I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb.* I wonder if landlords would pay for tool that automatically crawls listings on AirBnB for their property listings, and notifies them when matches are found?
- physcab 13y ago
  > Additionally, it raises rates for apartments. $150/night is nothing for a nice AirBnb place, but it makes for some pretty expensive rent. Yes, this is my issue. People who rent out apartments with the intention of running them like a hotel, will inflate rent for everyone else bc anyone who doesn't have the intention of running their apartment like a hotel won't be able to afford the market price. There are more of them than you might think, I know of atleast two.
  - gaadd33 13y ago
    Assuming the people who rent out apartments comply with the existing law, they will have to rent out at least 2BR apartments, the supply of which is already very low, and live in the 2nd bedroom while their guests are there. Do you really think that will have a large impact on rent? On a side note, corporations already effectively do this. I lived in a building in Midtown that was at least 50% corporate housing and there were constantly people there for short stays and the rent increases were massive since the companies weren't price sensitive. However, afaik, that is legal.
    - physcab 13y ago
      > they will have to rent out at least 2BR apartments Or they stay with a friend, a significant other, a cheaper apartment outside the city, their parent's house, etc.
      - gaadd33 13y ago
        At that point they are violating the existing law. Seems like it would be pretty trivial for a pissed off neighbor to report them then.
        o0-0o 13y ago
        As long as the owner of the apartment is there fine. My upstairs neighbor used to rent out her apt on AirBNB while she was out of town. On two occasions, the occupant flooded my apartment below because they didn't understand how to user a washer and air conditioner properly. I reported the apartment owner to the city by calling 311. Unless the apartment owner is responsible and insured, this is why it is illegal in New York. What wasn't trivial was the damage. Thousands of dollars to electronics, desks, furnishings, etc. AirBNB should be ashamed of themselves for pursuing profits at any costs. It's one thing to rent your house out in the middle of nowhere. It's another to rent it to eurotrash and let them destroy your building.
- Permit 13y ago
  >Would you want random people having access to your building? I don't understand this argument. You already have "random" people having access to your building. You don't get to vet a single one of your neighbors, and they change all the time (simply less frequently). It's currently entirely within the realm of possibility that a drug addict or noisy college kid could move into the room next to you. The only argument I can sympathize with is that the people may not necessarily respect your space.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >You already have "random" people having access to your building. You don't get to vet a single one of your neighbors, and they change all the time (simply less frequently). You say this like it's insignificant, but it could mean the difference between 10 people and 10,000 people. If you're saying that the chance of encountering a bad element isn't higher when there are more people coming through, that's silly. Your chances of encountering a redhead, juggler, undercover spy, or florist will go up, also.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      For what it's worth, I'd like to read a story about a redhead, a juggler, a spy, and a florist. It sounds like something interesting would happen.
  - Kylekramer 13y ago
    It is about knowing who is responsible. Part of the deal of renting is your contract is with a single entity who takes the lion share of the responsibility: the landord/management corp. You trust them to vet the people who rent alongside you at entry point and handle issues within that subgroup of vetted people who will be there for a longish term and are accountable. Airbnb diffuses responsibility to everyone in the building, including people who you don't have a contract with (fellow renters) and people have no skin in the long term harmony of the building and little accountability (the Airbnb patrons).
  - bowlofpetunias 13y ago
    In my city (Amsterdam), most of the apartment buildings that are popular for short term rental have no more than 3 to 6 apartments. I know all my neighbors. They don't change all the time. In that context it's extremely invasive to suddenly have strangers in your building. Luckily I have good contact with all my neighbors, two of them rent out their apartments regularly, but also live there part of the year. But often apartments are owned by people who just own the property and don't give a fuck about the people that live there. Unregulated, AirBnB would ruin the quality of living for many people.
- bcoates 13y ago
  Looking at TFA, the Airbnb tenant was sharing the apartment with the renter, which is legal under NY law and not really the same thing as an absentee renter Airbnb-ing 24/7 and turning their place into a hotel.
