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Posting via a throwaway account for obvious reasons. When the lease on my NYC apt expired 2.5 years ago, I've kept the apartment and been subletting on AirBNB

Posting via a throwaway account for obvious reasons. When the lease on my NYC apt expired 2.5 years ago, I've kept the apartment and been subletting on AirBNB 100% of the time. A couple of months into it, I've automated this to a point where I was making ~ $1-1.5K/month after all expenses, and spending ~ 2 hours a month on it, so I considered getting some more apartments and scaling the operation. I'm very glad that I didn't. My lease expires in a couple of weeks and I'm not renewing it. I'm deleting the listing, and my highly-ranked (consistently top 3 in searches for my neighborhood) account from the site forever. I'm thankful to AirBNB for the opportunity to let me do this, but it's become very clear early on that AirBNB doesn't care about its hosts, only about their own company. Those people invested a ton of time, money and efforts into building a viable business model on AirBNB - and now they're royally fucked. I'm glad I'm not one of them, but this is a really shitty move by AirBNB.

JonFish85 12y ago
.... or you could get involved with local politics, and convince your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. that the law needs to be changed. "building a viable business model on AirBNB" Well that's kind of a grey area. It's viable as long as the city government doesn't get wind of it (there's a reason you're posting anonymously). It's viable as long as a landlord doesn't get wind of it, or a condo association. That's about as viable as any other "legal grey area" business is.
- throwaway359ak 12y ago
  Absolutely. That's why I made the choice originally to not expand, and am now ending the whole thing altogether. But a lot of other people didn't, and I feel AirBNB should be making more of an effort to protect its most loyal users, instead of just killing their business, as gray as it is, in one fell swoop.
- uptown 12y ago
  "convince your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. that the law needs to be changed." Property owners of NYC purchased condos and co-ops with the understanding that they were buying a residential property ... not a hotel with transient occupants. What's your argument that their residentially zoned property should be converted to a mixed-use property? What impact do you think that would have on their property value?
  - JonFish85 12y ago
    I completely agree with you. As a whole I am against Airbnb's willingness to look the other way, and see it as a good thing for these types of places to be shut down. I'm saying that instead of complaining about being forced out of business, realize that there are reasons for it--talking to friends/coworkers/neighbors/etc can be enlightening for everyone. Maybe understand that a friend Joe doesn't want to have his 2 young children be surrounded by complete strangers who change daily by talking to him. Maybe in that way a political middle-ground can be found. That's all I'm saying.
wdewind 12y ago
Did you read the part of your lease where what you were doing was illegal? How can you be upset at AirBnB when you either knowingly or ignorantly broke the law?

JonFish85 12y ago

.... or you could get involved with local politics, and convince your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. that the law needs to be changed. "building a viable business model on AirBNB" Well that's kind of a grey area. It's viable as long as the city government doesn't get wind of it (there's a reason you're posting anonymously). It's viable as long as a landlord doesn't get wind of it, or a condo association. That's about as viable as any other "legal grey area" business is.

throwaway359ak 12y ago
Absolutely. That's why I made the choice originally to not expand, and am now ending the whole thing altogether. But a lot of other people didn't, and I feel AirBNB should be making more of an effort to protect its most loyal users, instead of just killing their business, as gray as it is, in one fell swoop.
uptown 12y ago
"convince your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. that the law needs to be changed." Property owners of NYC purchased condos and co-ops with the understanding that they were buying a residential property ... not a hotel with transient occupants. What's your argument that their residentially zoned property should be converted to a mixed-use property? What impact do you think that would have on their property value?
- JonFish85 12y ago
  I completely agree with you. As a whole I am against Airbnb's willingness to look the other way, and see it as a good thing for these types of places to be shut down. I'm saying that instead of complaining about being forced out of business, realize that there are reasons for it--talking to friends/coworkers/neighbors/etc can be enlightening for everyone. Maybe understand that a friend Joe doesn't want to have his 2 young children be surrounded by complete strangers who change daily by talking to him. Maybe in that way a political middle-ground can be found. That's all I'm saying.

wdewind 12y ago

Did you read the part of your lease where what you were doing was illegal? How can you be upset at AirBnB when you either knowingly or ignorantly broke the law?