Airbnb Is Suing San Francisco to Block Rental Rules
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Uber and Airbnb will be regulated legislative or through unions. Ask yourself just wtf are cabs so much more inefficient than Uber and hotels more expensive then Airbnb?
Few drivers depend completely on Uber for their income, Airbnb is still on a legal gray zone.
This won't last forever. Uber drivers will unionise, tenants who live around Airbnb hosts will pressure the government for legislation and so will hotel providers.
Uber is pivoting to logistics. What's Airbnb doing? Wouldn't surprise me if they soon build their own hotel.
However, the argument can be made that the sharing, while not in the classical sense, does reduce the impact on resources through efficiencies. So in that sense, people are sharing resources (as in sharing a bus ride --you both pay) and making less impact on earth's resources.
Small cab companies in that sense were more inefficient, among other things, because an idle car (one without a medallion) could be put to use to taxi people around. Same for AB&B. People arguably maximize the use of a house --by renting their spare rooms (the use case has morphed since inception, granted). I think you can see where this model, whatever it's called makes more efficient use of our resources.
I don't know whether it is or not (and I assume the answer is different in different places), but it bears mentioning.
One hotel converted into condominiums create 1100 residences,[1] out of < 30000 AirBNB rentals in NYC. It's such a "problem" the council wanted to ban it. [3]
[1] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/waldorf-astoria-hotel-to-be...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11992112
[3] http://nypost.com/2015/05/11/council-plan-would-limit-changi...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/27/airbnb-new-y...
Also, few cab companies subsidize rides with borrowed money in the name of growth.
The real issue is how much real estate isn't available for long term renters because short term rentals are so much more profitable and easy. It's killer on vacancy rates and drives up rents for everyone.
For reference, co-op boards tend to outright ban short term rentals.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working out that way - housing that was used for permanent residence is now getting converted into airbnb rentals. People are now acquiring properties in order to have a "spare room" - ands those "spare rooms" would absolutely be occupied by a long term resident if they were not being used as short term hotel-like rentals. For instance, people are now using the anticipated income from a spare kid's bedroom to outbid a person who would have otherwise used that bedroom for, well, a kid. Kids cost a bundle, and they don't pay anything like a well heeled tourists for the right to occupy their bedrooms. In a place like SF, where everything goes to a bidding war, a family with the extra costs of kids has very little hope going up against an investor who plans to convert the house into a hotel.
BTW, I absolutely agree that some of this really is efficiency (spare rooms, people on vacation). But at this point, I think it's pretty clear that airbnb is driving displacement and conversion on a large scale.
It is immensely reasonable (yes, in my opinion) for cities to pass laws that ensure a proper mix of housing, including housing for families with children. These laws are not obsolete just because someone wrote a Rails app where you can type in an address and click a "Create Hotel" button.
I overwhelmingly agree that SF needs to build more, but I don't think this basic reality will change. SF's population of children has plummeted in my lifetime, from about 22% to below 14% now. Airbnb is hardly the only factor, but I believe it is making the problem worse.
To your complaint about people factoring in future rental income - what about people betting on future price increases like during the housing bubble? Should people not do math?
As to your last stat, maybe kids just grow up and then more adults moved in to work in tech - would that explain the pct drop or are you blaming airbnb?
Why should they be different?
I'm guessing this is about this, "The new law would require Airbnb and other short-term rental websites to post registration numbers on listings or email the number and name of the host to the Office of Short-Term Rentals, The City’s agency tasked with enforcing the regulations." (From http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-poised-require-airbnb-list-regi...)
So "their" "free speech rights" are "violated" because they have to post registration numbers.
Basically, the city wants to hold Airbnb responsible for user-generated content. The city also wants Airbnb to hand over users' personal information. Both the EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology think that these requirements violate federal law. (Though EPIC thinks otherwise.)
Airbnb gets paid for the rentals, not for the listings. Also, they actively control the content (try putting an URL in the listing). Mistaking Airbnb for a publishing medium for user-generated content seems disingenuous at best.