- gojomo 13y ago
  Airbnb guests are no more 'random' to me than any other non-fee-paying guests-of-my-neighbors who are in the building from time to time. Perhaps Airbnb guests are less random, given the sticky reputations, payment/identity auditability, and commercial guarantees/incentives. For example, outside of Airbnb, a neighbor might feel a loyalty obligation to let some sketchy down-on-his-luck friend/relative stay over. In such a case there'd be minimal third-party recourse if this guest causes problems. (Provided the guest is legal under the lease, I don't think you'd have any case, against the host, for the guest's errors/crimes. You'd have to go after the guest, which could be a blood-from-a-stone errand.) OTOH, when mediated by Airbnb, my neighbor-host can coldly avoid any particular Airbnb-guest by risk/reward calculations... and if the guest misbehaves then Airbnb's guarantees and reputation become additional avenues for remedy. That is, some factors make temporary (but accountable) commercial guests even less risky than other casual guests – and maybe even less-risky than some permanent residents! There are plenty of hypothetical things that can go wrong, but we have to sum up the outcomes over all eventualities, under these new incentives, not just imagine worst-case scenarios. Let people flexibly work it out via contract, as we learn, rather than with blanket legislation.
  - randomflavor 13y ago
    don't agree. your edge case is very edge. most 'guests' of people in nyc are out of town friends/family that highly respect and treat the place as their own. airbnb people are not incentivized to treat it like their own unless they are that kind of person. they will litter in the hall ways, make loud noise, etc etc.
- gojomo 13y ago
  If there's enough Airbnb demand to drive up residential rents, then you'd also have to factor in some or all of... • Hotel rates go down from the competition; some hotel space/development at the margin is shifted into residential/Airbnb units • Those renters who take vacations to other cities pay less when on vacation (in either Airbnb units or competed-lower Hotel rates) • Some renters make up some or all of the raised rents through occasional re-renting via Airbnb (as when they are on vacation) Ultimately, holding both people and housing units (including hotels) constant, it's not at all clear that a new commercial system for reallocating who-is-in-what-bed-when causes any net increase in prices paid. By better utilizing stock that might otherwise have been empty, it might increase a city's effective carrying capacity with no costly new construction. Even if it does drive up rents, that's only happening in concert with a bunch of other value - more people on vacation, more useful density/utilization in the most desirable locations, more options for many renters – that helps offset the negatives.
- thezilch 13y ago
  How do you support the last statement? If rates can be higher on rentals, they would be higher. If landlords could make more on AirBnB tenants, they'd provide AirBnB booking.
georgemcbay 13y ago
This is great for airbnb but based on my (admittedly limited) understanding of this specific case from their blogs on it, this case wasn't particularly representative of the normal use case or the normal problems that can come up when subletting through airbnb. From the blog posts it seems as if the guy's landlord was on-board with him subletting, which is a different situation than many I hear about where the landlord has no idea (and may in fact be the one going after the renter if he or she finds out). Also it seems the guy was present and only renting out a room during the guest's stay which allowed him to get off on a technicality in this case while many Airbnb renters will rent the entire space during vacation times, etc.
- cowsandmilk 13y ago
  > From the blog posts it seems as if the guy's landlord was on-board with him subletting This has never been clear to me. His landlord was the one cited for (supposedly) violating the law, so he naturally was interested in a defense to avoid the fine and having a citation on record. I'm not sure he actually approved of his tenant renting a room of his apartment on airbnb.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

54 points by lennysan 13y ago

I love AirBnb. I use it all the time. But, I understand the laws in big cities. Let's say you rent an apartment in a building, which virtually anyone in NYC is doing. Would you want random people having access to your building? Random people getting a copy of the keys? It's your home, and your neighbor is treating the space like a hotel. You'll have random people all over who don't necessarily respect your space. Additionally, it raises rates for apartments. $150/night is nothing for a nice AirBnb place, but it makes for some pretty expensive rent.

pnathan 13y ago
Yes, I am fine with random people coming into my apartment building into other people's apartments, so long as they don't get a key to my apartment.
- badclient 13y ago
  Are you okay if 50% of the units in your apartment and apartments across the city were used for this purpose? Are you fine with the rent increase you will incur because of the demand for units from folks who want to make a profit and can afford to pay much higher rent than someone like you?
