I am now homeless - living on Airbnb for months | Hacker News Reader

I am now homeless - living on Airbnb for months

blog.airbnb.com

170 pointsbrianchesky58 comments

I'm doing almost the same thing!

Homeless for a year (at least): living in 12 countries for one month each, staying mostly at places found on airbnb.com. (Staying in each place for one month each.)

Currently in Amsterdam at this place: http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/23023

Sitting on that red couch writing all day. Everything I own in one suitcase upstairs. (Except my bike, outside.)

I love it. Thanks airbnb. :-)

Wow, $4332 for a month. That sounds pretty expensive.

One of the things I love most about AirBnB is that a lot of the people advertising their space on the site are open for negotiation. So let's say Derek looks at this particular place's calendar and sees that in the recent past and in the near future, it has typically been booked for 20 of the 30 days of any given month. Well, 2/3 of $4332 is a great jump-off point for negotiation. I have had particular success booking last minute travel at greatly discounted prices on AirBnB. Negotiate everything!

So let's say Derek looks at this particular place's calendar and sees that in the recent past and in the near future, it has typically been booked for 20 of the 30 days of any given month. Well, 2/3 of $4332 is a great jump-off point for negotiation

It's not just about the money though. There are disadvantages in signing up a "guest" for a month. What if they are really obnoxious? Three or four days you can wait them out, but a month?

If you look at the listing, you'll see "Room type: Entire home/apt". So Derek's got the whole apartment to himself, not just a room in someone's apartment.

I would guess that people who stay for long stretches like that tend to look for full apartment listing, since the host might also be obnoxious, and it might get old to stay with someone for a month even if they're just neutral.

Did not realise it was possible to negotiate, which actually meant I used the site a lot less.

There's nothing specific that says "negotiate this price" but I just email the people and see if they're open to it.

Interestingly, there are a lot of things out there that don't seem negotiable at first, but you would be surprised how open a lot of people and businesses are to the idea. You just have to try.

Do you have any good examples/tips?

I almost got jealous, but just yesterday I ran across an article of yours while fixing some messy PHP UTF-8 bugs (http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2006/01/turning_mysql_...). Then I realized that you've busted your ass a lot more than I have so far to achieve what you've achieved. Just serves as more inspiration :)

That's one of the best places to be at in Amsterdam. Enjoy your stay in this beautiful country :).

Any plans going to SE Asia?

Absolutely. The plan as of now is Amsterdam, London, Italy, Japan, Beijing, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Panama, Costa Rica.

Feel free to make fun of me in a year when it turns out completely different than planned. :-)

Standard Padova, Italy HN offer: stop by Padova and we'll take you out for drinks in the piazza, show you around the area, take you out for dinner, etc... depending on time, availability and previous arrangements.

If you take a detour and happen to stop by the Philippines, please give me a shout. I also have an extra room if you need it (beers included :)

When will you be in Hong Kong? We can have dinner of alligator paw and singaporean beer, or the vegetarian equivalent.

I tried doing this when I moved to NYC last year. I had not been in the area for 10 years and wanted to try out a few neighborhoods before committing to a lease.

Ultimately, I found the experience too stressful. Too much time and energy was expended trying to figure out the next place to stay. I was working, and looking for housing took up most of my time outside of work. If you don't have to work, it's probably a better experience.

AirBNB wasn't as useful as I had hoped. Here are the issues I remember:

- there weren't as many listings as craigslist by an order of magnitude - people would take too long to respond - people would flake out at the last minute

- people would list something available for certain dates, but it wouldn't really be available on a portion of the dates

- people would require minimum stays that they didn't list

- people were already becoming mini-hoteliers and trying to charge prices in line with actual hotels

- the mini-hotelier people were wanting security deposits up to $500

"If you don't have to work, it's probably a better experience."

My hypothesis is that a founder of a startup can do this and still manage to run a company. In a few months, I will likely draw some conclusions.

Hmm.

Prices in SF on AirBnb range from $50 (very low end) to about $80-100. Assuming you stay 30 nights at $60, that's $1,800. The apartment room he used to stay in probably cost him $800, so it's about $1000 more expensive to use Airbnb.

The publicity they have received just today has probably more than made up the difference in cost.

I don't know if today's publicity would do it, but AirBnB is so great at PR that it is difficult to believe. (They also give out some great tips in their Founders at Work interviews. Watch them, guys.) I'd give them a better than 50% shot at getting covered in the New York Times for this -- again -- and that is a heck of a lot better than the "Pay us a $X0,000 retainer a month and, well, no promises" PR firms will get you.

I wouldn't be surprised if what he learns from using the service so intensively is worth more than the publicity.

Three words: legitimate business expense.

I am not a tax attorney, but I would think everything spent with AirBNB providers during this period would qualify as research, and as promotion.

Even if he told no one about this experiment, the insights he will get from relying on his own site 100% will be extremely helpful - he'll have first-hand experience on exactly what he needs to improve about the site.

The apartment may have cost him $800 a month, however you have other costs, bills, taxes, maintenance. He doesn't have any of that worry or expense now, so it will probably work out cheaper for him.

In my experience rooms/apartments costing $800/$2400 don't usually have bills, taxes, maintenance or other costs totalling $1000/$3000 (respectively).

If you get a 3 room apartment for $800 a month in SF, then why are people there always whining about super high rents?

I think he means that the guy from airbnb was paying $800/mo for his room. That would be $2400/mo total if there's 3 tenets each paying $800/mo.

> The apartment room he used to stay in probably cost him $800, so it's about $1000 more expensive to use Airbnb.

You can't rent an apartment nightly.

