Airbnb's impact on cities | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb's impact on cities

theguardian.com

90 pointstrusche149 comments

I know this isn't the main point, but airbnb lost me a long time ago with statements like this:

“If it becomes law, this legislation would threaten thousands of low- and middle-income New Yorkers with fines of up to $7,500 simply for listing that they would like to share their homes,” Airbnb fumed.

By "share", do they mean a quid pro quo exchange of goods and services for money?

It's nuts to call this "sharing", and I don't think this is quibbling about words when people at pro airbnb rallies chant "sharing is caring". Of course they're trying to grab the emotional connotations of "sharing" that exist outside the commerce world, which include friendship, generosity, and a wish to help others. I don't expect airbnb to stop this bit of manipulation, but I do think the mainstream media should certainly stop referring to the contract "you may stay in my house on the condition that you pay me the price I have specified" as "sharing". An argument by ambiguity uses the fact that words have more than one meaning, but honestly, I'm not sure how "sharing" even applies at all to such a clear cut unambiguous example of commerce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation

There they go again, claiming that governments are regulating or fining "sharing". No, they are regulating commerce. They are threatening fines on businesses that fail to properly comply with regulations on commerce.

Airbnb's corporate-speak is pretty brazen.

I'm generally in favor of letting companies like AirBnB, Lyft, Uber, and Turo operate in cities. But I completely agree with you that it's infuriating to see the word "sharing" being used to describe them. They're platforms that make it easy for people to operate various kinds of small businesses - or sometimes maybe micro businesses.

I suppose they think it's good for PR to peddle the warm and fuzzy concept of "sharing" but in most people's eyes it just makes them seem more deceptive and untrustworthy. I'm generally a fan of what these companies are doing, and I worry that pushing a false description of themselves only sets them up for stronger backlash.

A much better term than the "sharing economy" for these kinds of two-sided marketplace platforms is the "access economy". The fundamentally new thing they provide is much easier access to both buyers and sellers. As a traveler, AirBnB gives me access to lots of vacation rental listings, many of the them reviewed and to some extent vetted by the crowd. As someone looking to rent out my home, AirBnB gives me access to millions of potential customers, who are, to varying degrees, vetted by other hosts.

Interestingly, I'd agree with you if you'd left airbnb out of that list.

I see something more menacing in airbnb, probably because I've witnessed families getting outbid for single family homes by owners who turn around and airbnb out the "spare" rooms - in a city where I grew up and where the percentage of children has plummeted from about 22% to below 14% in my lifetime (yes, I'm talking about San Francisco).

Airbnb and related services do convert the housing used for children, who don't pay rent and cost a bundle, into short term rentals for tourists. This isn't the only harm it does, but it's the one that worries me the most.

If this isn't true, by all means I'd love to see the data, provided airbnb doesn't scrub it of all evidence first, ahem.

BTW, I like airbnb style rentals fine if they are regulated properly. 75-90 days is a lot of time to get to rent out a house that is zoned for long term residence. If I go off on vacation for a couple of weeks, and I rent my place out, I don't see much harm there. But if a former kid's room is converted into a revolving door for tourists, one more kid is displaced from SF? There is tremendous harm if San Francisco ceases to be a place where people are from.

The problem is that airbnb is lobbying fiercely against meaningful regulation. I'm personally not against zoning to ensure a proper mix of housing in a city. I don't think that these regulations are obsolete just because someone wrote a rails program that allows you to type in your address and click the "Create Hotel Here" button.

Sounds similar to the problem of ticket prices and scalping. It absolutely sucks that families are getting displaced, but at the same time it's a correction in the market.

I'd be curious to know why family residences are more valuable as short-term rentals. My guess would be that there's just more people that want to stay in SF than there are hotels available at prices people want to pay. The tight housing market isn't helping that either. People are getting evicted and replaced by renters willing to pay more, regardless of Airbnb. There's premium on space, short or long term.

Airbnb's not helping, but I think it's more of a symptom of the bay's broken housing market than anything else. I'd wonder if regulating Airbnb rentals wouldn't have a negative effect similar to rent control. My understanding is that most economists agree that price ceilings on real estate only exacerbate the supply problem that places like SF are facing, and the best solution is to build.

On the other hand, why risk the capital to build a hotel, when you can just use the existing housing instead?

>more people that want to stay in SF than there are hotels available at prices people want to pay

The price discrepancy is enormous. Last time I looked, I could generally find a room on Airbnb in the neighborhood of $90-100/night. The shittiest national chain at the airport (I'm deliberately excluding the Tenderloin) was going to be at least $200/night.

"Hotel taxes" is an intellectually lazy explanation. If you actually price out a hotel stay in SF, you'll see "taxes and fees" are around 10%.

Sharing has some different meanings:

- give a portion of (something) to another or others.

- use, occupy, or enjoy (something) jointly with another or others.

The first one has a lot of positive connotations, and 'sharing economy' startups are definitely taking advantage of that, but I think the second is a totally valid use of the word when talking about 'home sharing' or 'car sharing'. It's actually hard to think of a better term to describe those.

I agree that there is some legitimate ambiguity in the term sharing. For instance, if my pal and I decide to order the extra large sandwich and pay for it jointly, it's part of the vernacular to say we are "sharing" it.

However, I couldn't disagree with you more that this is a good way to describe a pure quid pro quo money for services transaction. If this is sharing, then all commerce is sharing.

Unlike you, I almost can't think of a better example of something that isn't sharing than airbnb. It's a rental. If I let you play my violin for $5, I haven't shared my violin. If we purchase one jointly and use it, then sure, but that's not even remotely what is happening with airbnb. The line may be a little fuzzy at the margins, but airbnb is a mile away from this fuzzy zone, squarely and unambiguously in the realm of commerce.

Disagreements about airbnb do get contentious, and I don't enjoy adding to this. But I'm honestly bewildered that you can't think of a better term than "sharing" to describe "I let you stay in my house if and only if you pay me $100". Seriously? It's "hard to think of a better term"?

Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments, and it's a fair question to ask if AirBnB is partially to blame. From [1]:

> The average rental value of a two-bed apartment in the city centre at €2,000 per month, less a management fee, would equate to the apartment being occupied for just 120 nights of the year through Airbnb.

> Investors have confirmed that if correctly managed, the income can be double that of a long-term rental.

(AirBnB disagrees [2])

As much as I like the idea of AirBnB, their impact on the housing market in any given city needs to be considered. Unfortunately the article doesn't mention that at all, focussing solely on tourism.

[1] http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property... [2] http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/airbnb-insists...

The obvious solution to a severe shortage in apartments is to build more. Why doesn't Ireland do this?

Pigeonhole principle: if K people want to be in Ireland at any one time, and there are N < K apartments, K - N people will have a problem. All the folks criticizing AirBnB want to do is make sure they aren't the ones who face the problem.

Not quite - Airbnb shifts demand from traditional tourist accommodation like hotels and guest houses into standard domestic units.

I'm not arguing that this is necessarily bad, but it's really interesting to look at the reasons why this is happening and the negative effects it can have. Increasing domestic prices because of underutilisation is one.

As I said: All the folks criticizing AirBnB want to do is make sure they aren't the ones who face the problem.

Tourists are people too, and need a place to live. The folks in Barcelona just want to make sure it's the tourists, rather than them, who suffer from the housing shortage.

Tourists before AirBnB would simply not visit somewhere if the hotel price was beyond what they could afford.

Is there any justification at all that could prioritise tourists over residents for living space?

Tourists are seen as a way to generate revenue for a city while not incurring the sorts of costs in services that residents do. Similar motivations cause cities to build office buildings without corresponding homes.

Empirically it seems like cities value tourists over residents -- if cities actually wanted residents, they'd approve construction of housing for them.

And in many cases they HAVE approved construction of housing for them but the new (very slight and only relative) market slack is being eaten up by commercial operators on Airbnb.

> Tourists are seen as a way to generate revenue for a city while not incurring the sorts of costs in services that residents do.

How does that work? Don't tourists use the same infrastructure?

Tourists don't usually use schools or social services. This page suggests those make up 50% of the budget:

http://gothamist.com/2013/04/11/interactive_chart_nycs_budge...

(I'm assuming "debt" and "pensions" are allocated proportionally.)

Tourism still incurs some costs, and a common solution to this is hotel taxes to pay for those costs. AirBNB dodges those taxes. Also, since AirBNB converts housing constructed for residents into tourist housing regardless of legality, it doesn't matter much which cities value more.

I can't help but think this whole thing could be solved by charging hotel taxes on AirBNB room nights. Can someone explain why it's not that simple?

AirBnB does not share who's renting rooms. A significant share of the hosts use that to dodge taxes. Now AirBnB could collect and forward those taxes but well, they have no incentive to.

I assume that hotel/car rental/occupancy taxes are just an easy way to generate revenue for the government without affecting local voters. Is there any relation between hotel tax and government services consumed by hotel guests? I'd be surprised if there were.

The upside of AirBnB-like approaches is flexibility. Each person doing one or more rentals (of units that they don't usually live in) has low total capex, meaning expanding to serve increased demand is very quick compared to building a hotel. But it's obvious that this increases both volatility and prices on both the rental and housing markets.

I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a problem and affected cities introduce heavy taxation on short-term renting out dwellings which you don't usually live in and which are not planned for commercial use.

OTOH, "semi-commercial" actors renting out apartments has existed for a lot longer than AirBnB. We stayed in one of these in Rome for a week in '09, found through some website for private rentals (AirBnB went international in '11). So it's not really a new thing, just a slicker UX which may or may not increase total demand for such services.

Macroeconomics is more complicated than that. Basically the property market overheated and crashed in a big way less than a decade ago, with lingering industry-wide effects.[1] Additionally lots of crappy houses were built so they added a bunch of quality regulations that have driven up the cost.[2]

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/ireland-economy-housing-idUSL...

[2] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/15bb4d40-4714-11e5-b3b2-1672f71080...

That first article says that the Irish government has introduced rent controls. Hardly surprising if there are controls over what people can charge that there is a lack of properties to rent?

It was actually the other way round. The very modest rent controls, hardly deserving that name, were introcuded after the lack of properties led to the rent explosion.

Fair enough, I was just curious how Dublin compares with here in Edinburgh which does have a focus on flats (at least here in the centre in the Old & New Towns) and which has had a lot of apartment development recently on brown field sites (former breweries, hospitals, docks etc.). Edinburgh also has vast amounts of visitors and students and I've never heard much grumbling.

The obvious solution is to understand how governments work. Residents are the voters, not the tourists. Blame the cities banning holiday rentals all day, in the end they are acting in the best interest of their citizens.

Apart from their citizens making a living through the platform. From my experience in Berlin they are acting in the best interests of the hotel lobby. The citizens were just a convenient foil.

The people it impacts negatively outnumber the people that benefit from it, it's as simple as that.

That is highly debatable. Berlin needs 40,000 new units a year, Airbnb accounted for 12,000 units. Airbnb is a convenient scapegoat.

> to a severe shortage in apartments

You're looking at it wrong.

What AirBnB does is allow apartments to be rented as hotel rooms, at prices somewhere in-between.

Thus you get mostly empty hotels and lots of mostly empty apartments (1/3 or 1/4 use yields better money than full-time rent).

You've inverse-optimized resource usage.

This isn't purely a resource allocation problem. There are real people finding themselves homeless or in bad living conditions because of the explosion in rents in Dublin. Families shouldn't have to live in hotel rooms. We need to remember that the change and disruption that companies like AirBnB bring are not always good for society as a whole.

There is a supply and demand tension in Dublin over accommodation. Building more apartments, i.e. increasing supply, will help alleviate this tension. That doesn't mean we can't also tackle the problem from the other direction by reducing demand. AirBnB is demand.

It's hard to tell how much any government would want to pull on a lever that might reduce demand. Those tourists bring valuable outside revenue into the city. We need them too. There's lots to balance here. Let's not optimise just revenue.