  - pnathan 13y ago
    > Are you okay if 50% of the units in your apartment and apartments across the city were used for this purpose? Yes. I fundamentally don't want a gated community. > Are you fine with the rent increase you will incur because of the demand for units from folks who want to make a profit and can afford to pay much higher rent than someone like you? I'm not convinced your premise is correct. But I'll roll with the punches.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    ...apartments across the city were used for this purpose? Are you fine with the rent increase... ISTM that contracts can enforce one's preferences with respect to a particular building, but only in a very few exceptional neighborhoods could they do anything to hold down rent. After all, one can't very well demand contract terms for the building across the street.
  - thekid314 13y ago
    Your second claim that this would increase rents doesn't make sense on the larger scale. For every apartment that is rented out on Air Bnb a hotel room goes vacant. After a bit of time the hotel industry would decrease it's capacity to meet the decrease in demand. That would open up former hotels as new apartments. The possible increase in flexibility and therefor efficiency is more likely to lower rental costs across the city, and increase income opportunities when apartments have a room to rent.
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      No, as the hotels shrink capacity, unless there's a corresponding rise in amount of residential property, it'll be more people packed into a smaller space. The higher end hotels and rooms will go first, and that's the money that will end up sloshing around the residential and rental market. All that's left will be shitty motels, insanely expensive apartments and houses for purchase or long term rental, and short-term rental at current rates or maybe a tiny bit lower (I agree that the market will force short term rates down.) >and increase income opportunities when apartments have a room to rent. This will increase income opportunities for landlords. Especially all of those cash buyers that were riding the upside of this last rally, buying hundreds of properties at a time. In cash. Edit: Even though, now that I think about it, there's a lot of shadow inventory that will come back into the system with price rises. Residential might be able to keep up with demands for a while.
    - vacri 13y ago
      For every apartment that is rented out on Air Bnb a hotel room goes vacant. This isn't true. NYC already prevents a lot of short-term visits because of the high nightly hotel rentals. If that price becomes cheaper, then more people will travel there.
- smokinjoe 13y ago
  Well, a lot of people aren't ok with that - and they live where they live specifically because they were sold on that 'feature' of the building.
  - pnathan 13y ago
    I guess gated communities are popular too, but I don't like the idea at all.
earbitscom 13y ago
The friends of my neighbors are every bit the stranger to me that a renter is, and there are easier ways to get into an apartment building than Airbnb.
- danso 13y ago
  Uh, it's not the amount of familiarity that is the factor here. The main factor to think about is the distance people are shitting from where they sleep. Your neighbors may be strangers, but they have more incentive to be on good terms with their landlord for many, many legal reasons that their subleasers do not. They also have personal reasons to not screw things up too much with their neighbors, reasons which are ephemeral for their renters. Yes yes, you might say, that's why your neighbors have an incentive to only rent to the best. And I agree. Funny how things slip when third parties are involved though, best intentions be damned. Note: I've only had good experiences with Airbnb (and Craigslist, for that matter)...I just think your reasoning doesn't quite address the issues here.
tks2103 13y ago
I betcha the market will take care of the "random people" thing. There will be some buildings that advertise as "No AirBnB places". They will capture some portion of the market that is interested. If the law does not support a landlord doing that, we could probably work something out. There will be other buildings that allow AirBnB type short-term renting. I can think of lots of folks that would like that type of housing, or be fine with the rent decrease that would probably be associated with it. My opinion, the "random" people allegation is a problem in people's minds more than it is a problem in real life.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb. Short term rentals present risk to landlord - damage of common property, excessive resource consumption (electric, hot water, gas, etc, that may not be paid directly by lease-holder). How high this risk is is a topic of hot debate, but it's certainly a non-zero number. Considering that the landlord sees nothing from the AirBnb'ing, and they have some legal ability to classify their building as "no AirBnb", what sane landlord wouldn't do it? This goes doubly if rents in non-AirBnb buildings are, as you suggested, higher. This leads naturally to the thought that we can incentivize landlords to allow AirBnbs (read: kickbacks) - at which point AirBnb starts looking an awwwwful lot like traditional hotels, or worse, the slum-tels of old. Side note: giant companies like AirBnb keep using the word "sharing economy", which I find highly disingenuous. This isn't early-stage eBay, where you list things you don't need. It also isn't Craigslist. The vast majority of places on AirBnb aren't "I'll be out of town and I'd like to make some money on my apartment", the vast majority of AirBnbs are dedicated operations. A far cry from the "peer to peer" "efficient use of excess resources" that Lyft, Sidecar, AirBnb, et al, like to talk about. We hate it when politicians use doublespeak, why do we so readily allow it when it's being done by a company that's on our good side?
