Barcelona and Rome are overrun with tourists, and it's killing the cities. AirBnB should just go away, the market worked very well before it, even if things were a bit more expensive.
That's why I think it's fair to blame AirBnB for that. We'll see what happens in Tokyo, Madrid and other cities where they're severely restricting usage.
Devil's Advocate: I'd agree that AirBnB isn't entirely to blame, but a large company helping your town's citizen rezone their long-term residential units into short-term residential units and not telling the town isn't going to help the zoning board make correct decisions.
Japan has made a good decision to at least butt themselves into the process.
Sorry, but people who believe that 1 promile decrease in supply could cause tens of percent increase in prices are just dumb beyond salvation.
As a simple example: if we have too many tourists, give a progressive daily tax that's charged to every visitor that automatically includes museum visits/etc. Use that revenue to build more housing for local residents (and if some dipshit points out that more housing ruins a neighboorhood's character, ask yourself if Paris or suburbia has more character) or to subsidize local transport infrastructure.
Step outside of theoretical economic thought experiments and try living in a formerly quiet neighborhood or building suddenly experiencing an influx of loud drunk littering assholes. Residential areas are desired as residential areas for a reason. I live in NYC and sure as hell don't want to live around Times Square. There are actual people living in these cities who want a decent quality of life where they live.
Echoing many others in the this thread, in a previous apartment in a residential area of Manhattan someone down the hall starting renting their unit to Airbnb visitors. It was a nightmare, but thankfully the landlord caught wind in a few weeks and kicked the person out.
That's awful. In the US we have misdemeanor noise violations that carry a fine (or jail time if you refuse to pay).
Neighbors will call the police if your party is too rowdy. They'll show up looking for underage drinkers. Usually if you are nice to the cops and promise to be quiet (and everyone they see is 21+) they'll just warn you and not write a ticket.
Lots of places already have this as a "hotel tax" .. which AirBnb doesn't pay.
There may be some places which haven't yet arranged for AirBnB to pay the tax, but it isn't because AirBnB refuses. In fact, it may be because hotels in that area are still holding out for the possibility of banning AirBnB. When AirBnB starts paying hotel taxes, it becomes nearly impossible to remove.
Outside of that list, the host may have to collect it themselves if the location is not supported yet: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/654/what-is-occupancy-ta....
(Disclosure: I work at Airbnb)
How about charging a very high tax (in the form of a voucher) for hotel/AirBnB stays, but make that voucher spendable in local restaurants/museums? This would have the bonus that you'd also kill the local black market economy, as tourists would insist on being able to pay for goods using their voucher.
I suspect any voucher system like you propose would just create a secondary gray market in slightly-discounted vouchers.
2. Anywhere popular with young tourists (Amsterdam, Berlin etc). This might be limited to Europe, with a €20 flight (or bus) to the city, a bed in a cheap hostel, a visit to all the free things etc. This isn't new, but Couchsurfing and cheap transport have probably increased it.
So while I'm interested to hear of those cases, this "they don't spend" concern still seems out-of-place if directed against AirBnBers.
Sure, there are solutions. There's a huge housing bubble right now (which will collapse whenever tourism dries up), for instance. Maybe if it keeps on this way some legislation will be passed to get it under control.
But both of those solutions are completely out of the hands of the people who actually can't afford to live in the city where they work.
There was a woman at a city council meeting a few years ago who lived in a building with around 10 units, and she said six of them were on AirBnB. When ever she checked, their (small) pool always had people in it she'd never seen before, and never would again. People buy places to live in and make a life in, and then half the building is party people.
For what it's worth, this has always made us extremely wary of AirBnB, and we do a lot of research for cities we visit before we rent an AirBnB somewhere. In Montreal they're regulated, so we had no problem there. In Reykjavik, we rented from a woman who was staying at her mother's place to take care of her pets while she (her mother) was out of the country, so our stay wasn't depriving anyone of housing.
Other places we go, where AirBnB isn't as well regulated, we're very particular and tend to go for hotels (e.g. Ottawa, Seattle) because we're very aware of how bad these kinds of systems can be for people.