Didn't they build many, many houses in Ireland before the crisis which then stood empty, debts unpaid and all?

Yes they did, but those are mostly outside of Dublin, many of them are unfinished and unfit to live in.

More to the point: Airbnb shifts regular, tax paying renters into a grey market -- non-renting, non-tax paying economy.

If a city/country wants to base its rental units on a day-by-day, airbnb model, then fine. The problem is when airbnb comes into a regular market and "disrupts" that market by not paying hotel taxes or following local subletting laws.

I say that as someone who very recently used airbnb for a great deal in NYC, and was admonished by the host not to talk about our situation in the lobby, the elevators, or anywhere else someone might overhear.

I can't speak to Ireland, but here in the US, there's an extremely strong relationship between expensive apartments and a lack of new construction. Here's the graph:

http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/asking.price...

How difficult is it to build new housing in Dublin? Does the city allow new apartment buildings, or are most areas single family, detached residences only?

It's complicated. There are height limitations for residential buildings in the city (lower than those for commercial ones), and there's no culture of apartment living here comparable to other European capitals I know. Dublin is sprawling with single family homes. There's a debate going on right now about higher density zoning and the like, but it will take time. Regulations to improve building standards have added to cost, and most developers seem to be in it for the quick buck (my opinion only) and are holding back right now because that's no longer (or not yet again) an option after the crash.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/time-to-end-irela...

The market is clearly signaling that you've already run out of time.

Any change in the housing market it bad for someone. Rents going down can cause owners to lose their homes. Rents going up upsets people who want the security of living in the same place but are't willing to pay for that luxury by buying their own house.

More interesting is what the long term picture would look like if the AirBnB is left to carry on unimpeded. Whatever it is will surely be better for people in general. It might hurt some people who feel entitled and got caught by surprise, but that's how progress works. There are usually losers along with people overall being winners.

Not just those who aren't willing to pay - many (like me) aren't able to pay yet.

People who can't afford it shouldn't expect it to just be given to them. I spent a long time not being able to afford a house and when I couldn't afford rents, I simply moved elsewhere. I never imagined blaming some nebulous group for that inconvenience. It's just part of life.

Here in London its illegal to AirBnB more than 160 days a year, but its very difficult to enforce - I'm typing this a few metres away from the 365-day a year airbnb next door (after being woken by a visitor who buzzed the the wrong house).

> Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments[...]

How bad is the shortage? I'm asking because Google has once again contacted me, this time for a position in Dublin. Or do they have their own housing for employees?

It's getting pretty bad, and AFAIK, no they don't. You'll find a place with a Google salary I'm sure, but it won't be cheap. Feel free to contact me if you want some advice.

Ten years ago, I never dreamed that more efficient resource utilization would be demonized.

> Here in Dublin, Ireland, rents are exploding, mostly because of a severe shortage in apartments, and it's a fair question to ask if AirBnB is partially to blame

Perhaps we should see a pattern: The 'sharing economy' shifts power and wealth to those who own the assets, for which there is now greater demand and, due to resulting increased value, which are more costly to acquire.

I'm staying longer term in BCN for a month and a half and accidentally ended up at an outdoor concert last night before realizing that it was protesting tourists. "Tourism kills the city" was the slogan on the signs around the area. In 2 weeks, I've seen at least 2 demonstrations like this and it seems to be picking up from previous years that I've been here. Things are a little more crowded and I feel like every day there's a bachelor / bachelorette party running around - the density of which reminds me of vegas.

I like to think that I blend in more than most tourists - the ones you see in groups of 8 with 2-3 roller bags each fumbling for the keys and trying to make sure they find the right building - but I'm probably biased.

I'm not sure what BCN's solution will be. Tourism is 12-15% of their economy in Catalonia, so it's not a small chunk for a country with 20% unemployment rate. The hotel options aren't great for what you pay for. AirBnB is definitely cheaper (and usually roomier), but it's a difference when you notice that all your neighbors in "old town" are german / british tourists that pop in for a weekend and then leave. Barcelona does have an ordinance that you can only rent rooms for longer than 30 days - so they have people that come around on occasion to check - but I think it's sort of hit & miss enforcement.

I'm not sure I have answers as much as questions - and it's interesting being on the ground zero and seeing this take place.

Catalonia is not only Barcelona. In Barcelona tourism is about third of city's income, so protests like this are ridiculous. Noisy tourists are usually in hotels/hostels. And I have to say locals sometimes are more noisy than tourists.

I've been living in Barcelona on/off since 2013. I don't have a problem with the tourists. I do have a problem with drunk tourists who pee and shout in the streets at night. Very disrespectful.

I completely understand the protests.. Tourists are a real pain in Barcelona, especially in El Born/Raval/around La Rambla.

But when dogs pee on every street every day and night - it's ok :) As for tourist, dogs urine is the biggest disadvantage of this awesome city.

I don't like drunk tourists either but if "tourists is a pain" for Barcelona - I will visit other cities, despite my huge love to Barcelona.

I don't think the urine itself is the problem so much as the loutishness and disrespect.

If oh are visiting someone's country, be respectful and polite. That usually includes not peeing on things :)

Trust me, I never did it :) I agree with your statement, but I also think there should be either police (guardia urbana?) taking care of drunk tourists, or just close hotels and don't invite tourists. Otherwise it looks like one part of citizens is happy to take tourists money, and other just hate them - not fair to tourists.

And I need to mention I've never seen disrespectful or hateful locals in Barcelona - almost every local citizen I met was kind and polite, even if our talk was possible only with Google Translate.

Brexit is going to do wonders for la rambla.

I doubt it will affect it much at all.

Let me rephrase that for you:

I have a problem with people who pee and shout in the streets.

Surely this is covered by some law which should be enforced with greater severity?

" In Barcelona tourism is about third of city's income, so protests like this are ridiculous. "

I think that the debate in Barcelona (and other cities) is a little more sophisticate of what your are implying.

There is a balance somewhere that cities have to find and this is what they are trying to do. Another consideration is that excessive tourism will kill what makes the city interesting.

