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Comment by feedjoelpie | Hacker News Reader

I am suddenly unreasonably angry that this exists. Not because of the product itself, which is clever.

But because this is how normalized the u̶n̶r̶e̶g̶u̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ illegal short term rentals have become, that especially in some tourist-heavy regions are creating long-term housing shortages that displace residents. (See New Orleans, where housing prices have skyrocketed without any commensurate boost in residents' incomes to compensate, and it really is just that homes are being converted into hotels.)

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> are creating long-term housing shortages that displace residents

This could be avoided, if the cities would be willing to allow building more homes in the areas where demand is high. (Usually it's even the same people opposing building new homes and at the same time complaining about the rising prices. Very illogical.)

>"This could be avoided, if the cities would be willing to allow building more homes in the areas where demand is high."

The OP was using New Orleans as a specific example. And it is good one.

New Orleans has enough housing stock for the residents. In fact the population of New Orleans is only 80% of what it was pre Hurricane Katrina. What they don't have enough housing stock for is the number of AirBnB guests AND residents.

Just using the Bywater in New Orelans as an example. This neighborhood is a traditional working class neighborhood with historically reasonable rents. Lots of local artists and people who work in the restaurant/hospitality industry which is New Orleans main industry. Now the neighborhood is an AirBnB community. You can sit on a front port and watch people with rolling suitcases go by all day. This is housing stock that is no longer available to residents as long term housing.

Meanwhile New Orleans has no shortage of hotels however. Its main income is tourism. The difference is that staying in a hotel is not an option for a New Orleans resident.

And suddenly your tourist-y locale is transformed into "just another cityscape."

Not to make light of the need for affordable housing. But, the problem with respect to AirBnB and the like is not simply to "build more."

Zoning, regulations, and such grew up over decades, in response to needs. Not "just because."

AirBnB and the like, as I've commented elsewhere, essentially crowd-source an "end run" around limited resources for enforcement.

Arbitraging short-term rental demand against limited, taxpayer-funded (and often not even supplemented by e.g. hotel taxes that traditional short-term rental establishments have to pay) enforcement.

In my personal experience, I have had an abusive level of disregard for the common welfare exhibited by a few neighbors. Absent effective control, it really can "ruin" a building or a neighborhood.

This has left me with exactly zero sympathy for the AirBnB crowd. Especially after the all-to-frequent horror stories I've read -- thought admittedly, the press and public attention seek the extremes for the sake of sensation. But even just in more level-headed, unpromoted comments here on HN and elsewhere. The "sharing" economy too often takes its advantage by dumping on its surroundings and reducing the quality of life for others.

By all means, build more housing. In a sustainable fashion and enjoyable design. I've advocated for creating regulation and code that requires noise-reducing materials and construction techniques in new construction. Among other things, this could well make shared dwellings more attractive, increasing density and resource efficiency while maintaining aspects of quality of life such as simply having a safely peaceful home.

But don't promote "build more" as a simple sop for the problems AirBnB and unregulated "sharing" bring to the table. Don't turn other people's homes, often against their will, into "the hotel room next door."

I keep seeing short term rentals blamed for sky rocketing rents. Here in Santa Cruz, the University has grown by about 6-7000 students since when I first got here. The UC itself added maybe about 1k beds in the last 20+ years, some of that by cramming more people into existing rooms (doubles to triples, etc).

The 2-300 short term rentals in/around the city would not make a dent on the availability of housing. (Let's say, 1500 beds). Yes, it will impact price, but there is a larger issue than the rentals themselves.

In this case it is unrestricted growth without building the housing to go with it.

UCSC is an interesting problem.

There are have been serious plans to expand into upper campus - which would destroy some beautiful redwoods which people don't like. But is it better to build an entire new UC campus somewhere else? That seems inefficient - there are already serious resources devoted to that campus and I think that more people experiencing UCSC will lead to a better, more educated, more socially conscious world. Maybe we should just increase capacity and build more housing in upper campus. But by increasing capacity we further increase demand for water in a drought stricken area... We can't win without more water. So maybe we need desalination, but to make that work we need obscene amounts of excess electricity... environmentally and socially conscious growth is hard.

