Hacker News Reader

Comment by ifeedmartians | Hacker News Reader

seriously wtf. 1900 people lost their jobs and you think that's "Good". Check yourself

These 1900 people were well paid SV employees, being well paid by working for a company operating in a zoning grey area that profits off of the removal of housing stock from the market. Only 45% of my city holds a job right now, and only 25% can afford the median house. I weep for these people struggling in my city, not the comparative handful of people who chose to work for a fundamentally degenerate company whose existence contributes to the housing crisis.

Many of these people are on work visas and will potentially need to leave the country. Some are new grads who have no savings and might not be able to afford rent. And the cut was across all roles, not just the ones that were well-paid.

airbnb has devastated large swaths of America.

Devastated housing costs which were on a decade long uptrend before AirBNB existed you mean? Or because its capitalized rentals to a higher extent than the normal purchase/rental market could do?

AirBnB is a great business. I actually met the founders when they were just starting, handling out Obama 'O's as marketing gifts. Maybe should have asked them to join their company.

This being said. Their business and bypassing of local laws has made many housing markets in touristic city insanely expensive. I know, some win, some lose but still, it is a major concern.

In the face of a housing crisis, the last thing you want to do is turn perfectly good housing stock into a de facto hotel. There are whole apartment buildings that have been turned into Airbnbs. The only work done in converting them was installing the cheapest flat screen TV possible, some futons and coffee tables from walmart, and a microwave. This maneuver can net a landlord twice as much money a month, and removes housing supply from the market in the process.

I think as long as a landlord can make twice the amount of money, its gonna be really hard to keep that down.

It also creates a lot of incentives to increase housing stock though no? If suddenly I can make $4k/mo on an apartment I'm building instead of $2k, wouldn't I want to build more apartments?

We've tried just about everything other than being permissive with new housing. We refuse to scale our most popular areas to live, with the idea that what makes it nice will go away if there's more people. That just makes it exclusive and expensive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com