Hacker News Reader

Preface: I dont actually have a set opinion yet on whether Airbnb is net good/bad.

How much of this is regulation thats around to protect the society that the hotel is operating in? Changing those sheets everyday isn't just for having clean smelling sheets, but to prevent pests such as bed bugs in some localities. For instance there's probably tons of people whod jump on doctors/dentists who lower the price by not cleaning all their tools properly, but we have regulations requiring it because it can create an epidemic that causes negative externalities to the wider community.

I think I'd have less of a problem with Airbnb if there was any sort of enforcement of health laws or putting effort into not supporting people who sign leases saying they won't do Airbnb but do it anyway.

Having a lower price just shows that is the most efficient use of scarce resources in that specific situation, it does not show that it's good for society.

"Having a lower price just shows that is the most efficient use of scarce resources in that specific situation"

No, it's not 'specific'. The 'rent' marketing clearing price for a locale is a function of a vast array of economic inputs. That's the whole point of free markets, and why it's difficult to dictate terms around it.

The fact that there is a vast influx of AirBnBers in so many areas is not a small things, it's really quite apparent that the artificial controls set by zoning are far more constrictive than we ever thought - and they should be loosened. There are all sorts of external surpluses lost when markets are not efficient.

Also - I fundamentally doubt that people are just 'getting sick' because of AirBnB and 'not having their sheets changed every day'. I just don't believe it's an issue. FYI hotels have stopped changing sheets every day as well, they usually say 'to preserve water' which is BS - it's cost - but they generally do make the bed and clean every day which is unnecessary.

I would probably ban AirBnB for anything but special kinds of places, and maybe not allow it in residential buildings, at least allow building owners/coops to enforce it.

And then also be far more lax with hotel zoning and regulations as well.

Every city wants more 'tourism' until they get tourists and they get pissed off. Well, those tourists bring in tons of cash.

Every city wants business to invest and 'high tech' jobs until the locals complain about 'Google values' and 'home prices'.

The market for both hotels and taxis is just too vastly distorted - and we all lose - especially consumers who would only be able to afford 1/2 as much travel otherwise.

There should be a lot more hotels and taxis.

I experience the exact opposite in regards to “getting sick”. When I travel, which is quite often, I have a greater chance of getting sick when I stay in a hotel. I suspect it’s like being on a plane where you are breathing air that has been recycled with hundreds of other people. It’s noticeable enough that I definitely need to collect hard data on it to establish the correlation. Guessing anecdotally that if I stay in a hotel my chances of catching a cold are at least double and possibly triple my chance of catching a cold in a private AirBnB.

The other part of your comment that I can identify with is the “save the environment” signs you see at hotels. It’s completely disingenuous and it’s one of the rare small things that irrationally infuriates me. Every time I read one of those signs I think something along the lines of “if this didn’t save you money you wouldn’t care”. I inevitably end up pondering the decisions that the hotel could make that would help save the environment many times more than a few wash cycles. Decisions that the hotel obviously wouldn’t take because it would cost the hotel money instead of saving them money. Perhaps my disaffection is mostly because the signs are a perfect example of corporate bullshit; the exact sort of facade you would expect from a faceless corporation that will say anything to get your money.

To be fair, hotels are often infested with bedbugs despite “regulation.” I have yet to see many stories of people dying because an AirBnB is less than sanitary. Besides, if you have bedbugs in your place, you get hammered on the reviews and your place gets delisted.

AirBnB is aggressively strict about reviews. Too many 4 star reviews and you get “punished.” One of my listings in France got suspended for a week because it had an average review of 4.4 stars! Yet a French hotel that gets a slew of 2 star reviews on TripAdvisor or similar doesn’t get touched. AirBnB reviews are far more effective than regulation in weeding out “bad” places. I have stayed in plenty of shithole hotels across Europe despite “regulation.” Some hostels are downright poisonous. I have stayed in a few rat-hotels in the Bowery in New York and those places are still around. I have gotten sick more times at US restaurants than in years of eating street food in East Asia. AirBnB isn’t a health risk of any significance; I would invite data to the contrary. Besides, even if it were a health risk, nobody forces you to stay in one. In this era of nonsense warnings such as “don’t use a hairdryer in the shower” or coffee cups warning that coffee is hot, I have become quite sick of well-meaning people who seek to infantilize grown adults and protect them from various boogeymen that could be avoided with simple common sense: rats in the dining room? Don’t eat there. Dirty sheets or fire hazards? Don’t sleep there. A place selling for $10 per night when everywhere else is $100? Use your brain, do your homework, be a responsible grown up and stop expecting government to protect you from bedbugs.

> Changing those sheets everyday isn't just for having clean smelling sheets, but to prevent pests such as bed bugs in some localities.

If this actually was true, wouldn't there be regulations for changing sheets daily in every home as well?

No, the goal is to stop transmission by travellers.

That might argue for changing sheets between guests, not changing sheets for the same guest every night.

