Toronto convicts first Airbnb owner over zoning violation
thestar.com
thestar.com
In Toronto, it's not uncommon to see tons of lockboxes outside some condos which are largely for short term rentals, as well as have tenants deal with experiences like this (copy and pasted from Toronto's subreddit):
"Have you ever wanted to live in a hotel, without the actual service of living in a hotel? You can at the Ice Condos! When walking through the lobby on any given day you're nearly guaranteed to see a few wide eyed, suitcase towing AirBNB guests standing around. Don't except to be able to speak with the concierge for anything - the AirBNB people will be arguing with them over the fact that the concierge won't just give out the keys to suites because people say they're supposed to be allowed in. Shout out to the guy last week who yelled 'This isn't a fuckking hotel!' to the woman doing just that last week."
It's particularly why I find their branding and messaging deceitful. They advertise in Toronto in a way that makes it seem like the company is merely a benign platform that helps citizens fund things on the side (one of their ads uses an Asian family with a kid, an appeal to emotion which I see through as an Asian Canadian). Except it's disconnected from a reality where people buy properties for the sole purpose of listing them on Airbnb as short-term rentals.
1. Because the Strata (HOA in Canada) has no idea this is even an option. 2. Because most of them are in favour of it, (most likely).
A big issue with a lot of condos in major cities (particularly new construction) is that upwards of 50% of them (sometimes, even higher) are owned by investors not actually living in the building. It's only on site owners that care about the actual goings on of the space. Everyone else is just looking to make a buck.
This is why AGM's, Strata bylaws and Strata Council meeting minutes are important to read, not just throw into recycling.
http://www.richmond-news.com/news/cra-ups-its-game-targeting...
P.S. I never was on another side of the fence (i.e. living in the building with many short term rental visitors), so maybe I don't understand/underestimate something.
They'll have noisy parties, not know where the bins are and leave rubbish in the hallways, and clatter their suitcase up or down the stairs at 4:30 to take a cheap flight home.
> I think best strategy would be for AirBnb and building-owners to work together
I'd like to see a way for building owners, or local government, to get a feed of every listing on AirBnB. They can then terminate leases, or whatever.
So probably the smaller period the higher rating/experience of the tenant. And of course fines for landlords.
> I'd like to see a way for building owners, or local government, to get a feed of every listing on AirBnB. They can then terminate leases, or whatever.
You propose AirBnB give out gun to shot AirBnB :) That's not what I meant, more like notifications who rented what, so building owners could report/fine right landlord later.
If my neighbor rents out his spare room or his entire flat while he is gone, I hopefully can talk to him if I have issues with his guests, and he has an interest that his flat with his personal stuff stays nice and safe. A larger operation with 5 or more flats is going to care a lot less about such concern and who exactly is staying there. (This likely also influences guest behavior)
AirBnB helping to manage this would be nice, but it has shown no willingness to work with cities and neighbors to work towards enforcement of existing legislation, so it's not surprising that tolerance for violations goes down, courts get involved and further, targeted legislation gets created.
If you want to look at data, the best set of actual numbers I've seen is this dataset about Berlin: http://airbnbvsberlin.com/
It shouldn't surprise anyone that an international business isn't enthusiastically embracing the notion of every city and neighborhood being a unique regulation snowflake. In business terms, it sounds like a complete nightmare.
Which is why one (=I, as someone without experience in the field admittedly) would think they'd have an interest in providing some standardized tools (like a free-text field for a tax ID for commercial operations, or a permit code) that local authorities can hook into, instead of dealing with one court forcing them to share data at a time. Many city administrations will happily do enforcement legwork if you give them a list to check, that's their daily business.
I don't know what they did, but the regular noise at weekends didn't return.
Everyone who doesn't sublet their apartment year round should be against AirBnB in their building. It can only push the rent up.
Budapest: Prices are pretty good compared to hotels at all times. There are a few "professional" hosts but most are just letting out some spare capacity. Occasional bait-and-switch.
Copenhagen: Prices are equal with hotels, so it's really a lifestyle choice. Generally convivial hosts.
London: almost entirely professional, but the prices usually beat a hotel room by a large margin.
Barcelona: absolutely ruined. Completely professional, prices as high as hotels, and literally every room/flat in the city center has a Strict refund policy (i.e. lose half your money). Many instances of bait-and-switch (show you a nice flat, not available, take a look at this s*hole instead) and trying to screw you into cancelling (and keeping your money). Also had more than one friend have "break-ins" on the last day (often too late to sort with the police before your flight home).
AirBnB really need to crack down on professional hosts. Start with disallowing more than ~3 listings per host, and really punish bait-and-switch attempts.
I fact - I have absolutely no will or wanton to go and stay in someone's room, or even in a personal flat - I don't want to use someone else's stuff.
I actually much prefer a professionally managed space that just happens to not be a hotel.
As far as how it affects local markets - that's another question entirely.