True, although he may insist on paying list price, don't know he's financial situation, I'm sure being a founder that fair few of the people listing would cut him a deal.

I could be wrong but he also could legally expense this. If so then its a huge win, haha.

"Dog-fooding" in the extreme? An interesting experiment.

Having travelled extensively for work, living in hotels for months, and waking at three in the morning thinking "What country am I in?", I can't help feel that this will pall fairly quickly.

I look forward to the updates.

+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

+ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dogfooding+(t...

+ http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/the-ultimate-dogfoo...

Fascinating! Through sheer chance I noticed that this comment was at 5 points before lunch, then on returning it was at 4 points (about 13:30 Zulu) Clearly someone thought 5 points was too many and down-voted it.

I must admit I'm intrigued. Is it the term" dog-fooding" to which they objected? Is it the explanation of why I think this will get very tedious? Is it the links to explain the term "dog-fooding" which, I would've thought, some people here wouldn't recognise (although most certainly would.)

I try to ensure that my comments and thoughts are generally useful (well, perhaps except for this one. I pray indulgence) and hence add to the value of HN, but clearly someone thought one wasn't. Oh how I wish it were possible to see into the mind of the down-voter.

<sighs, shrugs, wanders off, wondering.>

Can`t explain the downvote, but the links are superfluous.

I've noticed this before when I've posted a comment that is otherwise receiving upvotes. I just chalk it up to "fat fingers" accidentally clicking the down arrow. It happens.

I've accidentally downvoted on an iThing before. It doesn't seem worth it to write a comment explaining.

I also worked my way literally around the world - 3 continents - and it drove me absolutely batty. I worked maybe 3-4 hours a day max but was as burnt out as this one time I worked 100-hour weeks.

I've simply come to the conclusion that while it SOUNDS appealing to me, like gourmet olives, in reality, it takes a certain kind of person to actually enjoy it... and I'm not one of them.

But, like gourmet olives, clearly other people really do enjoy it.

By using Airbnb everyday, I will get to know the product and the people like never before.

Worth it just for this, I bet any "niggles" in Airbnb will be worked out pretty quickly :D

Ever since first hearing about Airbnb here, I've thought over and over about what an amazing place to work it sounds. This just confirms it: one of the founders truly digs into what creating a startup means (no better customer development than using your product more than anyone else). Plus he sounds like a really cool guy.

What's the difference between Airbnb and Couch Surfing?

You have to pay for Airbnb but do get a bed? I do like the idea of Airbnb and hope to be able to try it soon.

I'm currently planning a trip and have looked at both. CouchSurfing seems to rely a lot more on a sense of community, whereas Airbnd is more "business-y", which only makes sense given that CS is free whereas Airbnd is not. CS users are encouraged to maintain an up to date profile; the intricacy of some people's profiles rivals MySpace profiles of yore. Airbnd has a much nicer website.

Also, included in the CS-experience is the socializing – nobody wants to host someone who's just taking the "free couch"-part, so actually there is compensation included, but it is not money.

How much dogfood do you need to eat before you turn into a dog?

Isn't being a dog the best way to understand what it's like to be a dog though, that's the whole point.

This was one of those posts where I had no point to make but thought someone else, when reading it, would.

"If I need a lot of space for a week, I can rent a spacious apartment. If I want to have a dinner party, I can rent a chic loft to host guests. If I plan to work late, I can rent a minimal space close to the office."

Yes, you can do that, if you have loads of disposable income.

Ideally, it'd balance out.

Most of the time, you'd rent a small place (thereby saving money as compared to an apartment). When you needed something else, you'd simply get a more expensive place for a few days, the extra costs would be balanced out by having those smaller places most of the time.

One month, I will probably set a budget of what my old rent was and test this.

Man, I was trying to write a science fiction story about a homeless (in a similar way) technology consultant a year ago, but I couldn't come up with an interesting plot.

I guess the problem was that it was already too close to be science fiction.

See the first chapter of _Accelerando_.

One cool thing about this is what it does to the marginal cost of travelling. Assuming the place he would travel to has rooms for about the same as what he's paying in SF, the marginal housing cost of traveling becomes 0, which would make it a lot more financially feasible to travel frequently, especially to places nearby enough that travel costs are low.

Now, he's a startup founder and probably doesn't have a whole lot of time to do so, but if someone with a less demanding life did it, they could travel a lot.

awesome idea. how much more does this cost than renting a place?

I found that a small apartment in NY was around 2500 or more, and in roughly the same area airbnb had something for 1800, plus the whole social experience if you're into that.

How does he deal with physical mail and official addresses for taxes, etc? (this has been a pain for me in the past)

physical mail is easy, tons of mail forwarding services out that. The official location stuff has already been covered by the retired RV community for quite some time. Some of them even help you become residents in that state (usually florida, texas, and south dakota).

I'm still trying to figure out the residency/domicile issues in case i'm actually living somewhere semi permaently. I'm thinking about using my sister's new house in norfolk, va as an "official" address

Sounds like it could be fun, but I just can't cut my possessions down that much. My passion for motorcycling (bikes + tools) books (I have a kindle, but textbooks are heavy) and electronics (more tools) pretty much sees to that.

A small truck bed more than suffices, but not one suitcase.

If you wanted to try it you could put most of it in storage and try for a week/month (or however long you want to try it).

well, impressive, indeed, that is the cutting edge of "use your on product" mantra.

Thinking a bit more about this principle of use it your own, be happy you are not the founder of amazon or ebay, in those cases you would have have to start buying all items available on the shop.

Looking forward reading updates about this journey.

you can find a good room in SF for ~$600/mo on craigslist

Look into SOMA warehouse spaces. They can be hard to get into but are the best options for sub $700/room rents.

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