Hacker News Reader

Comment by IkmoIkmo | Hacker News Reader

Here in Amsterdam I find that the rates of short-term tourist rent to long-term citizen rent is about 3:1.

i.e., an apartment which costs $1000 a month, could be rented out for about $100 a day, or $3000 a month.

That does mean you need to be there managing the thing, handling listing and bookings, doing a hand-over of the keys and a brief tour, and cleaning up after. I know a friend of a friend of a friend has been providing a service for 2 years now where he does all that for 20% of the profit on other people's properties.

Amsterdam has set up rules that limit Airbnb to 60 days a year. I think that's sensible. It allows people to make some money while traveling two months of the year, lowers costs of housing because in the up to 60 days the home owner is gone, the space is not wasted but instead utilised. But it prevents investors from arbitraging the 3:1 ratio between short-term subletting income vs costs of holding the property long-term, which turns your city into a tourist paradise at the expense of raises prices for actual citizens too much (because all the investors push up prices) for my taste. This 60d rule is a good balance. (it's just yet to be enforced)

View on HN

If the highest value use of apartments is short term rentals, why is it "sensible" to limit that use?

I understand why rent seeking locals would favor this. But how is this any different from, e.g., Austin cabbies ripping off the tourists and getting Uber banned?

One major issue is that apartments aren't designed the same way as hotels are. Everything from security to heating systems and garbage collection are different based on the intended use of a building.

Another is that usually short term rentals are already against rules or regulations so the people who bought assuming they weren't going to live next to a hotel have a reasonable expectation to have a say on if that's going to change.

The fact that there seem to be no major AirBnB disasters suggests that hotels are probably overdesigned, and this is all unnecessary.

Another is that usually short term rentals are already against rules or regulations so the people who bought assuming they weren't going to live next to a hotel have a reasonable expectation to have a say on if that's going to change.

At one time people purchased homes assuming they weren't going to live next to negroes. Did they also have a reasonable expectation to have a say on if that's going to change? If not, why not?

Because one is about how someone is born and one is about how they intend to use a thing? The idea that they are in any way equivalent is so preposterous I can only presume you are making a poor form rhetorical point of some sort.

My point is that your argument is clearly incorrect - you don't actually find the same argument convincing when applied to a case where it clearly applies, but which contradicts your intuitions.

I.e., it's a rationalization, not a reason.

> when applied to a case where it clearly applies

Typing these words doesn't remove the differences between the situations. "Desiring to rent out my apt to tourists" is not a protected class.

All you are really saying is that currently the law often prohibits AirBnB and does not prohibit renting to non-whites. I'm saying that the law should do neither one.

Kasey_junk - if I understood him correctly - was arguing that the law should not be changed because "the people who bought assuming they weren't going to live next to a hotel have a reasonable expectation to have a say on if that's going to change."

If that argument were valid, then the law about renting to non-whites should not have changed either to create protected classes (which didn't exist at the time the original zoning laws were made).

You think it should be legal to discriminate based on race as a landlord or property manager?

Edit: I'm less interested in Kasey_junk's argument and moreso in your unwillingness to acknowledge the vast difference between discriminating against protected classes and regulation of commercial activity in private recidences.

I'm arguing a reducto ad absurdum. Specifically, X => Y. Y is crazily wrong. Therefore, X must be false.

I have no strong opinion on the legality of discrimination by race. It offends my moral intuitions, but I cannot construct a solid argument in favor of it that doesn't lead to other crazy conclusions. So I accept my uncertainty here.

I acknowledge the vast difference in feelings that these situations inspire. But I cannot come up with a good principled argument to justify the existence of protected classes, or to distinguish between these cases in some other way.

How does it lead to other crazy conclusions? I likely will disagree with the other crazy conclusions and the logic that leads to them :)

To paraphrase kasey_junk: "people purchased homes assuming they weren't going to live next to negroes have a reasonable expectation to have a say on if that's going to change."