Santa Cruz gets enough rain to sustain itself. However, adding a new reservoir was stopped in the 80s. The area is beautiful, but the same people who preserved a lot of what is special about the place also put policies in place that are destroying it. It's a lack of balance.

Sadly local municipalities can't control the decisions that a given UC makes. UCSC should have had enrollment capped at a sustainable level -- water, housing and traffic. Adding more in upper campus, eh, there is really still only one way in -- no eastern access, etc.

I understand the benefit of exposure to environmental and socially conscious issues, but reality should factor into planning and that should be a lesson as well.

I'm struggling to find a less snarky way to say this because it should be so obvious, but it turns out that real estate issues are frequently unique to their locations.

That's a bit of straw-man argument - AirBnB is perfectly legal in many cities and unregulated (and thus not strictly 'illegal') in many others.

It's like when people still refer to Ubers in San Francisco as 'illegal taxis'. There's nothing illegal about them, they're regulated by the California PUC.

And strictly illegal in places like NYC.

Edit: The majority of uses that I have encountered of both people who use and list on AirBNB in NYC are of the strictly illegal kind.

Hardly, there are a variety of instances where it's perfectly legal in NYC. Not the most common instances, but they very much exist.

AirBnB is legal in NYC. What's illegal is renting an entire apartment out for less than 30 days, AirBnB or not.

I've heard this argument a lot and I'll never understand it. Do you get angry about hotels and traditional Bed-and-Breakfasts too?

I think it is more than just short term rentals. It is this idea that a home represents an investment, a way to make money. People around me who buy a new house for the first time start talking about how they can't wait for it to keep increasing in value, however prior to their purchase they couldn't wait for them to decrease.

The idea that homes are just another path to making money needs to end, they are supposed to be a home for people to live in. This is what I believe is driving up prices so much these days.

That ultimately implies that you want less tourism.

> without any commensurate boost in residents' incomes to compensate

Residents have the opportunity to increase their income through short-term rentals.

Well they have to live somewhere during that rental too right?

Occupancy can be shared, or can be reserved for periods when the primary occupant is away. I don't even travel much, but still manage to be away from my home for several entire days out of the year.

Mind you, tourists have no interest in the area I live to begin with, so that is always another good option for curbing interest in AirBnB.

Presumably poorer people (who are most relevant to this topic) won't be traveling that much, and won't have an abundance of space in their homes for a shared occupancy.

While I admit I'm not completely up on all the details of New Orleans specifically, a quick Google search suggests that rent is in line what what I would expect to find around my area, where tourists have little interest in visiting (small farming town of no importance), and isn't exactly flush with cash either (median income is similar).

Surprisingly, although less concerning to the poor, ownership prices don't even seem very expensive in New Orleans. If anything, less than you would find where I am. Now I'm starting to wonder where the idea that costs skyrocketed is coming from? Perhaps local prices were actually heavily depressed due to some natural/economic disasters and have finally started to return to what that income level can support through recovery from those events; AirBnB having little to do with it?

I am with you. I am fortunate enough to own my own place but up until a few months ago I was living in an apartment.

Not only are there no affordable 'starter' homes left near the Austin city center due to idle capital buying them all up and turning them into AirBnBs, one of the tenants decided to AirBnB their apartment when they were moving out.

Gotta love paying sky-high rent _and_ having to deal with a raucous party still going at 4AM on a Thursday.

Uh, that's not idle capital at play in Austin, that's a gigantic influx of California transplants that have been coming by the van load even before I left in 2008. Cashing out whatever they could real estate wise made them extremely flush with cash comparatively in Texas. Austin was always on the pricey side but the sprawl effect pretty much made the "unaffordable" circle bump out to a 1 hour commute radius, well, considering how terrible the traffic is that's not saying much...anyway, hope the place works out for ya.

>"I am suddenly unreasonably angry"

I don't believe your anger is unreasonable.

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