I'm not trying to say it's simple issue. But if you hate tourists - don't invite them to take their money. If money of tourists are interesting - use police to control drunk tourists and don't call all tourists "pain". After 2 visits to Barcelona and about $15k spent there, I feel cheated if I was actually not welcomed there.

It's seem to me that this exactly what you are saying.

It seems to me that you are demanding an homogeneous opinion from a few millions of people.

Being appreciated only for my money is most unwelcoming.

Also, tourists starting in AirBnB haven't been invited by the city -- they're outside the planned hotel capacity.

I was in hotels, not Airbnb. Now please expand your idea.

Take it with a grain of salt: the Catalans will find any excuse to protest. I've lived all over the world and nothing even comes close to the number of street demonstrations I witnessed during my time in Barcelona.

Maybe it was the time you choose to be in Barcelona what was different, not the Catalan people?

Potser.

Take it with a grain of salt: the Catalans will find any excuse to protest.

It's called having a backbone, and not just rolling over for whatever number the system and/or occupying power wants to pull on you.

Have you lived in South Korea? They've also got a very strong protest culture for a first world nation.

They really do

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cl4-StMGYAw

It's not only Airbnb in Europe, but also Erasmus (twice a year they make finding housing very difficult), Uniplaces (like Airbnb but for EU students), local classifieds sites (which now just double as Airbnb and Uniplaces listings) and being known as an affordable city (like here, in Lisbon, which is being called "the new Berlin" as well as the new "startup capital city").

Over the past 3 years, rental prices here have increased 30%, pushing locals out of the city center. A quick look on Airbnb for Lisbon, one sees the average monthly price at around 700 euro (for a room) while some listings go well above 1,000 euro. Three years ago, the norm for a room - no matter how you found it - was 180 to 220 euro per month, now the minimum is 300 and increasing. People are mad, and rightly so since minimum wage here is 530 euro.

If anyone wishes to see all the stats well laid out, this article below (in Portuguese) has been circulating locally. I suggest running it through an online translator. It's titled "Who is going to be able to live in Lisbon?" http://www.buala.org/pt/cidade/quem-vai-poder-morar-em-lisbo...?

One of the images from the article is this (http://i.imgur.com/FFDVm0M.jpg) showing local Airbnb saturation, where 75% of listings are entire homes/apts. Airbnb's regional head says in 2015 there were 12K homes listed in the Greater Lisbon area, a 60% jump from 2014 numbers. We're a small city but data shows there are 174 hostels and 184 hotels here, with many more in the pipeline.

It's out of hand and the govt hasn't done much of anything to stop it. By the way, that local listing at over 1K euro per month? It had lots of reviews, meaning there have been plenty of takers.

Why do you see this as something bad? Some people are willing to pay more than others for housing, so others have to move elsewhere; this is normal market at work, why would anyone want to stop it?

Because those willing to pay absurd prices are not locals, nor are they living here long-term, thus this causes locals and long-term residents to be pushed out of the city. Imagine being pushed out of your own city just because the market says tourists are more important than residents.

You still haven't explained why this is bad. See, I don't have to imagine it: my neighbourhood is being gentrified, rent is going up all around, and I'll have to move soon. Not the beat thing ever, but since I'm being honestly outbid on an open market, I fail to see why would someone want to intervene and regulate this.

Also, residents are more "important" than tourists, that's what you're trying to say? Why the hell? What does "important" even mean?

Residents are the ones starting and working for businesses, creating new value and paying taxes long term. Portugal is one of the worst economies in Europe. A lot of people have already moved. Trying to survive on tourism is a shortsighted and will end badly.

There is nothing to imagine, that is how markets operate.

And it is how they have always operated. Hotels and tourist destinations are not built or preserved for your "visit it once and live there 30 years without going again" revenue.

Unsurprisingly, money dictates land allocation. If you have the money to buy land (and in effect, tourists are buying inner city residential through airbnb) you can only resist economic reality so long.

At that - how do you have claim to it being your city? Do you own it? If you own property in it, is someone evicting you from your own home? If you are renting, well, that's not owning. If your neighbors are deciding to sell or rent their homes at lucrative margins to tourists, why do you think you are in the right telling them they cannot do what they want with the property they own?

As someone who rents out rooms in Lisbon (not on AirBnB), I can assure you the minimum is not 300/month, nor are those rare. A five minute search finds multiple available rooms for <250€ - often with expenses included.

I do agree there is cause for concern, but the knee-jerk attacks on AirBnB is silly. For example, there's not a single word in that article regarding the concerns of landlords in making long term rentals. When it takes two years, hundreds of euros and many lost working days to evict a non-paying tenant, is it any wonder that people prefer short term rentals? When you have a building falling to pieces after decades of rent-controlled tenants paying ridiculously low amounts (I know people paying 30€/m for a three bedroom apartment) and you can't afford to fix it, is it any wonder that you'll sell to foreign investors who can?

Among lots of "young" people I know (in their 20s and 30s), mostly foreigners living here, the consensus is definitely that 300 is the new norm. I've heard it time and time again from different kinds of people living in different neighborhoods in Lisbon. I, myself, am paying 300 (even though I would consider it a 250 euro room), and the landlord wishes to up the rent another 25 euro or so (he tried to get me to rent a smaller room so he could increase the price on mine).

Among Portuguese young people, I've also heard many complaints about how hard it is to find a place that isn't a) way too much for what is being offered compared to previous years and b) in the outskirts of town.

That being said, I am aware there are rooms for less than 300, but I'm more talking about rooms that aren't "shoeboxes", size-wise.

same in Italy. Nobody wants to rent long term anymore and lose the apartment to someone who can't pay but can stay for a year or two. I personally met owners who had to pay gas, electricity and water to a tenant who didn't pay rent for 3 years. As soon as she left they went on Airbnb and didn't look back. Managing an Airbnb is not simple many people would prefer a long term tenant but it's just too risky.

Surely the projections cited in this article aren't accurate.

> Already operating in 191 countries and 34,000 cities, analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025.