This has to be repeated. There's no point in living without some level of quality of life. Having everyone trying to raise their family, do their school work, study, or just try to sleep, in what are essentially all becoming hotels, is just not something we should strive for.
One could even argue you're going to end up in a world where success in life is tied to wealth, not because of all the reasons commonly associated with it, but just because one group can actually sleep at night and one can't.
In cities such as Reykjavik and Vancouver, they could tax Airbnb and divert the funding to create more housing, but housing construction is a physical process that takes time. Meanwhile in the short term rents are spiking.
Don't convolute these two things in order to influence readers. One does not necessarily imply the other. Venice would not 'kill' for more tourists and most cities in the world would probably 'kill' for a certain amount of tourism but not for couch tourism which indirectly favors real estate speculators buying housing for short-term rent and driving the locals away.
Yes, starting with killing affordability for their citizens.
> build more housing for local residents
But where? 50 km out of town, so they, too, can experience tourism on a daily basis.
Whether or not we regard one right as more important than the other (and to be fair, we absolutely should), that doesn't change that nobody else is obligated to assist you in pursuit of your rights.
In America, for example, the right to legal counsel is positively asserted. "If you do not have a lawyer, we will provide one for you." Most other rights, including those explicitly enumerated in the constitution, are negatively asserted. We have the right to keep and bear arms, but it is encumbent on no one to aid me in that right, only the government may not interfere.
What does Canada (or your province) do to ensure that all housing prices are kept to affordability?
Because, in the West at least, society isn't capitalist uber alles.
Different people want different things. Too much of a good thing isn't always still a good thing. It's not that hard to understand.
Even within the same city! 10% of the city might be tourist facing, 90% not-tourist-facing. So something that's great for that 10% and annoying for the 90% is naturally gonna get some resistance.
In the city I live in (no NYC, but still one of the densest in the US and high demand), there's currently some big construction projects, and people are complaining its not big enough. Except its on a former landfill that could not support the larger structures. Let say we fix that...but the size of the project was also scaled according to capacity of the sewer infrastructure. Sure, we can fix that TOO, but then the people building the project have to wait a year, or two, or more, and they want money now.
You have to throttle things so that all the moving parts follow each other, to avoid making it hell for everyone.
It’s not so much the rise in tourism that’s the problem as it is the rise in tourists staying in residentially zoned areas. Hosts are renting apartments and then illegally subleasing them for profit, artificially inflating rental prices without a corresponding increase in income. This is an especially large problem in developing countries, where due to geographical arbitrage, tourists can afford to pay way more for an apartment than a resident can.
This is a problem that can't be solved by building more housing, because that housing is not going to be built in the historic city centers where the tourists want to stay. (Also, it takes a while to build more housing.)
Wouldn't the real market solution be to build more hotels?
With young kids, you often what your own cooking/food preparation facilities. Sleep arrangements are often easier in a house too.
Ironically, it seems like hotels with food preparation areas are more common in Japan (weekly mansion/business type hotels).
That's specifically what I was replying to.
I live(and rent) in a city that is tourist based and less affordable because of airb&b and the like. It has a vacancy rate of under 1%. So i completely understand what you're saying. I just disagree that the market for staying somewhere worked well before airb&b.
Having stayed in a motel a lot over the last month, I'm pretty confident most parents could get 4-5 kids into most hotel rooms without management being the wiser.
Sure there are spots near the Roman forum you would expect to have lots of tourists(basically inside the Aurellian walls).
But outside of that its a 20+ minute drive for a tourist to popular areas. If a 50$ airbnb is beating out a $1,000/mo rent its because people cannot afford $1000 in rent.
We host an airbnb ourselves, lots of business travelers in our area.
If people are coming to visit what humans did 2000 years ago and not visiting the humans there today, I dont think the problem is Airbnb.
A key aspect of hotel rates is that they fluctuate with demand. When you come into town for the big event, the rates may be 4 times higher than staying on a cold, boring night. A long-term stay will be much cheaper per-night than a nightly rate.
