Rise of ghost hotels casts pall over Toronto rental market | Hacker News Reader

Rise of ghost hotels casts pall over Toronto rental market

thestar.com

21 pointsparthdesai21 comments

Isn't this related to a bigger problem which is lack of affordable housing? Airbnb just exacerbates the problem. Many other cities are faced with the same issue, London, NY, Paris. It's a city planning issue that mayors and governments should tackle, not an Airbnb issue. If Airbnb leaves, it doesn't mean that everyone will magically find cheap rental units.

Right, it's one of many factors contributing to the absurdly low vacancy rate (and resulting absurdly out-of-reach housing costs)

Presumably addressing this issue could be a multi pronged approach, which may involve restrictions on airbnb. But i totally agree the city can't just ban airbnb and call it a day - that would be unproductive at best

high vacancy rate, or low occupancy rate

Vacancy rate for standard long-term rental units, is absurdly low in toronto (1.1%)

A low vacancy rate generally means that rentals are a seller's market - offer a bad unit or a high price, or both, and you can easily find a tenant, because there's just so few places to rent.

I believe a healthy vacancy rate for a city is in the 6-7 percent range. 1.1 percent is insanely low.

But, it's not terribly surprising. The story of housing in the 21st century is that vacancy builds in the tiny manufacturing towns of yesteryear (much of the Midwest USA for example) while people move en masse to a few superstar cities that usually fail under overbearing regulations and zoning to build anywhere near enough units to match the incoming migration.

No, but cities should definitely make sure that entire town/neighbourhood don't become AirBnB neighbourhood. They should make sure that you can only AirBnB your primary residence unit, can't AirBnB for more than X number of days/year and allow property management to blacklist the building if the condo bylaw says so. But despite the typical SV hubris of caring for the world and community, that'll hurt AirBnB's growth numbers and thus they won't do that.

Also, if you read the article, i live in the most affected neighbourhood of Spadina/Fort-York, and trust me if a hell on some Fridays and Saturdays. You'll see a group of 5-10 people from out of the city (could even be some 20 year olds from suburbs) rent a 1-2 bedroom unit, pre game, come home shit faced, sometimes puking in the elevator, destroying the lobby and hall ways, blasting music at 3 am, not giving a shit about people actually living in these condos.

It definitely is a bigger issue, but i do think that AirBnB has to be held accountable as well. I would have no problems with AirBnB if it was actually used for the initial problem that it tried to solve. But you do see people buying 2nd or 3rd property just to AirBnB it, and also not renting them to long term renters who actually live and work in the city. Oh, AirBnB completely ignores zoning laws, making it hell for affected neighbours.

> It definitely is a bigger issue, but i do think that AirBnB has to be held accountable as well.

Why? AirBnB only serves as a middleman. In order for any property to be listed in AirBnB's catalogue, the property owners need to put in the work themselves.

> I would have no problems with AirBnB if it was actually used for the initial problem that it tried to solve. But you do see people buying 2nd or 3rd property just to AirBnB it, and also not renting them to long term renters who actually live and work in the city.

You said it yourself: you see people buying property to rent.

Not AirBnB, but local residents.

Why is this AirBnB's fault?

It’s related in that mass amounts of AirBnB are only sustainable when you have a lack of hotel supply. Unlike a shortage of housing, though, a shortage of hotel space is agreeable to most voters if not downright desirable; short term visitors don’t have any incentive to respect property or their neighbors. If you get a noise warning for your stag party does it matter if you’re leaving in three days? And the kitschy businesses that rise up to serve tourists are also often awful and push out other commerce.

Go to a major tourist destination and they all have their own Checkpoint Charlies or Times Squares that the locals hate and would like to keep as much of the tourist activity quarantined there.

All this means is that there's a demand for more housing, in one form or another.

I thought a big reason for Airbnb's success is they are large enough that they're now the go to site to find short-term housing. What's the non Airbnb site that you go to? They're successful just because everyone goes there.

The more the merrier. If this brings down prices for apartment rentals then I am all for it. So many people are willing to leave their Airbnb apartments empty for months at a time only to cash in on an absurd "premium".

It increases the prices as supply is reduced overall.

Anyone else read the subject as Toronto has a lot of haunted hotels?

No. Maybe if it was a reddit post.

https://outline.com/mHDHEM, if the article is pay walled.

What? Who the hell calls Short-term rentals "ghost hotels"?

If it only came to the idea of the Toronto government to ban tourism, it would achieve the same effect as reducing airbnb's.

Absolutely not true, maybe look into the matter and data first before commenting?

What data do you want, that Airbnb is used by tourists?

There's plenty for it: https://www.airbnbcitizen.com/airbnb-shares-new-data-globall...

TIL that tourism didn't exist before AirBnB. It's not like Toronto is some scrub city that only saw tourists because of AirBnB.

All tourism raises rents. The less tourism, the lower the rents.

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