I argue that this line of reasoning is invalid - if it were valid, then white homeowners had some reasonable expectation to have a say on if segregation was going to change. I don't believe they did.

You are not paraphrasing me. You are using a sophomoric rhetorical device to hide a straw man.

Let me return the favor. To paraphrase yummyfajitas everyone should be allowed to sublease their apartment in anyway they see fit. If we ban iron smelting in residential buildings what is next? I'll tell you what, slave labor camps.

Of course the world does not work that way. The extreme arguments do not define what is and is not valid, and no one actually believes they do after their introduction to rhetoric in the 8th grade. It is perfectly valid to hold the opinion that residents of a neighborhood should be able to prevent toxic waste from being dumped in adjacent yards and to hold that they shouldn't be allowed to ban people from living near them due to race.

I'll tell you my core principle: you should be able to use your property in any way you see fit, provided it doesn't directly interfere with others using theirs.

Dumping toxic waste does directly interfere, but AirBnBing, long term leasing or Grindring to a non-white person does not.

Feel free to follow this principle and see if you can derive any conclusions from it that I don't support. If so, I'll recognize that my argument is flawed and retract it.

What's your core principle that I can follow as far as it leads?

Now that you've conceded that any restrictions what so ever, are not in and of themselves equivalent to red lining, its fairly easy to see where your principle falls apart.

Most usage restrictions are not about limiting how you use your property, they are about how common property is used. It is just much more efficient and workable to encourage grouped rules based on usage expectations than any other option we've come up with.

In the AirBnB case there are all manner of common property issues that may come up. An obvious one off the top of my head is security key accessibility. In hotels it is very common to allow access to security keys to many many people, therefore hotels have the infrastructure to support removing/changing access frequently. Lots of multi-dwelling buildings do not have that infrastructure and do not need it for most usages that would be considered residential.

Another issue, that is literally impacting me right now, is expected use of pest control services and waste disposal. In my building someone is running a catering business out of his kitchen, against the rules of the association, the lease he has agreed to, and the laws of our city. But he is in his property so what is the issue? The higher usage levels lead to higher pest levels, the units nearest to him are dealing with unprecedented problems and we as the association are having to foot the bill for increased pest control services, and for more garbage pick up as he generates an outsized amount of waste.

Why aren't these individual property issues? Because pests don't observe property boundaries and the trash collection is common. Why don't we charge extra for these things to the individual unit? Because the law states that we can't for unmetered services (for private property rights preserving reasons) and it is infeasible to make trash individually serviced.

The principle is fairly easy to understand, when you live in a community there is a give and take between individual rights and responsibilities to the community. A robust system of regulations and the rule of law help to enforce those lines and the system needs to be actively shaped, monitored and embraced for it to work, with special emphasis placed on making sure the rights of the individual are impacted in as fair and moral ways as we can.

Negative externalities. It's easy to imagine global utility decreasing (e.g. from the permanent resident's dissatisfaction with living next to short term rentals) despite it being marginally profitable for the property owner.

The negative externality is, from what I can tell, "I don't like it when my neighbor engages in activities in the privacy of his own home that don't affect me".

When did this become a valid reason to regulate an activity? Can I use this as a reason to regulate other private activities as well? If not, why not?

I guess for the same reason home owners associations exist. Personal choices that are visible in the communal space can affect property values and people's enjoyment of the area.

For many living next to a constant stream of strangers is undesirable.

There are lots of things people don't want to live next to. For example, lots of folks don't want to live near the wrong type of people.

Typically we consider those desires morally invalid and not something to be supported. Why is "short term" a morally valid way to characterize the "wrong type of people"?

>When did this become a valid reason to regulate an activity?

When you operate on the assumption that people aren't affected by AirBnB rentals in their buildings this is an easy argument. But sometimes people are affected.

It's not your neighbor that engages in activities. It are random strangers with minimal vetting that will be gone the next day.

Are you unable to see the difference and how that might affect you?