It's probably a good idea that those markets decide for themselves how it should be regulated.
Zoning and regulations exist for good reasons, built up over decades.
AirBNB and its like "break" the paradigm by, in "crowdsourced" fashion, sort of "flash-mob" overwhelming the existing system.
Yeah, those existing systems may have some faults and inefficiencies. But I am not for throwing them out, wholesale.
Nor for neighbors shitting all over their neighbors for the sake of their own profit.
Like Uber with its discrimination and "dumping" via investor dollar subsidized rides. These "sharing" businesses have turned into parasites arbitraging the limited resources to enforce existing law and regulation.
Unfortunately, more and more people believe that "government is bad", so, instead of digging in to fix and improve what we have, it's left to the crooks to break the paradigm.
Again, as someone who's suffered under bad neighbors, repeatedly, I say... well, a pox on your house.
(Not to mention our return to piecework labor with no benefits and no insurance.)
Cities don't like to be seen as anti-technology which is why you don't see a massive crackdown on AirBnB and Uber. But if one big city decides to do it, it can give other cities enough cover to do it as well.
As you said, suddenly AirBnB's growth goes positive to negative.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-23/airbnb-sai...
It's a good thing to increase the number of travel accommodations so more people can explore the world. I like Airbnb's mission better than that of a lot of Silicon Valley startups.
It's unfortunate that, at scale, Airbnb becomes part of a larger problem: there is not enough housing in many major cities. This is an unforced error we are making as a civilization, because we have the technology to easily provide enough housing in an affordable way (elevators, concrete).
Due to the limited supply of housing, the price will be bid up by the most economically efficient use - shoving a stream of daily renters through your condo building's lobby at the highest rate possible. A better outcome would be new facilities dedicated for this use case.
When the pie is not big enough, we are inevitably going to have a lot of tough fights over how to break it up. In this case, the poor locals who can't afford a place to rent and richer locals who are annoyed by the foreigners in their condo building lobby are going to win out over the people who want to explore the world.
Why is this great news? Am I missing something or are you simply against short term rentals in general?
How many new 20 story condo buildings is that? 20?
In sf the numbers are about ~5000 units. But other data sources show there are about 30k vacant units and 10k are not for rent because potential landlords think the rental laws are too crazy and rather leave them empty. Not to mention all the potential missing units that SF doesnt build due to strong NIMBYism.
How strong is the NIMBY in toronto?
NIMBYism is fine when youre fighting against private individuals exploiting your home for profit. It's not like AirBNB is an issue of it has to exist just not here.
I'm opposed to long term rental.
Wait no. I'm not actually "opposed" to it. I just think of it as a major failure and a big obstacle in modern times.
Who the hell think it is acceptable to be forced into an unbreakable lease for 1-3 years and pay 1 months of agency fee + 2 months of guarantee in advance?
I'm not even sure I could keep a job for an entire year. (and I'm not talking of a programmer in SV who got a better offer but of normal people who just can't get a permanent job in this era).
If you want to stay somewhere for 1-3 week, an hotel will do.
If you want to stay 1-3 years, a "normal" flat will do.
AirBnB fills the gap between.
Not to mention that it also fills the gap for people who cannot give all the bullshit paperwork of normal flats. Just pay and done, AirBnb does not reject a host for [the same] bullshit reasons [as agencies]. (I don't know how it is in the USA but in France it's a nightmare to get a flat).
> Who the hell think it is acceptable to be forced into an unbreakable lease for 1-3 years
Who the hell would want to live under threat of eviction every few months? When I sign a lease (there isn't really such a thing as an unbreakable lease, you just lose your security deposit) I know that I have a guaranteed place to live for the next year or two. I would not want to live without that guarantee.
I remember when I was a student. There were "student accommodations" that had sort of special terms. People usually stayed there for 3-6-12 months to fit with the university/internship/apprenticeship cycle. That was quite nice. I'm sad that can't have that as an adult.
> I know that I have a guaranteed place to live for the next year or two. [I would not want to live without that guarantee].
I know that I have no guarantee to still have that job [or find another in the area] for a year or two. Thus I have no guarantee that I can stay in this place for the next year or two.
I would like to live with the guarantee of having a job, and a revenue, and a place to stay, and a girlfriend, and many other things... The world doesn't care about what I'd like.
However, I really wish Airbnb (and companies that use the same strategy, like Uber) would really try to work with cities rather than fight them. I mean, when you spend $8MM on tone deaf ads in San Francisco to fight some proposition rather than working with the city to come to a compromise, it's pretty bad. For example, the article mentions a specific bylaw for the area where the user in question in this article lives. I know things move slowly in law, but I feel it would be relatively simple to work with the city of Toronto (and the county(?) of North York) to get the bylaw removed or amended. I wouldn't be surprised if Airbnb demonizes the new SF law[2] once users get fined by the city, and to me this seems backwards. I think it would be smarter to try to work with the cities, and if you lose one, it sucks but that's life.
