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Comment by beal | Hacker News Reader

I think AirBnB would be a force to help people keep their housing, driving rents up but allowing people flexibility to generate more income if they are falling back. I'm interested to see how the company responds.

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Or it could fuel housing bubbles to new heights. The fact that there are now housing lenders who use projected AirBNB revenues in determining creditworthiness is worrying.

> The fact that there are now housing lenders who use projected AirBNB revenues in determining creditworthiness is worrying.

Do you have a source for this?

A startup doing this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/your-money/mortgages/loft...

And now apparently Fannie Mae is moving into this space: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gig-economy-grows-up-as-lenders...

The irony.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/quicken-loans-ameri...

If the property is more valuable there is no bubble. I do agree some lenders might get this wrong, but an overall increase is pretty reasonable I think.

Counting it as just straight up income is not correct, though, given that AirBNB is essentially the hospitality business, which is highly cyclical. The first thing people cut back on is traveling, and hotels are not afraid to race to the bottom to fill rooms.

Politicians generally appreciate housing price increases. Homeowners are a key voting demographic.

> I think AirBnB would be a force to help people keep their housing, driving rents up but allowing people flexibility to generate more income if they are falling back.

Until it becomes the new normal, and market rents will factor that in. Then, people who, for whatever reason, cannot rent half their apartment out on AirBnB will just be priced out.

Right. The new normal will be apartments all over Detroit getting rented on Airbnb.

By who exactly?

A single room rental? Quite possibly. A whole house/apartment rental? That person is likely not having problems.

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