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Comment by asah | Hacker News Reader

Owner-occupied, full-time rental and part-time rental can co-exist, but not if all sides "dig in."

Consider the urban reaction if (a) buildings got to tax AirBnB stays and use the proceeds for improvements and/or reduce owner HOA costs, (b) the profile/reputation/support system were shared between AirBnB and building staff/management, so guests weren't unaccountable strangers and building staff and AirBnB could coordinate during emergencies.

As travelers, owners have also benefitted from AirBnB, which has been life-changing for providing kitchens, affordability and traveling with friends and family. AirBnB also solved the problem of large events taking away housing stock needed for everyday travel.

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This sounds great, but since AirBnB is still private we don't know enough about their financials to know how viable this is for them. How much of a tax could they pay while still operating profitably (I do not mean they have to maintain their valuation or to continue to grow - I mean for them to be a self-sustaining company)?

Investors holds up AirBnB on a pedestal, but I've always been suspicious their numbers are not nearly good enough to justify their latest valuation. Apart from their continuing damage to their brand in an increasingly crowded space, I am just amazed that they only just barely made a profit in 2017. I fully understand it takes a ton of money, time, effort, and luck to grow a company to that size - but AirBnB was already 9 years old then, had been operating in a space by illegally skirting regulations, not only did they not play by the rules but they didn't pay competitive taxes, and all the while they own no expensive infrastructure! People have been suspicious their reviews are unreliable going back years, so they had already started to erode trust in their users. They are experimenting with creating their own hotels now, which is just utterly bizarre since their entire purpose was to offer an alternative to hotels (I mean it's okay to experiment when you're that big, but this is not one I can understand).

I really, really look forward to AirBnB's IPO.

Jesus Christ, AirBnB didn't invent vacation rentals. There was even a movie about them 35 years ago. The non-Martha Plimpton girl from The Goonies was in it.

they haven't, but they made it super accessible to my mother and the nice old lady upstairs both as a host and a visitor

You are proposing an AirBnB equivalent of a hotel tax. It’s basically bribing/paying the permanent residents to accept the cost of the AirBnBs.

It depends on what the community is willing to accept. The richer communities probably would outright reject it. The next tier will accept something like you suggest combined with some monetary benefit. The one below that will just get bought out.

The middle happened to my neighborhood when a very exclusive school wanted to be rezoned to move in. They basically legally bribed the city with donations to the school district, voluntarily paying property taxes even though they didn’t need to as a nonprofit, and lastly limiting traffic via buses and shifting school hours. Their initial attempt was rejected and the above sugar was what got them in.

Agreed, in theory, but what has Airbnb done to implement anything close to what you've described? From what I've seen, it's expansion without regard for existing residents.

I mean, maybe? But how many buildings want to take the additional technological burden of coordinating this sort of thing

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