If the population of the world is about 8.2 billion in 2025, which is the UN's expectation [0], that'd mean one Airbnb booking a night per eight humans on Earth. Perhaps they mean yearly, not nightly?

[0] http://www.unfpa.org/news/world-population-increase-one-bill...

I just assume that Cowen & Co must be bad at predictions.

They got to 191 countries in 8 years. By 2024 AirBNB will be in 382 countries!

There's no way that can be correct, they only did 80 million bookings in 2015: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-airbnb-growth-idUSKCN0RS2Q...

Extrapolated from their numbers, in 2045 it will be an unbelievable 16 billion, 2 bookings a night per human. All that vacationing will lead to vacation fornication and generate the increase in population needed to sustain the growth. What a keen business model.

It'd be awesome if Airbnb integrated each city's regulation into its software. e.g. it ensures that you can't host more than X nights a year.

It could even extract the taxes from each host's incomes and pay them directly to each city council.

Prediction: if Airbnb doesn't do it, someone else will and councils will rule out competitors as illegal.

Isn't the "ruining" of cities more due to general lack of affordable space in light of increased urbanization and tourism?

Granted, Airbnb will add its share to the overall shortage, but if I'd take all Airbnb apartments off of any market, would this put rents back to an affordable level or curtail tourism?

Airbnb reminds me a bit of eBay - good idea led to an influx of professional sellers, which at some point had to be regulated (register as business, taxable income) and in growing up, the platform lost most of its appeal and discoverability of the things it once was created for. Still fills a large enough demand to be around.

I'll call the same for Airbnb: There's demand for staying at a place which does not feel like a hotel and I found the Berlin ruling made for Airbnb to be going in a good direction (Zwecksentfremdungsverbot - use Airbnb if you rent out part of your place, but if you rent on as a business, it must be registered as such). I'll expect other cities to follow suit, because it also postpones having to address the underlying issue.

(regular Couchsurfing host and sparse surfer)

Answer? Probably not. Especially if you don't provide housing stock numbers.

The last AirBnB complaint I read was in Seattle which had a whopping 1000 units on the market. Which is jack shit.

If you want top argue that AirBnB is a problem then you have to list the number of houses, apartments, hotel rooms, and AirBnB units. I'm not convinced it's s talk problem in any city in the world.

Now regulations that inhibit new construction? That's an issues in more than a few places!

Some numbers for Berlin can be found here: http://www.airbnbvsberlin.com

Again, for Dublin only. A quick search of all properties for rent in Dublin on the market leading website (daft.ie) comes up with 1,437 properties, and that's without any limitations to the search. A quick search on AirBnB for just the next weekend (in the middle of tourist season) finds "300+" listings. That's a very rough snapshot of course (e.g. there might be many double listings), but it hints at the potentially large portion of properties that could be off the long-term market thanks to AirBnB (and their competitors, for what it's worth).

Which is only a good thing, because it means the city as a whole is attracting rich tourists to spend tons of money rather than renters who spend less.

And the best part is that if the tourism ever declines, the housing is still fine for renting again.

Dublin has a population of 530k/1.1M/1.8M for city/urban/metro. Having a thousand apartments off the market is irrelevant at that scale. It's is not a "large portion". Or even close.

That's a pretty broad statement that doesn't take into account any of the pecularities of the local property market. First of all, ownership is quite high. Secondly, it's about proportion of available rental properties, not absolute numbers or proportion of population. Thirdly, if there's already a severe shortage, even absolute numbers matter.

The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I just can raise the rent?

Right, no one would and no one will.

Without the state intervening we will have a lot of new york cities around the globe.

    The bigger question is, why should I create new houses and apartments when I
    can just raise the rent?

It might actually be more profitable for you to have more units of housing at a lower price, than fewer units of housing at a higher price. Profit follows a quadratic formula, and it's quite possible to raise profits dramatically by selling more units at a (slightly) lower price.

If your theory was right, then developers shouldn't be desperately begging for permission to build while local NIMBYs beat them back at every turn.

Your theory doesn't seem to match reality.

Another question is "why shouldn't I create new houses and apartments and create more profit"? This is true whether or not that person/company already owns apartments in that place. The market is global.

Because if housing prices are out of whack with development costs it can be more profitable to sell your current apartment (with its associated discounted cash flow) and use the capital to build a new one for cheaper.

> analysts at financial services company Cowen & Co predict that, by 2020, Airbnb hosts will be taking 500 million bookings a night, rising to a staggering one billion by 2025.

In a world of 7-8 billion people (and where most people live with and travel with others, so there are many fewer households and travel groups), these numbers seem more than a little unlikely.

The author misread the actual predictions from Cowen & Co, which predict 500 million "room nights" per year — a term that we refer to internally as "nights booked" per year — which would mean that a total of 500 million nights were booked across all hosts over the course of a year. A single "booking" may count as multiple "nights," since often you'll be staying at (and have booked) a place for more than one night. Here's a better report of the Cowen & Co analysis: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/one-wall-s... — it's a far, far cry from "500 million bookings a night."

You're 100% correct that the size of the total world population makes it spectacularly unlikely that we'll ever have 500 million bookings per night.

I am also becoming wary of using airbnb, for some of the reasons mentioned here. I did meet some great hosts, but at other times I felt I would have been better off e.g. in a hostel.

Also, people who care about hosting and getting to know travelers could just sign up to Couchsurfing or Hospitalityclub, which strangely don't seem to be booming.

"Earlier this month, it released data showing that since it began it has collected $85m in tax revenue for cities worldwide."

That's not a very impressive figure. That's for a global company with massive revenue, now in it's eight year?

Uhm no, lower class New Yorkers don't own they rent and this is the point - the property is not theirs to profit from. Most middle class New Yorkers don't own their own homes either and if they do its likely a one bedroom or a studio. A two bedroom in New York is well out of reach of whatever is left of the middle class there. People that can afford two bedrooms in New York are generally not the "lets make a few extra dollars from this sharing economy" types.