You need to take down sheets, wash them, remake the bed, clean the bathroom, buy fruit/food every ~3 days, vacuum, be available for your guests.
When you have tenets, its passive income. You clean up every 6 months to 3+ years.
Airbnb pays better, but its labor. The ~300$/mo difference can easily be accounted for with that. Not to mention the cost of food(always HQ), electricity, water, heat/AC.
The items I listed are not optional, people can give you a bad review regardless what expectations you set with prices + description.
The problem is that Airbnb will charge maybe 80-120 euros a night for an apartment depending on size, location etc. And I am paying 750 euros a month.
So a landlord can make more money from a week of Airbnb than a month of normal rental.
In the three years I have been here the rents have risen probably 15% or so - it means even with promotions and pay rises you just keep up.
Ironically London also has an insane rental market so moving back wouldn't help much...
Well, except you also have 15% more money after paying rent as well. If you save the same percentage of your overall income then your absolute savings went up 15%. And if you assume that all your other costs are not rising as quickly (maybe fair, maybe not) then you could save a higher percentage of your income because your salary grew faster than your costs as a whole.
It's the same argument why living in SF or NYC is worth it even with the high cost of housing.
So it means even with promotions etc. you just break even - it feels like you are just working for your landlord.
That said, it is still better than London where the situation is just untenable and I prefer the quality of life here as well. (sadly so do all the tourists!)
I don't think AirBnB was the cause of the Greek debt crisis.
You mean during the recession?
Uber, like AirBnB and a lot of other startups, are 'disrupting' industries by entering them and taking them over by ignoring regulations, insurance, and even laws to keep costs low and make a profit. In this day and age, they can grow fast enough that by the time cities see the repercussions and react to them, the companies are big enough and rich enough (and flush enough with VC money) to fight back, and are already entrenched with a loud and enthusiastic user base.
In other words, Uber is great if you ignore the various safety and insurance regulations, background checks, licensing, etc. that taxis have to comply with.
"I've been waiting for two hours, and you're going to Chinatown!? Fuck you!" (Not far enough)
"Brooklyn?! Fuck you!" (Wants to stay in Manhattan)
One cabbie was so pissed he went 70 in a 35 zone to demonstrate how annoying my destination was.
Cabbies pretend to get lost so that the fare is longer. Uber will refund the difference. Etc. Etc.
Uber has no incentive to limit the number of drivers they employ. Our small streets are jammed with Uber/Lyft cars endlessly driving back and forth.
Uber costs less than a taxi, so this is giving poor(er) people more choice.
The medallion laws are unjust and should be broken, other laws like insurance, driver training and vehicle safety are not. This is what makes the debate so complex and passionate, with people taking one side or the other depending on their personal incentives and political bias.
I don't follow the logic. Many companies have negative cash flow while they invest in growth. What is "it" in your sentence? If you're saying there are only two possible factors for the relatively low ride fares, I think you're forgetting the reduction of transaction costs.
Hailing a cab on the street is frustrating. Hailing a cab by phone call even more frustrating and uncertain. Decreasing the transaction cost increases demand, which encourages supply, which lowers cost, which ... Anyway, there's a new equilibrium price.
Are you an Uber employee revealing private information? If not, it seems you're making a big assumption about the proportion of their expenses that are marketing and growth versus steady-state marginal cost.
Amazon didn't make profit for a while and everyone wondered if they could. Oh, it's a low margin business, they'll never be profitable, blah, blah. Turns out they can, in fact, make a bit of money. Maybe Uber and Lyft can, too. Delta can, even though flights are a commodity business.
Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.
You've asserted that they're ignoring cost in their pricing, but have provided no evidence for it. Uber and Lyft have claimed to be profitable in their biggest markets. Doesn't that suggest they set prices above marginal cost?
In any case, even if they're not currently profitable, that may be because of capital expense, not operating costs. Until they go public, it's hard to know.
It didn't have the hyper-growth potential of the current model, but it didn't draw most of the ethical/moral objections, while still providing at least some "disruption" to the taxi monopolies.