A guest my neighbor met on Grindr is a random stranger with minimal vetting that will be gone the next day. Should we also regulate Grindr?

I don't see any difference that matters, nor do I see the underlying moral principle that allows me to distinguish between one and the other. The principle you've stated clearly isn't it, unless you also favor regulating Grindr.

(I'm deliberately choosing Grindr here in order to make my example conflict with left wing mood affiliation.)

Your neighbour is going to supervise their Grindr date (probably much more...intimately than any other kind of guest) and not leave them in the apartment for a long weekend while your neighbour leaves town. That's my scant understanding of Grindr, anyway !

Grindr guests are personal guests, not customers of a service like Airbnb guests. As another person stated, the Airbnb guest is likely to be unsupervised, and has no vested interest in keeping the house and local community nice other than general decency and their Airbnb reputation. This is enough for many visitors, but there are a portion that don't care.

Are you willing to admit that this may change the local community dynamics in a negative way for long term residents?

I use Airbnb. I think it's great (from my perspective). However, I understand why some may want to limit it.

I agree that lots of things might change "local community dynamics" - for example, a gay neighbor having a parade of flamboyantly dressed houseguests can do the same thing. So can letting in neighbors of a different race.

I guess I'm just the kind of person who believes that two consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they like in the privacy of their own bedroom.

In the US the answer is clearly 'yes you can regulate his private business'.

In many US cities renting out a home is a violation of local zoning code. The government places a large number of restrictions on what you can do on 'your land.'

Salviati: "It is morally wrong to pass a law saying my neighbor cannot rent his home to negroes, and those advocating for such laws are bad people."

Simplicio (historical): "In the US the answer is clearly 'yes you can regulate his private business'. In many US cities renting out a home to a negro is a violation of the local zoning code."

Do you see the fallacy of this argument? I'm arguing "should", not "is".

> Do you see the fallacy of this argument?

I do. If you go read the historical justification for zoning law in the US (by the way zoning and land use laws were originally intended to keep negroes out rich neighborhoods) they rest on the idea that as long as the government can come up with a "rational basis" that the law would "improve the public welfare" than zoning laws are a legitimate exercise in state police power. This was around the 1920's.

Later you have a concern for civil rights but the courts pretty much ignored the issue of how zoning might impact poor minorities.

There's been some lefty rumbling about maybe modifying the zoning code so that poor minorities can still afford to live in rich areas. Of course the remedies proposed are better zoning laws, not no zoning laws.

My concern is that these land use laws take away yield from capital (ie rent from landowners). The US economy has not been growing very fast lately - I don't think the US can any longer afford the costs of an extensive regulatory state. Locking away the returns to land in exchange for centrally planning all the land uses might make things feel "nice" in the short run but in the long run could impoverish the country.

To clarify, you don't think that any city should regulate people selling short term stays in their private residence, in any way?

I think if they do regulate it, they should have a good reason for it.

All the reasons cited in this thread seem pretty bad. I say they are bad because when you apply the same reasons to regulating anything other than AirBnB, suddenly they don't seem like good reasons at all.

>they should have a good reason for it.

The Supreme Court says otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review

In order to justify the New Deal the Court lowered its standard for state infringement of liberty to: "You just need any reason for this law, it doesn't have to be a good one"

I just responded to one of your examples elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13680648

>It's easy to imagine global utility decreasing (e.g. from the permanent resident's dissatisfaction with living next to short term rentals) despite it being marginally profitable for the property owner.

It's also easy to imagine that the land owner's rent gains are higher than the "externalities" endured by the neighbors. I'm skeptical that the government can find a good tradeoff here.

>If the highest value use of apartments is short term rentals, why is it "sensible" to limit that use?

As long as you're paying for the externalities (which in most cases of AirBnb rentals, you aren't) then sure.

What externalities? Please be specific.

Its sensible to limit that use because otherwise you'll end up with entire cities in which no one can afford to live, which you need both to provide services to the tourists and to provide tax income to keep the city running.