  - cinquemb 13y ago
    >* I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb.* I wonder if landlords would pay for tool that automatically crawls listings on AirBnB for their property listings, and notifies them when matches are found?
physcab 13y ago
> Additionally, it raises rates for apartments. $150/night is nothing for a nice AirBnb place, but it makes for some pretty expensive rent. Yes, this is my issue. People who rent out apartments with the intention of running them like a hotel, will inflate rent for everyone else bc anyone who doesn't have the intention of running their apartment like a hotel won't be able to afford the market price. There are more of them than you might think, I know of atleast two.
- gaadd33 13y ago
  Assuming the people who rent out apartments comply with the existing law, they will have to rent out at least 2BR apartments, the supply of which is already very low, and live in the 2nd bedroom while their guests are there. Do you really think that will have a large impact on rent? On a side note, corporations already effectively do this. I lived in a building in Midtown that was at least 50% corporate housing and there were constantly people there for short stays and the rent increases were massive since the companies weren't price sensitive. However, afaik, that is legal.
  - physcab 13y ago
    > they will have to rent out at least 2BR apartments Or they stay with a friend, a significant other, a cheaper apartment outside the city, their parent's house, etc.
    - gaadd33 13y ago
      At that point they are violating the existing law. Seems like it would be pretty trivial for a pissed off neighbor to report them then.
      - o0-0o 13y ago
        As long as the owner of the apartment is there fine. My upstairs neighbor used to rent out her apt on AirBNB while she was out of town. On two occasions, the occupant flooded my apartment below because they didn't understand how to user a washer and air conditioner properly. I reported the apartment owner to the city by calling 311. Unless the apartment owner is responsible and insured, this is why it is illegal in New York. What wasn't trivial was the damage. Thousands of dollars to electronics, desks, furnishings, etc. AirBNB should be ashamed of themselves for pursuing profits at any costs. It's one thing to rent your house out in the middle of nowhere. It's another to rent it to eurotrash and let them destroy your building.
Permit 13y ago
>Would you want random people having access to your building? I don't understand this argument. You already have "random" people having access to your building. You don't get to vet a single one of your neighbors, and they change all the time (simply less frequently). It's currently entirely within the realm of possibility that a drug addict or noisy college kid could move into the room next to you. The only argument I can sympathize with is that the people may not necessarily respect your space.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >You already have "random" people having access to your building. You don't get to vet a single one of your neighbors, and they change all the time (simply less frequently). You say this like it's insignificant, but it could mean the difference between 10 people and 10,000 people. If you're saying that the chance of encountering a bad element isn't higher when there are more people coming through, that's silly. Your chances of encountering a redhead, juggler, undercover spy, or florist will go up, also.
  - foobarbazqux 13y ago
    For what it's worth, I'd like to read a story about a redhead, a juggler, a spy, and a florist. It sounds like something interesting would happen.
- Kylekramer 13y ago
  It is about knowing who is responsible. Part of the deal of renting is your contract is with a single entity who takes the lion share of the responsibility: the landord/management corp. You trust them to vet the people who rent alongside you at entry point and handle issues within that subgroup of vetted people who will be there for a longish term and are accountable. Airbnb diffuses responsibility to everyone in the building, including people who you don't have a contract with (fellow renters) and people have no skin in the long term harmony of the building and little accountability (the Airbnb patrons).