If they're actively controlling user generated content, then it's obvious they benefit from better content.
There certainly is a struggle between ownership rights and the right of cities to regulate business within their jurisdiction.
As a renter, I can sympathize with wanting to avail more rental properties to renters, but I am also very uneasy with politicians dictating what you can and cannot do with your property when that act in and of itself is not otherwise illegal. It's not confiscation, but it also kerbs your ability let your property as you wish --and I say this as a renter who arguably would benefit from this politician's policies.
PS move HQ to Brisbane and take the corp taxes with you.
SF's legendary rent control creates a clear incentive for landlords to use a service like Airbnb to continually rent at market rate (though lower occupancy rate) while maintaining control to allocate the unit as they see fit. Renting a unit in sf both freezes rental revenue and removes the owners control to reallocate the unit.
Did you mean something else?
#2 is the big issue. Even with rent control, at least you can rent the place out for the whole year. With the license you can only rent the place out for 90 days a year. You must live in the unit the other 275 days of the year. So your rent controlled rate would have to be 25% of market rate for the legal short term rental to make sense, and you'd have to live there when it isn't rented.
How many people live in rent controlled units in SF?
I've seen more people -- on HN and in real life -- railing against rent control than against AirBnB.
Segregation is the default in American housing policy to the point that most people treat segregation laws as normal, justifiable things. Every time we make a decision about homes, we should consider the impact it has on different kinds of people.
For starters: Occupational safety (branches falling down and crushing you on a tire swing), fire safety, bedbugs, noise/loud parties, litter, criminal occupancy, secondary vice (drug dens/prostitution/craigslist orgies/etc). The problem of a bunch of sailors coming into port has been recognized since antiquity. Skeezy/short term motels have a reputation for a reason, and are regulated for even better ones. You yourself may be a perfectly upstanding citizen who just couchsurfs for a weekend to check out a cool area, but others are not.
It's unreasonable to expect neighbors to file daily lawsuits against their neighbors to keep a modicum of peace. It's a known problem and it's perfectly reasonable to preempt it by either requiring a formal lease with a minimum term of a month or more, or requiring more identification/scrutiny of the clients and some formal standards of the rentiers.
Analogously, it's perfectly fine for banks to scrutinize large cash transactions. Some of them are legit, some of them are tied to crime. But you need to look and be sure because it's high-risk activity. If you don't want that level of scrutiny, send a check/transfer/CC payment and your reputation will speak for itself.
Since we are regulating what people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, shall we also bring up the possibility of homosexuals engage in sodomy?
If that's somehow off limits to regulate, what distinguishes it from the private bedroom activities you bring up?
Search 'airbnb xxx fest evicted' for details.
First, nothing you listed is an externality but rather direct results of poor behavior. An externality would be something like 'decreases property values of neighboring properties' or 'increased rents due to lower supply'.
Second, what data do you have that proves these scenarios are more likely in an AirBnB than a long term tenant? You're only supporting evidence is inference; if people are going to behave poorly then it makes sense for them to rent an AirBnB away from home. But there's an easy counter argument: pressure from neighbors will keep these incidents to a minimum. Sure, there will always be hosts are not sensitive to neighborhood pressure, but that same logic can be applied to long term tenants who have bedbugs, throw parties with loud music, litter, engage in criminal activity, etc. Simply put, all of negative scenarios you outline can occur with long term or short term tenants, and there is no evidence that these behaviors are more common from short term tenants.
Third, comparing all AirBnB's to skeezy motels is like saying all restaurants are roach-infested mold-filled 50-point scoring health hazards. This is a classic straw man argument. What about Marriot or Hilton? Embassy Suites or DoubleTree? Do they fulfill the reputation of "skeezy/short term motels"? This is an argument for better inspections and code enforcement, not prohibiting AirBnB.