I know that in New Orleans the hotel industry has felt the pinch of Airbnb. Even during big weekend like Jazz Fest, you could still get a room last minute this year, something that used to be unheard of. While its great that tourist dollars still enter the local economy, the hotels employ a lot of people. This is significant in an economy that is almost solely based around hospitality and tourism.

In the past 6 years, I've traveled significantly in New England, the New York City region, the Paris and Marseille regions, London, Leeds, Manchester, and Edinburgh, Iceland, Barcelona, Mallorca, Rome, Geneva, Genoa, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Austin, across a mix of work-related travel to conferences, vacations, and graduate school that involved time at a foreign program.

I have not ever used Airbnb, never found difficulty in getting good hotel accommodations for reasonable prices, never found difficult being shown around the "non-touristy" parts of every place I've visited, either by just asking locals, getting advice from friends, using travel websites, etc., and have really, really valued the nicer accommodations in traditional hotels (especially the extra privacy, standardized cleanliness, and lower variance in terms of noise and sounds that reduce sleep quality).

I'm not being snarky or critical of Airbnb, many of my good friends love it and seem to get a lot of value out of it. But I cannot see any aspect of Airbnb that offers value to me or satisfies my search criteria when looking for housing.

Given this, it is almost bewildering to me that there is so much demand for Airbnb-provided short term lodging that landlords would even consider the idea that renting an apartment solely as an Airbnb rental is more profitable than traditional rental agreements.

I mean, I can't blame the landlords if that's the case. But I sure do feel like the mass of travelers who believe they are getting value from Airbnb simply cannot be correct in their belief that they are actually receiving that value. I just wonder why they think they are.

I find that Airbnb is most attractive when (a) travelling in a small group, because it can be cheaper to get a place that fits three adults and a kid on airbnb than at a hotel, and (b) when visiting people that live somewhere, since it's frequently hard to find a hotel in the residential suburbs where they live, but you can often find an airbnb nearby or (c) when I'm staying somewhere long enough that I want to be able to cook my own food. In specific cities (like Dublin) it also turned out to be much cheaper than an equivalent hotel.

For me, (c) is not really a pro for Airbnb. I'm vegan and cooking is a passion of mine, so I almost always want to cook for myself if I can. I'll even pre-cook meals that can be sealed and go through bag check at the airport just to avoid dining at restaurants. If it weren't for the social aspect, mostly appeasing others, I think I would never eat at a restaurant.

But I've always found that even in dense urban areas (and especially in suburban areas) it's always very easy to find an extended-stay suite sort of place that has an adequate kitchen. The huge benefit for me is also that I'm in control of the kitchen, instead of having to deal with someone else's haphazard stuff, personal ticks, etc.

In terms of (a) I've rented a lot of cabins and houses for small group hiking vacations, but never used Airbnb for it. I can't say anything about how it works on Airbnb, but on other travel sites and one-off sites like Craigslist, I've always had easy, positive experiences and never found the prices to be anything but reasonable.

Obviously (b) depends on exactly who you're visiting. When I visit my family in small town southern Ohio, Airbnb is not an option (too few listings, and I would not trust the safety in that region anyway), so hotels are necessary. I've never had trouble getting cost-effective and nice hotel rooms in suburbia, but perhaps some cities are just much worse than others.

I stayed in 4 different Airbnbs in Barcelona around the time when Ada Colau was pushing to have them all registered [1]. The major concern I heard from my hosts were about properties used _only for Airbnb_, which were particularly notorious in Barceloneta.

A few people figured out they could pose as fake tenets in several apartments at once, then turn a profit by listing them all on Airbnb. This was where things went from bad to worse — some people were listing 10+ properties at the same time [2].

With all of that, I'm not surprised there was such a backlash. The type of subletting that was going on in BCN is clearly not what Airbnb is about. It's unfortunate that it's led to a much larger/more political movement against tourism in general.

[1] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/barcelona-airbnb-tour... [2] http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/01/inenglish/1441115926_651...

New businesses and ways of doing business always disrupt the existing businesses, and the existing ones frequently advocate for regulations to preserve their niche.

In Budapest, Hungary I can see a rise in prices from 250 EUR/month to almost 350 EUR/month for the same flat in the last 2 years thanks to Airbnb. What happens here is that most property owners realized that they can make more money by renting their flat (not just a room) instead of underleasing it. This leads to a LOT of people hopelessly scrambling for flats to rent because there are not a lot of new flats being built. Basically tourists are taking away flats from people who are trying to live in the city. This is horrible IMHO. I hope that the government will assess brutal taxes on Airbnb to make it useless or otherwise a lot of people will either become homeless or are forced to return to the countryside.

Obviously this must be an impact of increased mobility and globalization forcing previously isolated economies to compete in larger market, with Airbnb merely riding the wave.

Dwellers of comparatively more well-off cities probably aren’t complaining about tourists driving them out, in other words. In Seoul, for example, monthly rate for a studio on Airbnb right now seems close to what a local would pay for a similar option found via old-school real estate agency[0].

[0] If they could get away without depositing some $xxxxx upfront. Based on experience of a friend who in 2014–2015 rented a studio found via an agency.

So the argument is that since Airbnb makes travel cheaper, it is ruining the cities?

Suggesting that hotels were keeping the prices artificially high to limit tourists and hence conserve the cities?

Try harder next time.

The argument is that there's less hotels (and that nobody has noticed that the demand is higher).

No it's not that hotel prices are artificially high, they are priced in a completely separate market to residential properties. If there is no regulation on Airbnb rentals, tourists are now competing more in the residential market. This can obviously have an effect on cities.

I don't see what is artificially high about hotel prices. As someone else pointed out tourist do incur costs, and that can be added to hotel taxes. So Airbnb are both reducing taxes as well as making less accommodation available for residents.

Airbnb is definitely not the analogy of Uber. It's extremely expensive service - prices of dirty rooms with old furniture are higher than in 4-stars apart-hotels. In city I live (Saint Petersburg) price for room in Airbnb is 8-9 times higher than on local sites. And I tried to find room in Rome, Prague, Barcelona - every time Airbnb was more expensive than good hotels.

>... every time Airbnb was more expensive than good hotels.

