Hacker News Reader

Comment by samclearman | Hacker News Reader

Most Americans have spare bedrooms for when guests visit. You could have your guests stay at a hotel but typically that will be really far from your home which sucks for everybody. Having Sonder or Airbnb style short term rentals distributed throughout cities could allow people to live in smaller apartments, eliminating bedrooms that sit unused most nights creating more space for everybody.

To be clear I'm not talking about the model of renting out your spare bedroom on Airbnb because nobody actually wants to do that. I'm talking about full time airbnb studios / 1BR's obviating the need for guest bedrooms.

View on HN

> To be clear I'm not talking about the model of renting out your spare bedroom on Airbnb because nobody actually wants to do that.

Demonstrably false - there are many thousands of such rooms available on AirBnb:

https://www.airbnb.com/s/homes?refinement_paths%5B%5D=%2Fhom...

I often prefer to stay in this configuration, especially in a city where I don't know the local language. This way you have a host and a cozy, lived-in place to stay instead of some sterile suite that makes you feel like you never left your own city.

I've used Airbnb a lot, and in my experience at best it's 50% of the listings that are actually like that. Demonstrably false, yes, but also not as much like that as most people think.

50% of all listings seems significant to me.

> Most Americans have spare bedrooms for when guests visit.

I'd venture that most Americans living in the dense urban environments the OP was talking absolutely do not have a spare room kicking around for guests. Certainly, living in NYC, I don't and neither does anyone I know.

I'd venture that this statement also fails in general, not just urban environment. Seems like a very privileged perspective.

It's very common in suburban homes to have both an unused guest bedroom and an unused dining room solely for the two times a year the owner entertains. Since this wasn't really logical in the first place I doubt more short-term rentals would make much difference.

I think it depends a lot on how old you are.

My parents have 3 spare rooms, because my siblings and I have moved out and they haven't downsized to a smaller house.

But I wouldn't expect a young family to have a spare room. When I was younger and we needed a spare room, I was always relegated to the couch to make room for guests.

I don't expect it's super common to have a dedicated guest bedroom in a house unless it's, as you say, a kid's room who has moved out. On the other hand, quite a few homeowners have a room they use as a part-time office, for hobbies, etc. that has a sofabed in it. That's more or less the case with me. I have a "spare" room that I use for various things but I can make up a bed if I have guests.

That's remarkably optimistic. But people also have guest bedrooms so that family members can stay with them, not away from them. And so that they can have part-time home offices. And simply to increase the overall value of their home investment.

I think expecting the presence of Sonder in the market to efficiently trade space with houses by obviating the need for guest rooms seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of how the housing market works, particularly why people buy houses larger than what they need or utilize.

This already exists in apartment buildings. Typically a few suites near the ground floor are reserved for rent by tenants for their guests.

> Most Americans have spare bedrooms for when guests visit.

No, they don't. Some Americans do, but it's a minority; most that have a room that loosely serves this purpose have another non-bedroom function for the room that is not significantly impaired by occasional use as a guest bedroom, and a large number, probably a majority, have no guest bedroom at all, putting guests up on a couch (possibly convertible, but maybe not) or temporary cot, etc. in a common room (or displacing a resident, likely a child, to such an arrangement to free up a bed) when hosting overnight guests.

I've never had a spare bedroom for guests. I've known people who did. I saw them as unusually well off.

I would like to know where you get this idea that a majority of Americans have such. Is this merely anecdotal observation or is there a study you can cite?

OK but who’s going to convert all the larger units the small ones

Reply on news.ycombinator.com