I think this is way oversimplifying things. Hotels and apartments are zoned differently and regulated and managed differently. There are negative externalities in apartment buildings for AirBNB hosts that are paid for by their neighbors. Zoning is designed (often poorly!) to do this on a neighborhood level, but not at all to do so on a building by building or apartment by apartment level.

This is regulatory arbitrage for sure by AirBNB and hosts. The answer (theoretically) would be to more granularly undersrand the costs and benefits to all parties and redistribute appropriately. Unfortunately, neither the public or private sector is incentivized to solve this fairly - “competition” won’t solve it. Seems like a case where regulation would be the answer - it’s just unlikely any single city will solve it well, much less all of them.

I really doubt the significance of the 'cost to the neighbour'. Really is this noise? Because I don't think that's a cost issue so much, nor do I feel hotels are particularly more quiet, or that AirBnB guests are particularly more noisy or rough on property.

I think it's 80% an issue of artificial market distortion due to limitation.

Cities need to rethink this. There is zero negative burden to my neighbourhood if the building I live in happened to be a hotel.

It's time for a rethink.

I strongly disagree. In a hotel I can call the reception and get them to deal with noise pretty quickly. In an apartment I’m stuck with no quick recourse if a bunch of assholes use Airbnb to rent out a flat next door to have a weekend of boozing (thank you, group of 7 Irish lads that left a bunch of puke all over my outdoors last month).

Yes, but regular residents of such a building have the same recourse: i.e. none - and there's little to suggest that AirBnB are truly more raucous than not.

For every 'noisey airbnb' you hear about, there are 1000x regular noisy neighours.

There is plenty to suggest that short-term renters are less well-behaved, compared to long-term renters.

The most obvious being the length of their stay. People only staying in a place for a week or less tend to not care about the neighborhood, because it's not their neighborhood. They don't have to rub shoulders with the neighbors for years, they don't have to keep a reasonably friendly relationship with them. They're probably never going to meet those people ever again.

Plus these are people on vacation and often on a budget, so a younger demographic, in the attractive part of a city. It can get rowdy.

Of course there are nice short-term renters as well. I go to a 3-day festival at the other end of the country every year, with 5 of my friends. We book with the same person every year, and Airbnb cuts our accomodation costs to less than a third, compared to even the cheapest hotel rooms. But we're all in our 30s and out of the "party until 4 in the morning" phase. We just need a decent place to sleep and eat breakfast.

And we certainly faced scrutiny the first time. 6 people, going to a beer-drinking headbanging metal festival? Yeah, that sounds sketchy and I absolutely understand their initial skepticism. But we had a personal connection who could vouch for us. This is also an apartment where the guy actually lives, he just stays over at his girlfriend's place whenever he rents it out. It wasn't bought specifically to rent it out.

And I've heard some real horror stories from friends, who did rent out through Airbnb and they all say "never again!". As do everyone in the condo building I live in, we've banned all short-term rental after a few nasty experiences.

E: Actually a law just passed here, limiting short-term rentals to 70 days per year maximum. I think that's a decent way to do it.

"There is plenty to suggest that short-term renters are less well-behaved, compared to long-term renters. The most obvious being the length of their stay."

That's not obvious at all. It's a hint but not evidence.

It is very clearly shown through people's experience when sharing a building with short-term renters, especially in desirable parts of cities.

Yep. The issue is most markets is due to regulation. If hotels can't meet the price and availability needs in a market then the issue is the regulation. For temporary events that is understandable, but continued restraint on hotels makes no sense.

Which burdensome hotel regulations would you like to see removed?

Zoning.

You wouldn't mind if your next door neighbor was a seedy roach motel or a 10 story holiday inn? Somehow I doubt it.

10 story holiday inns are very professionally run, they have security etc.

Why do you think a hotel would be worse quality than residential?

I live in a mixed neighbourhood and many of my neighbours are already roach motels.

Franky, in all my travels I've never come across the proverbial roach motel, or anything totally run down.

My concern would not be the business or people - just parking. As long as there isn't a big parking lot, there's no reason why I couldn't be next to a short term residential unit, I don't think many people would have any problems at all.

So you want to regulate parking lots but not commercial and residential zoning? Makes sense.

I didn't say 'commercial' I said 'hotels'.

There's nary a difference between a hotel of a certain type, and residences. There are people living there.

'Parking lots' are massively different than any other kinds of space.

As long as the hotel fits the local aesthetic, i.e. only 5 stories high if the other buildings are, 1 story high if the others are ... then there's nothing wrong with them at all.

What about hotels with restaurants in them? Where shall the regulation start and stop?

'Where shall the regulation start and stop?"

Those decisions already have to be made. 'Regulations' already have to start and stop somewhere.

There are restaurants all up and down my street and people seem to get along fine.

My point is, you seem to be advocating regulation-free business development, while simultaneously proposing new regulations so businesses don't do what you don't like.