Really? I thought the whole point of airbnb was to get accommodation for less.

I don't understand it either. But it is kinda true.

After trying to rent a room for my family from oversee and i got rejected every time. I found something like four times cheaper here.

And this was like an hour away from a big city where I looked...

I don't understand it either.

But maybe that's where we are heading everywhere.

Appeal only to the rich. One customer a month is better than four or five.

The whole point of AirBnB is to make more money for landlords and for AirBnB. The service has economic value in itself, so it's not a surprise prices are more likely to trend upwards than downwards, especially if there's high demand.

"We have too many tourists" should be a good place to be, not a bad one. Trying to stop the flood is less constructive than trying to work out positive ways to manage it.

Have you ever traveled to somewhere that is "really touristy". Patong beach in Thailand, Magaluf in Mallorca are two that come to mind (as I have ended up in both in the last year). I am sure they were far nicer places before the tourism.

Tourism brings in money so from an economic perspective its a no brainier, but there is more to quality of life than economics.

I hoped for same. Maybe it's because I'm not looking for hostel-like rooms, but in BCN I saw even room in the boat (Airbnb) for $900 per week. It's just one of examples.

This June our family (4 persons) spent 3 weeks in Barcelona apart-hotels (4 stars) with prices $1200-$1400 per week. It was less expensive than Airbnb.

I also vacationed in Barcelona this June and stayed in two different Airbnb rooms at $40 and $55 per night (including all fees). Both were private rooms, although bathroom was shared in both cases (I don't think I've been in an airbnb that had its own private bath). Granted, as a solo traveller I'm likely looking at different listings than you are, but the options on Airbnb were quite good, even during a major festival weekend (Primavera Sound).

1. Shared bath is absolutely unacceptable for family.

2. $55 * 4 * 7 = $1540 for week, with shared bath. We were in hotels with private baths (2 separate private bathrooms) for $1200.

Thank you for proving my point :)

As I said, if I were looking for an airbnb for a family, I would be looking at different listings, e.g. complete apartments, in which case you would have your own bathroom. I'd image the per-person prices to be better than for a solo traveller in this case as well, as has been my experience in other areas. Weekly rates on Airbnb tend to be better than nightly as well (I didn't stay long enough).

The point being, whether Airbnb in Barcelona is competitive with hotels depends on your needs, but at least in my case, it was, while providing better than hostel-like accommodations.

No, I doubt most people find this to be true. I generally find clean private apartments in good areas, cheaper than hotels, sometimes cheaper than hostels too. Used to be more availability of single rooms for even cheaper too. Seems like prices have gone up over the last couple of years, but certainly not a surfeit of low quality expensive places.

If you want to call me a liar, I can find apart-hotel in Barcelona for you (4 stars, good reviews on Booking), and comparable set of rooms on Airbnb. And after that you will bring apologizes. Deal?

Please don't escalate like this. People can (and do, and need to) disagree without calling each other a liar. One main purpose of discussion here is to share different experiences.

Answer "I disagree" is one thing, answer "you are wrong" - is fine also. Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar. It's offensive and I see nothing wrong in my try to defend myself.

Only thing I regret is typo in previous comment in this branch.

You appear to have missed the key word in what I posted, which is "escalate". For example:

> Answer "it's not true" - is calling opponent a liar.

That's literally what it's not doing. Equating these two things is escalating, i.e. substituting one utterance for a more provocative one and replying to that instead.

You may feel that the train of logic inevitably takes you there down a one-way deductive track. But there are many opportunities to get off that train, and good manners and civility demand that we do. If we don't, all disagreement ends in conflict, which is tedious (for everyone else) and destructive.

I wonder if there may be a crossed cultural channel here, because the gap between "you are wrong" and "it's not true" strikes me as tiny—not the chasm that you describe—and if anything, "you are wrong" sounds slightly less polite since it's more personal. This is the kind of thing that people with different cultural and language backgrounds routinely hear differently, and the presence of many different backgrounds on HN is one reason why we all need to be charitable in our interpretations.

p.s. I've fixed the typo for you.

That's not been my experience at all, and I've booked dozens of places through Airbnb over the years. Also, one big advantage for me as a vegetarian is that I can get a fully equipped kitchen, so instead of hunting for the one restaurant that has more than one salad to offer, I can shop in local markets and cook myself - I enjoy it and it saves me money too. Even good apartment hotels often just have two sad pans and three plates.

It's not good apart-hotels. In every apart hotel we tried, there was equipped kitchen and we often make food there. And we don't even need to be vegetarians to do it.

There is explosion of cheap flight tickets.

rencently Airbnb introduced Smart Prices. It's an optional automated system which allows the host to accept prices suggested by Airbnb's algorithm. They prices are usually very low and I have the feeling they'll make it less interesting for many renters to stay on the market. Maybe it will bring some balance. It's completely counterintiuitive but I'm afraid they are destroying the market. I already know some people going off Airbnb and moving to other platforms because it only brings cheap bookings.

This article is better than a lot of comparables and the discussion isn't bad, so we've reduced the downweights (not Airbnb-related) that got automatically applied to this submission and replaced the baity title with something more neutral. If anyone wants to suggest a more accurate and neutral title, we can change it again.

What's wrong with the original title? Would the subtitle "Airbnb has become so successful that hotels are losing business and tourist sites face being ruined" be acceptable?

"Ruin" is hyperbolic and "ruin our most-loved" is over the top.

Ok, your site, your rules. But I'm surprised to see that that title in another submission in the top page has been changed from "Reasons not to use Facebook" (the title of the document in the <h1> sense) to the less neutral and more hyperbolic "Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook" (which is the <head><title>).

We changed that one to the original title of the article. Is it misleading or linkbait? Those are the conditions under which it should be changed.

Arguably it is, but then the site is Stallman's, which makes the context of the advocacy unmistakeable. Also the verbal twist of "use, (i.e. be used by)" is marginally gratifying of curiosity in its own right, and not the same thing as the usual clickbait. So IMO that title squeaks by as ok.