No one expects neighbors to file daily lawsuits, but neighbors can notify the police if there is a noise violation, etc. Once again, there is no difference here between long term and short term rentals. AirBnB requires more identification than any hotel I've stayed at, so this argument actually supports AirBnB as a platform.
Lastly, your bank analogy is frightfully off base. First, a bank's intrinsic motivation for monitoring large transactions is fraud and not criminal activity. Second, banks are compelled by law to monitor and report specific types of activities that are likely to be criminal activity, but this is defined by organizations like the FBI, not the banks themselves. Third, you still have yet to prove, beyond casual inference, that AirBnB promotes criminal activity any more than long term tenancy.
The amount of off-campus housing needs increased dramatically through the 2000s as the universities expanded enrolment so many areas that weren't being rented now were. Many of the long time homeowners who lived in those areas long before student housing came there have been up in arms.
Not all restaurants are roach-infested mold-filled hazards - but we have to treat them all like they potentially are, in the sense that we need to register them and inspect them to prove that they aren't hazards. Marriott and Hilton hotels get inspected all the time and they pass with flying colors because they do all the things they're supposed to do - unlike unregistered fly-by-night flophouses working under the radar.
You've obviously never gotten bedbugs from a neighboring unit or hotel. Trust me, they suck like crazy. You do not want to go bundle everything you own into trash bags, move out for a weekend while you wash everything you own, and have the house fumigated (heated to a crisp). It sucks.
Fraud/money laundering is a form of criminal activity, and (just like hotels) banks are compelled to report on specific types of activities that are likely to be criminal. Hotels don't define this; legislatures do, just as they define (or delegate) what they consider to be suspicious financial activity. The Hilton is not deciding that the guy paying in cash every night with a dozen visitors every night or the guy bringing in a bunch of drain cleaner every day is a suspicious individual, they let the FBI investigate that just like financial crime.
Sorry to break it to you but the FBI is on to your no-tell-motel dealing scheme. They're not stupid.
Once again, your arguments support better inspections and code enforcement for health issues not banning short term rentals.
I'm not sure why you assume my history with bedbugs. You are correct that I have never had to deal with a bedbug infestation, but I've helped friends who have. I have lived through multiple other infestation of other insects and rodents because of my neighbors. I've also had neighbors who felt the need to party all night every weekend, and have lived across the street from meth houses and drug dens multiple times. However, all of these experiences were dealing with long term tenants, not short term rentals. I am not discounting the inconvenience of these situations, just questioning why we conclude that they are unique to short term rentals.
It seems that you're confusing the impacts of property values with short term rentals. Long term rentals can occur in very wealthy neighborhoods as well as economically depressed areas. I'm no fan of slum lords, but a slum lord can have long term or short term tenants! Furthermore, they tend to set up shop in economically depressed areas if for no other reason than the overhead is too great in nicer neighborhoods.
Regarding criminal activity, I fail to see how 1) this is isolated to or increased activity from short term vs long term rentals and 2) it assumes that the landlord/host does not care about the activity. While same may not care, it seems quite presumptuous to conclude that all AirBnB hosts will encourage criminal activity. But this presents a really interesting question: why hasn't the city of San Francisco taken steps to train hosts on potential threats if this is a concern?
Think if you started a bakery and went through the laborious process of getting a business license, getting your kitchen health inspected and certified, etc. and then a week later someone next door just started selling bread out of their home to undercut you on price, regulations be damned. I would be rightly pissed off and expect the local government to shut down the home operation.
Commenters who want to ignore externalities are Randians with no actual sense of human society. All they see are rules that are in their own personal way, naturally some tyranny or another. Democracy itself is a blight in their eyes, and a business plan should always trump community concerns.
In the Seventeenth Century many American colonists were fleeing England due to religious persecution because their religion didn't happen to be the the dominant/majority held belief [1].
The idea that government should govern based on what the majority want is a fallacy. The specific topic of tyranny of the majority and ways to combat it were discussed in the Federalist papers and, in my belief, is ultimately the reason the Founding Fathers structured American government the way it did (federation, checks and balances, republic, etc.).