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  In my city (Amsterdam), most of the apartment buildings that are popular for short term rental have no more than 3 to 6 apartments. I know all my neighbors. They don't change all the time. In that context it's extremely invasive to suddenly have strangers in your building. Luckily I have good contact with all my neighbors, two of them rent out their apartments regularly, but also live there part of the year. But often apartments are owned by people who just own the property and don't give a fuck about the people that live there. Unregulated, AirBnB would ruin the quality of living for many people.
bcoates 13y ago
Looking at TFA, the Airbnb tenant was sharing the apartment with the renter, which is legal under NY law and not really the same thing as an absentee renter Airbnb-ing 24/7 and turning their place into a hotel.
gojomo 13y ago
Airbnb guests are no more 'random' to me than any other non-fee-paying guests-of-my-neighbors who are in the building from time to time. Perhaps Airbnb guests are less random, given the sticky reputations, payment/identity auditability, and commercial guarantees/incentives. For example, outside of Airbnb, a neighbor might feel a loyalty obligation to let some sketchy down-on-his-luck friend/relative stay over. In such a case there'd be minimal third-party recourse if this guest causes problems. (Provided the guest is legal under the lease, I don't think you'd have any case, against the host, for the guest's errors/crimes. You'd have to go after the guest, which could be a blood-from-a-stone errand.) OTOH, when mediated by Airbnb, my neighbor-host can coldly avoid any particular Airbnb-guest by risk/reward calculations... and if the guest misbehaves then Airbnb's guarantees and reputation become additional avenues for remedy. That is, some factors make temporary (but accountable) commercial guests even less risky than other casual guests – and maybe even less-risky than some permanent residents! There are plenty of hypothetical things that can go wrong, but we have to sum up the outcomes over all eventualities, under these new incentives, not just imagine worst-case scenarios. Let people flexibly work it out via contract, as we learn, rather than with blanket legislation.
- randomflavor 13y ago
  don't agree. your edge case is very edge. most 'guests' of people in nyc are out of town friends/family that highly respect and treat the place as their own. airbnb people are not incentivized to treat it like their own unless they are that kind of person. they will litter in the hall ways, make loud noise, etc etc.
gojomo 13y ago
If there's enough Airbnb demand to drive up residential rents, then you'd also have to factor in some or all of... • Hotel rates go down from the competition; some hotel space/development at the margin is shifted into residential/Airbnb units • Those renters who take vacations to other cities pay less when on vacation (in either Airbnb units or competed-lower Hotel rates) • Some renters make up some or all of the raised rents through occasional re-renting via Airbnb (as when they are on vacation) Ultimately, holding both people and housing units (including hotels) constant, it's not at all clear that a new commercial system for reallocating who-is-in-what-bed-when causes any net increase in prices paid. By better utilizing stock that might otherwise have been empty, it might increase a city's effective carrying capacity with no costly new construction. Even if it does drive up rents, that's only happening in concert with a bunch of other value - more people on vacation, more useful density/utilization in the most desirable locations, more options for many renters – that helps offset the negatives.
thezilch 13y ago
How do you support the last statement? If rates can be higher on rentals, they would be higher. If landlords could make more on AirBnB tenants, they'd provide AirBnB booking.

georgemcbay 13y ago

This is great for airbnb but based on my (admittedly limited) understanding of this specific case from their blogs on it, this case wasn't particularly representative of the normal use case or the normal problems that can come up when subletting through airbnb. From the blog posts it seems as if the guy's landlord was on-board with him subletting, which is a different situation than many I hear about where the landlord has no idea (and may in fact be the one going after the renter if he or she finds out). Also it seems the guy was present and only renting out a room during the guest's stay which allowed him to get off on a technicality in this case while many Airbnb renters will rent the entire space during vacation times, etc.

cowsandmilk 13y ago
> From the blog posts it seems as if the guy's landlord was on-board with him subletting This has never been clear to me. His landlord was the one cited for (supposedly) violating the law, so he naturally was interested in a defense to avoid the fine and having a citation on record. I'm not sure he actually approved of his tenant renting a room of his apartment on airbnb.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]