Obviously different editors would call some of these differently, but that's not the same thing as arbitrarily changing the rules. The rule is pretty fixed.

Long term the impact I see is better tourists and better cities.

I don't think so

You've been posting uncivil and unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We ban accounts that do that, so please stop doing that. Instead, please (re)-read the site guidelines and follow them. That means posting civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Edit: oops, I misread that comment, so have detached this one from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980147 and marked it off topic.

That is exactly what I got from the article. I would suggest you to read it but that breaks the guidelines.

Even the original title reads "From Berlin to Barcelona; will Airbnb ruin our most loved cities?". If anything, you should ban the article.

I'm sorry! I misread you. I thought "Try harder next time" was a swipe at another user, which it wasn't.

(But https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11979795 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11963888, the other comments I had in mind, did break the site guidelines, so I still need to ask you not to do that.)

That title is indeed bad, but I've explained why we haven't banned the article here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11981664. Also, if we had, people would accuse us of trying to suppress criticism of a YC-funded startup, which is something we err on the side of not doing.

OK, understood. Thank you.

Tourists are human beings, same as residents. Tourists value the opportunity to visit for 2 weeks more than residents value the opportunity to live there for 2 weeks (as evidenced by their willingness to pay more).

Why do you believe tourists deserve fewer rights than residents?

I realize that in terms of blatant power struggles to control the means of violence, tourists will lose. But lets not pretend that's anything other than the strong exploiting the weak.

Generally the tourist taxes paid (if any) are considerably lower than the taxes a resident pays. Besides payments for city taxes which equal more or less what tourist taxes are (in NL), I also pay taxes (income, possessions/investments, housing) to the countries government, which distributes money to cities.

If we'd all be tourists, the world would quickly look different, mostly negatively for the current tourists (tourist taxes would increase to match current resident taxes).

Without having to resort to violence I think that being a resident (paying taxes) does introduce more rights. This shows in, for example, being able to vote. Next time a major wants to run, make it a point to limit AirBnb and alike and you should get the vote if it is detrimental enough.

The city services consumed by tourists are considerably lower than those consumed by a resident. Why do you believe tourists don't pay for the services they use?

Without having to resort to violence...being able to vote.

You try to disclaim violence and then immediately come back to the fact that residents control the monopoly on violence. Self refuting.

Not so sure city services are considerably lower for a tourist than a resident. If I look to my residential usage or tourist usage, I'd venture I'm about equal, taking into account things like safety, infrastructure, city governmental services etc, if divided up by time. I'm not sure what kind of city services I'm missing that I'm suddenly not using as a tourist but am as a resident? The couple small ones are easily equaled or even outnumbered (ratio-wise) by tourist offices and other services only there for tourists.

Voting and the monopoly of violence has never occurred to me that concretely, it's an interesting viewpoint. Of course the same perspective occurs directly when I become a tourist in the 'tourists' city. The 'Tourist' isn't some vague entity or a non-resident anywhere (generally) but also someone who uses their control of the monopoly on violence.

Turning it around, how do you propose 'tourists' get equal rights?

I'm not sure what kind of city services I'm missing that I'm suddenly not using as a tourist but am as a resident?

Schools, welfare and similar social programs, free parking. Pretty sure those cost more than tourist offices.

If you are a single worker without a car, none of that applies to you. If you are a single mother who refuses to work it's a huge benefit.

Turning it around, how do you propose 'tourists' get equal rights?

Government that doesn't engage in economic protectionism.

No good to

- let tourists fly around in much too cheap airplanes (which destroy environment) and

- let them live in much too cheap appartments (which destroy local communities)

The weak imho are the nature and residents and not the tourists which arbitrarily come and go as they please.

The strong are the people with the ability to threaten violence toward others (in this case people attempting to peacefully interact with other residents). Residents can do this with the power of their votes. Tourists can't.

> I realize that in terms of blatant power struggles to control the means of violence, tourists will lose. But lets not pretend that's anything other than the strong exploiting the weak.

Please don't go off into ideological boilerplate, not to mention flamewar fodder, like that.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980175 and marked it off-topic.

How is a post claiming residents deserve special privileges not ideological, but one claiming they don't is?

It's taking the thread into ideological generalities. Playing the monopoly-of-violence card is just upping the ideological ante in a way that can only polarize the argument, at the same time taking the discussion to so abstract a level that there is little of substance left to say. That combination of escalation and generality is one of the worst thing you can do in discussions like this; it's a kind of trolling whether you mean it to be or not.

Similarly for taking a trope like "the strong exploiting the weak" and applying it to tourists (of all people) in a way that's guaranteed to tick off the readers who go in for that kind of phrase. That's basically just a stunt, and it's one that seems designed to offend. Why do you go out of your way to make the people you disagree with uncomfortable? Again, that's trolling whether you intend it to be or not. (I used to do this myself without realizing it. It took me a long time to see that.)

The kind of discussion we want here is people trying respectfully to figure out the truth together. Your comments frequently strike me as conforming to the letter of that idea while violating its spirit—almost as if you'd discovered a loophole in the rules of discourse and were gleefully exploiting it. That's not as bad as violating the letter outright, which is what most people do who use HN as an ideological battlefield. But it's still dismaying, and it still leaves one with the feeling of being trolled. As, for that matter, do your naive-sounding "how is" questions that always seem to leave the real problem unmentioned.

I'm attempting to distinguish between a normative claim (residents should be treated the same as tourists) and a similar positive claim (residents will be treated the same as tourists). People often conflate such claims so I wanted to preemptively disambiguate. (I do this often, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7724652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11669705 )

Am I correct in understanding that you are detaching/penalizing my post because while it's positive claims are correct, and within the letter of the law, you think folks who disagree with me might have negative emotional reactions and perhaps behave badly?

That's quite the hecklers veto you are building there.

No.

> Tourists value the opportunity to visit for 2 weeks more than residents value the opportunity to live there for 2 weeks

We desperately need a name for the fallacy that "if Alice can afford to pay more than Bob for the same good, that means it will bring her more happiness". I'd prefer to optimize society for happiness, not income-weighted happiness.

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