I am not trying to argue that AirBnB is good, but it's not bad because your neighbors don't like it.
Zoning laws and city planning is not exactly the same as what is being implied by the comment I specifically responded to.
I also was not intending to conflate religious persecution, only provide an example of where the opinion of the majority breaks down. In reference to the Federalist Papers, I meant to imply that it was my belief that these mob rule tendencies was why the Constitution specifically doesn't structure the U.S. as a Direct Democracy. And discussions on how to combat these tendencies via education and related points are particularly insightful.
There is a fine line to walk with government regulation protecting greater social good (pollution laws, etc.) and the government restricting property rights as proxy for the desires of the many. If you buy a condo, I have not been convinced that you should not be able to rent it out short or long term. But I am definitely opposed to the idea that you be restricted from doing so because your neighbors don't want you to.
That's why I said "this is a case". Maybe it's a problem for a certain set of people and maybe it isn't. You have to listen to them.
If the majority of the people want to abolish the First Amendment in order to silence hate speech, the government absolutely should not listen the them.
Tyranny of the majority and mob rule are discussed from various angles in the Federalist Papers and I believe were considered carefully when structuring the American government (in order to prevent them).
* https://fee.org/articles/private-property-and-government-und...
There seems to be a common misconception about zoning laws. Zoning laws fall under city planning where placement of certain types of buildings in organized locations leads to a more efficient city. These laws typically address traffic flow, utilities, etc.
So to forward the AirBnB context, the city zones an area as residential, a developer builds residences, and a private owner (again AirBnB context) purchases the property. From there I would contest that the city should have limited (if any) ability to limit or dictate how the now private owner choses to "use and dispose" of their personal property. Renting of the property does not violate the residential zoning...this would be as opposed to the owner tearing down their home to build an office sky scraper.
But if a private owner buys a house, they should be able to choose how to use that house. And again, this is off topic from the original thing I objected to: whether or not your neighbors should be able to dictate through government how you can/should use/dispose of your personal property.
This is the argument NIMBYs have been using against regular old renters since the beginning of time.
The list of things you cannot do is already extremely lengthy and much to the chagrin of homeowners. I assume you've only rented and never owned, but wait until you see what your property taxes go to, what you are allowed to build, not build, must maintain, must pay for on behalf of citizens that do not own (Denver is currently trying to raise property taxes to subsidize builders and ease purchase pain of new homeowners who currently cannot afford to buy for example). I think people are up in arms over this because Airbnb is a large player in the startup community, but the uproar of politicians creating policy for it's citizens is not absurd.
I also am very wary of the Chavezist instinct to blame property owners and businesses for the faults and failings of bad government planning and policies.
Yes you are correct, the point it usually becomes too much is when you, as an individual, have to begin paying it. Or in this case when a business feels it's paycheck is being affected.
Sadly there is nothing new in politicians coming to take away more of your money & rights
OK, let's completely legalize Airbnb-style temporary rentals... but make the host bear the full cost of it. Not the small fraction of the cost the host thinks about, but the actual cost with all the externalities factored in.
Because really the only way Airbnb works is if it offloads significant costs onto unconsenting and often unaware third parties. And all those goshdurned gubmint regulations? They bring the cost of running a hotel-like business into line with, well, the actual cost of running a hotel-like business. But we can replace them all with just a single charge if you like.
Comments here need to be both civil and substantive. Heated rhetoric is neither, so it lowers the signal/noise ratio at both ends.
Because it's the most cost-effective way of doing things, and -- in this ethically-challeneged startup culture of ours -- it gets the message across.
It's also no different from how regulations are applied to most all other industries in that regard. Liquor stores are required to card anyone who looks like they might possibly be under 21 (and are fined for not doing so). You can argue that the city "should be going after the underage drinkers themselves" -- but decades of empirical evidence suggest this would lead to the laws being widely unenforced.
> We emailed Airbnb spokesman Christopher Nulty to ask whether the library ad was "real." He responded by email, "as opposed to a fake one :)"
A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are you seriously writing on this?"