1: http://qz.com/845185/as-the-us-and-europe-crack-down-on-home...
2: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/overview-airbnb-law-s...
Maybe hotels are really for corporate/business stays - and that AirBnB has simply expanded the personal travel market.
Like how airlines make 50% of their profit off of business travellers ... Hotels are 1st class, AirBnB is 'coach' (purely from economic perspective, I understand people might value things differently).
Or it could be that the extra safety/quality/taxation requirements of hotels make them uncompetitive vis-a-vis AirBnB.
Airbnb: Joe Gebbia
A chance encounter with a stranger gave Joe Gebbia an idea to help pay his rent. That idea turned into Airbnb — a company that now has more rooms than the biggest hotel chain in the world.
Plus, if this is your intention, then no matter how you spin "It's cool, these are _totally_ condos, just for short term rental!" you actually are building a hotel, and zoning plus public opinion might get in your way.
Not to mention you can just rent out a single room in your home. Like you want some stranger to temporarily live with you for a day or two and invade your privacy, all for just a few dollars.
The site was clearly meant to look one way yet allow people to run illegal hotels. The only people I've ever heard renting out on Airbnb are ones who buy homes specifically for Airbnb.
Airbnb is everything that is wrong with SV, so disconnected from the real world. I just don't understand who would let totally random strangers from the internet live amongst them or even just their possessions.
It's not just a few dollars. Some stays are easily in the $1000+ range, for less than a week's stay. Idk what salary bubble you're in as a software dev, but that's a lot of money to some people.
> Who the hell would actually rent their home out to a complete stranger
Everyone on couchsurf disagrees with you. Oh and they usually do it for free. And as a short term landlord you do have some control over who stays at your place. In fact the more you charge, the higher end clientèle you will typically get.
> Airbnb is everything that is wrong with SV, so disconnected from the real world. I just don't understand who would let totally random strangers from the internet live amongst them or even just their possessions.
There are many issues wrong with SV, but Airbnb is the least of its worries. This says more about you than SV or Airbnb. Not everyone is misanthropic to this degree.
> The site was clearly meant to look one way yet allow people to run illegal hotels. The only people I've ever heard renting out on Airbnb are ones who buy homes specifically for Airbnb.
Maybe in the US, where credit is so easily available. This is definitely not the case for a lot of less fortunate places in Europe and 3rd world countries.
So it does happen.
It's been a fantastic way to provide extra income to allow us to travel as often as we'd like. It's been life changing really.
About anyone.
AirBnB didn't invent vacation rentals. People have been doing that forever.
Countries that don't use zoning would still prevent the scenario you envisage.
The basic things everybody needs are food clothing and shelter. How is it a good thing that something everybody needs should get more and more expensive? I think the relative amount I spend on food and clothing has dropped over the past 25 years, but my housing expenses have skyrocketed.
I totally agree, I'm just trying to understand the ramifications.
Landlords do not get rich in the manner you insinuate. They get wealthy in the very long run. But not rich.
Toronto cap rates are hovering around 4-6%: in other words they are BLEEDING cash from the landlords' own pockets.
Another investor will not buy for a higher price unless the rents also increased (ie: cap rate is in a certain acceptable range)
The statement "...property doubles in value but I don't increase my rents...." Is misleading since presumably no sane investor would pay double price for the same income stream. If the cap rate is 5% for a 1 million dollar property then it earns 50k per year. The property price that other investors are going to pay will be a function of a cap rate they are OK with ( which bakes in the price and earnings ratio). 2.5% cap rate means 2 million dollars still earning 50k year. No thank you
Additionally, the equity in an investment is not wealth... yet. It has to be sold to get money that can be used to put food on the table.
They mention them in general, not specifically this house.
Seems like an arbitrary law.
There's got to be a better way to structure laws for short term rentals in a sharing economy. Or is the sharing economy similar to the tragedy of the commons in that the end state is an end to sharing because of abuse and we all end up with commercial short term rental properties that are run more like a hotel than a spare room.
This specific house was rented and a massive party thrown where someone was shot. Hostels and hotels spend money (e.g. security) to ensure the environment is safe and this kind of thing doesn't happen.
AirBNBs can be responsible, but it means things like actually renting spare rooms, having someone nearby (you or a neighbour) meet guests and keep an eye on things, etc.
Many people simply don't want a constant stream of strangers coming through their living environment. That's not arbitrary, even if you happen to feel comfortable with it yourself.
Yes, that still seems arbitrary. The abuse seems to be related to people committing crimes or breaking noise bylaws, not how long they stay. So, legislation for the length of stay strikes me as addressing the wrong problem.
Really the solution to the problem is to ask the data questions. Do airbnb rentals have more noise complaints/crime, than similar non-airbnb residences. If the data suggests airbnb promotes bad things then ok, maybe that frequency limit isn't so arbitrary. I wonder by what means could a city demand airbnb's data to discovery which residences are being used for short term rentals.