Well no, you'll have cities with higher prices in the touristic core, and it'll just be people with lower incomes who get pushed out. That will also help with your second problem.

You can pay for services by charging property taxes. since the value of land will go up (thanks to it being used for it's most productive use) and lower income people getting pushed out (such people are more likely to be a net drain on resources), you'll actually have more money to pay for services.

And as ever the people in the lowest paying jobs bear the brunt of it, now having to commute from the suburbs to get to minimum wage jobs serving people with money to burn.

I have a friend who rents out apartments on Airbnb in London, and the other people in the building _HATE_ that there are constantly new people around.

I once rented a flat in a conservative housing society in Pune (for those unfamiliar, India has extremely Victorian attitudes to sex), and some other people living there _HATED_ the fact that I quietly enjoy the company of lady guests that I'm not married to.

In the US I'm sure you can find people who _HATE_ when their neighbors enjoy the company of guests that they found on Grindr.

Does that mean we should shut down Grindr (or prevent Grindr from giving 1 person more than 1 match/month) or pass laws against these activities?

I would bet good money that many people who want the state to prevent landlords from renting out their own apartments to strangers also do not want the state to prevent strangers from crossing the state's borders.

So have six friends buy an apartment and split airbnb? Each one sells it to the next after 60 days.

>So have six friends buy an apartment and split airbnb?

I love how you make sound like it's no big deal to have six people split on an expensive capital asset like real estate, all to get around an AirBnB law.

Doesn't work:

1. 6% house sales tax.

2. BAG registry contains all address registrations in incredible details. Public data. More available for a price.

6% is insignificant compared to the 200% returns here. Anyway they could sell for a nominal amount maybe?

I don't see why it being public would matter: the whole point is that this should be legal since the owner is only airbnbing it for 60 days.

That's 6% every two months, so you're going to be paying 36% of the value of the apartment every year. For an apartment that costs, say, half a million, that's 180,000 euros a year in taxes. I mean, if you're renting the flat for 15,000 euros a month (instead of the 1000 it would actually fetch), it might work.

Trivial to verify addresses on Airbnb side.

> Trivial to verify addresses on Airbnb side.

Not trivial at all. Without even pausing to think, I could offhand list at least four different ways of writing my home address that would be impossible for AirBNB to automatically disambiguate from other (potentially) different residences, without actually visiting the building... but which would be perfectly unambiguous for a guest who actually visits.

Address verification is hard. Not impossible, but when you're operating in many cities and countries that have wildly different ways of organizing their addresses, it's not trivial at all.

Some countries (like the UK) have a widely used address registry rather than freeform addresses. And most online shopping services have figured this out (even multinational ones that ship to many countries), so I doubt a company as large as AirBnB would have technical trouble doing so if it really wanted to. The way it works when I order online: I first enter my postal code, then it shows me a drop-down box with the valid addresses in that postal code (there are exactly 16 of them), then I choose one of those. Online merchants like it because it reduces chances of fraud/misdeliveries/etc. (their contracts with parcel delivery services might also require it).

Agreed. The USPS also provides address verification / normalization services. [1]

Though I'm honestly not sure those are as comprehensive as certain other countries, as you mentioned. Germany has the Meldepflicht[2] for instance, which requires all residents to register their address with an Einwohnermeldeamt, and I'm pretty sure that's validated against a nationwide database. Granted, it's not granular enough pinpoint exact apartments (since apartments aren't generally numbered here), but still, I imagine that kind of thing would make it pretty difficult to bypass a law like Amsterdam's 60 day rule.

[1] https://www.usps.com/nationalpremieraccounts/manageprocessan...

[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meldepflicht

There is no nationwide database of that kind in Germany. The data is kept local (but there are mechanisms to access it from another place in certain cases). The address you give them is often not validated and many people have a typo in their official address causing all kind of mayhem.

I think it sounds like a good idea and I agree address verification is hard but is it worth the risk? I imagine this would throw out all insurance liability if things go wrong.