Nulty did not respond to another follow up email.
http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive-aggress...
No, it's not "the PR person" who's at fault.
One way or another, these decisions (and the mentality and ethos that drive them) always trickle down from the top.
It kind of makes their whole "helping the middle class" shtick even more nauseating.
They do not IMO represent an interesting application of technology. Just the profits of exploiting lag time between what is possible, and what is 'burdened' by consumer and labor protections.
I.e.: the industries they have moved into are highly regulated for pretty transparent reasons. Their MO works well until the regulators catch up.
Uber had not proven how much of a quality-of-life improvement it was for users, there is absolutely 0% chance that any city councils would have reformed taxi laws and made explicit exceptions for them, sight-unseen.
They are only BARELY at the point where their critical mass of users can force city governments to give them a legal path (see: de Blasio in NYC), and even that doesn't always work (see: Austin).
not really. they were caught, and their response is f* you, rather than to ask forgiveness. whether or not you agree with their behavior, they are very much NOT asking for forgiveness.
This analogy is obnoxiously flawed.
rental car agency:consumer != (airbnb:host or host:guest)
Edit: Instead of responding to every single sub comment I will just add that car accidents kill 30,000 people a year. Whether or not you think AirBnB should be regulated, the analogy pairing their activity to the commonly fatal activity of driving is unambiguously on a different level. A more appropriate analogy is perhaps a fishing license.
In this case, it seems like SF wants to "license" rental activity in order to tax it, and it wants to tax rental activity in part to limit it. Zoning could do this, too, but a tax is more flexible on an individual basis.
This is especially meaningful in a city in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.
Driving a vehicle (your own or renting someone else's) is an activity requiring a license for the agency to validate.
I'm unaware of any place in the world requiring a license to sleep and eat breakfast.
I'm fairly sure you have to have a license to serve breakfast as a business. You also have to be inspected by the health department. Same goes for running a hotel. That stuff all costs money, and it's not up to a private business (AirBnB) to determine how to enforce such laws, even though their existence does change the landscape.
I made this point to the article's literal analogy of the car rental agency's need to validate a consumer to drive a car (as the end user). There is no license needed to sleep and breakfast.
This was the third Google hit for "are hotels licensed": http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/Servicesthatrequirea...
Restaurants, too: https://www.sfdph.org/dph/eh/Food/Permits/default.asp
Anyway, it's a completely bogus assumption that licensing is only about ensuring competence.
Not [of the host]: to provide a place to sleep and serve breakfast.
The article's analogy uses rental agency <--> customer.
Rental car agencies ensure drivers (who use the agency's cars) are licensed.
AirBnB is being asked to ensure hosts (who use AirBnB's platform) are licensed.
Also there is potential stupidity of passing regulations that people wont respect any ways.
I have a property in an area that has it all figured out and I had to get it certified by an inspector, pay some fees, and submit occupancy taxes. Most skirt the laws.
Chicago did it right in my opinion by requiring AirBnB to manage and submit the taxes and fees.
The hotel industry is certainly unhappy with Airbnb, but they’re far from the only ones.
My point was - if the city can get their $ from their policies they will enable airbnbs like Chicago recently did.
At the same time - Airbnb is just one small piece of the puzzle for the rise in housing prices. I don't understand why some people think they are entitled to live in an area in demand?
If someone wants to start scooping up real estate and homeowners are selling at higher prices, comps go up, everyone's values go up along with property taxes. That's how it works.
Now - homeowners whose values go up should be enraged about property tax increases. The city's budget shouldn't vary much from year to year, but if home prices go up substantially they get more property tax revenue. Why? And then if they go down - they don't help you out.
Don't care about downvotes but I care about arguments.
Uber and Lyft will check the drivers license even if government does not make it mandatory because a licensed and well experienced driver is in in the interest of Uber and Lyft.
