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Comment by carbocation | Hacker News Reader

Unsurprisingly, using residentially-zoned space for commercial purposes is profitable. Don't most full-time bed-and-breakfasts have to get licensed? (I'm assuming that making $4,500/month implies being nearly full-time; maybe I'm wrong.)

To me, this seems fine when rare. So let's say I rent out a room once a month or something along those lines - no big deal. If I'm treating it like a real b-n-b, though, it seems like I'm engaged in some real commerce that is probably regulated. Presumably Airbnb behaves agnostically on this issue, allowing the responsibility to fall to the property owner?

I'm delighted for the specific homeowners being discussed here, but concerned about the general case.

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Not sure why the Parent was downvoted. These are some legitimate questions. Cities regulate the areas in which business can occur, tax businesses differently than individuals and have regulations on food and hospitality for health and safety reasons. As the parent says most of the time this will slip through as "letting a mate stay the night" but at $4500 a month we are in a different ballgame.

Incidentally airbnb have great PR

Sydney used to have a problem with unscrupulous entrepreneurs who would (say) buy up a bunch of three-bedroom apartments in a fancy inner-city building, stuff sixteen beds into it, and rent the beds out to foreign backpackers for (say) fifteen bucks a night. For the backpackers, it was better than the regular hostels, and for the owners it was a license to print money, but for the other residents of the building, who would find the pool and gardens filled with drunk poms at all hours of day and night, it was pretty annoying. Eventually I think they came up with some new law to stop it.

Anyway, if airbnb is smart they should try to stop people from abusing their system by trying to set up pseudo-hotels, since it's these people who are going to bring down the regulatory hammer on the entire system.

"Hotel Toshi" in NYC does exactly this. The fact that the guy is operating somewhat high-profile and attracting attention to himself is probably what brought knowledge of this problem to the NYC media and regulators.

http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi

http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194

http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms

I have a problem with worrying whether this is 'real commerce' or whether subjectively a lot of money is being made. If someone makes money, largely it's none of my business whether this a significant amount or not.

If your concern is zoning, that's a reasonable concern if people were turning residential properties effectively in hotels. That criteria can be left to local lawmakers. However it seems in most cases people are simply using small-scale property they live in and previously would rent.

Have you attended any planning hearings in your town?

No. May I ask, out of ignorance, why that is relevant? I suspect it's not just a "You're not doing anything about it so you have no right to complain," sort of thing and actually something much more relevant to the conversation, like "If you went, you'd see that the deck is stacked against mom-and-pop shops" or something like that. However, I can't guess what you're thinking and would like to know more.

Because bribing politicians to make the zones in your favor is a great business to be in.

Never assume the politicians ever do anything for you, except when it benefit themselfs.

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