> I imagine this would throw out all insurance liability if things go wrong.

AirBNB doesn't offer insurance - it offers a "guarantee", which is legally different in an important sense.

In any case, if you're looking to rent out your place full-time, you probably don't really care about AirBNB's guarantee anyway.

Airbnb already has a whole lot of listings out there lying about the address because the people that put the apartment for rent don't want the building association to know that they are renting. They often just claim that the apartments for rent is in an office building in the same block.

Therefore, Airbnb doesn't really verify addresses at all, and lets people bypass any system that relies on this. This happens in major markets where Airbnb has people on site too: A good chunk of listings in San Francisco's SoMa are doing this.

Thus, I have little faith that any system to prevent breaking local laws based on addresses will go anywhere unless Airbnb does a lot more work to verify the accuracy of listings.

Why do you think that artificially influencing market to influence one group of people (citizens) at expense of another (tourists) is justifiable?

I'm not the GP but I would suppose this comes down to if you have a philosophical objection to cities being engineered or not. I personally think that they should be. If the quality of life of citizens of a city is better served by having limitations on this kind of short-let activity, then I think it's reasonable that city managers should have the ability to impose those limitations.

If you believe in Laissez Faire, or that the market should be allowed free rein to shape or society, you would perhaps disagree.

> quality of life of citizens

While I can agree to some extent to this being the metric optimized, this metric depends on who gets to be a citizen. For example, the situation when the city becomes too expensive for particular class of people and they move out leads to increased in quality of life of remaining citizen, but people (not me) usually express negative views on this.

Poor people leaving a city increases the quality of life for (richer) people that remain? That's not the obvious result of gentrification. I didn't say cities should optimise for quality of life, but quality of life should be an important consideration in the generation of policy. Other factors like cultural diversity also need to be taken into account, as well as mixing people with different income levels. I have found apartments in Berlin, for instance, that I was unable to rent because they had maximum income caps (and very low ones).

> Poor people leaving a city increases the quality of life for (richer) people that remain?

That's true, but not what I meant: by changing the group you measure the metric over, you change the value of the metric.

These groups of people aren't playing on a fair field in the first place.

The citizens, who live and work in attractive city, pay hefty taxes to make the whole thing possible - running the public transport, collecting the garbage, keeping the running water and sewage operating.

Obviously taxation policies and city budgets vary a lot from place to place, but it's very common for these things to be funded by income taxes on the citizens salaries - which is fine with the citizens, but then why should to tourists get to come in and freeload off all the nice things paid for by those taxes?

In a parallel universe where all these services were paid for by taxes on property values or rents, I would agree with you - whoever wants to pay the most per night can have it, but in the real world the market is already skewed to start with.

...why should to tourists get to come in and freeload off all the nice things paid for by those taxes?

For the same reason retirees should not be permitted to move into a city funded by income taxes.

In the US, far more cities are funded by property taxes than income taxes. NYC and Yonkers are the only cities I can think of with an income tax.

Tourists spend out of proportion to local citizens? Most towns welcome tourism, even advertise for it. I'm guessing its because businesses thrive, tax revenues rise, and the community prospers.

Wait, it seems I don't know something here. Do people in US or wherever pay income taxes to local authorities and not to central federal government?

Yes. It varies (hugely) from on place to another, but typically there is a state income tax, and also sales taxes and property taxes that go variously to the city, county, or possibly state. It's quite possible that a person might pay, say, 1/3 of their taxes to these non-federal entities.

You're assuming that the market is something "natural" and thus fair. GP may not agree with this. It is certainly debatable.

The only unquestionably "natural" thing is the heat death of the universe. The very concept of "naturalness" is extremely artificial and unhelpful.

Yes that was my point. If we agree on that you should also agree that "artificially influencing the market" does not mean anything.

OK, a valid criticism. Let me rephrase that: influencing the market in a not self-sustaining way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com