I could not care less about "zoning laws" which serve no purpose to most sensible people and I dont see why AirBnB should give a damn about zoning laws. Also I would oppose government move to force these laws down people throats by forcing AirBnB hosts to have licenses.
>Hosts need to register to ensure that they don't convert their properties into full time hotels in buildings designed for residential use.
But that is the whole "innovation" in AirBnB. The very fact that AirBnB is cool because one does not have to comply the mountain of regulations that Motel 6 has to comply with.
I will be very happy to live in a residential property that is converted into defacto hotel through AirBnB.
Hertz <-> Driver
AirBnB <-> Host <-> Guest
Host <-> Airbnb <-> Guest
All the communication (and the billing) happens through the platform.
That's incorrect. AirBnB provides a platform on which hosts can list their properties. There are two parties to that transaction.
In case you're talking about the subsequent 'rental' transaction, AirBnB is pretty clear that that's between the host and the guest. See section 5 of their ToS: https://www.airbnb.com/terms
A much better analogy would be a franchisor has a responsibility to ensure a franchisee has appropriate business licensure. However, I do not know where the liability lies in this scenario.
Strictly interpreted, the 3rd amendment prevents the government from being able to force homeowners to quarter soldiers. If you think about the real intent of the bill though, it's obvious that the mindset is "you are free to use your own house without government interference."
Realize that at the time, HUGE numbers of homeowners informally had a room or two for boarders to supplement their income. It would have been considered ridiculous at the time for the government to say you couldn't lend a room out for money, which is probably why this interpretation was not formally codified.
It's a stretch, but amendments have been interpreted in more creative ways to accomplish personal-freedom goals (think, right to privacy -- interpreted as an implied constitutional right, but not mentioned anywhere).
that's a real stretch. that would nullify all zoning ...
Would be easy to interpret it as, the right to use residential properties for lodging purposes (hotel, apartments, B&Bs) cannot be violated, without letting you set up industrial operations.
Dot get me wrong: If it wasn't for Airbnb I probably wouldn't be married and I too share a geeky desire to see the 3rd amendment used in anger.
They had tanneries then, and there is more than a gradual difference between operating a tannery and quartering a bunch of soldiers in someone's house. One interferes with the life of the householder. The other interferes mostly with the life of the neighbours.
I think it'd be safe to say that Airbnb would have a tough row to hoe trying to base their case on the Third Amendment.
AirBnB probably knew they'd lose locally, so either they thought "we'll end up appealing anyway, let's go right to the Feds" or "let's make a longshot stab at a 1st Amendment rights claim and avoid the local court."
They stand to lose at either level, because the SCOTUS has already weighed in on "the local government took unlawful control over my real property" -- a rent-controlled NYC landlord's case was turned down by the Justices a couple years back from even being considered in the Supreme Court.
And there are standing regulations already in place for hotels and motels.
AirBnb doesn't have a chance here, really.
The faux taxi services are somehow skating from being held to the bar for being illegal taxi services, but probably not for long.
The "control them, tax them, make them lick our boots, what can they do?, they can't do anything about it" mentality is heavy in the SF city leadership.
Believe it or not, some people -- lots of people, actually - are 1000% okay with that. Too many in SF, that's for sure.
Campos wants:
- to be seen as someone who helped the City make more money from the fines and registration requirents
- to appease the vast majority of renters in San Francisco who feel that no owner has a right to their property, the City must be in control -- Campos' voting bloc consists of that group
The problem with objectively dictatorial behavior from government is no one has the guts to stand up to them.
EXCEPT AirBnB!!!
GO AIRBNB !!
Britain just told Merkel and Hollande (who are the real string-pullers in the EU) to scrap off and die.
Tyrannical behavior from people "who tell you what to do and you can't do anything about it" usually ends badly for the perps.
See Nicolae Ceausescu for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-XNTVgDW0
Sometimes people who abuse their power do not lose it gracefully.
Many of us are watching what becomes of Maduro in Venezuela. The entire population there is out of food and rioting and eating dogs and cats.