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> The solution is increased enforcement of the laws that make these illegal.

Great idea. Let's fine AirBnB $50,000 per unit per year they knowingly rent out in NYC where they know such things are illegal.

Don't go after the users (those using AirBnB) or the street dealers (those listing individual units). Go after the cartel that knowingly engages in illegal activity on a massive scale.

That'll sort out the problem real quick.

Yeah, I think people have a very binary view of "criminal enterprises" vs "corporations", like they can only be people who dress in pin-stripe suits and carry tommy guns and say "lookee here, see" a lot, but a tech company can be a criminal enterprise just as much as anything else. Any company that makes money by violating the law, or encouraging it's habitual violation, is a criminal enterprise by definition (at least by the colloquial definition), even if a top boss keeps his "nose clean". Just like with any other criminal enterprise, going after the top is going to be the most effective. I hope with more research like this, maybe attitudes will change.

yah, and i’ll just point out again[0] that firms try to get big to shield themselves from the consequences of their actions. we need regulations that aim to right-size organizations, rather than the grow-at-all-costs we have now.

[0]: a longer treatment i just posted as it relates to uber/lyft: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27914112

You mean like Uber? They violated… and people would be pissed to see them go. So companies hope to be the rule breaker that gets too big to fail.

Yeah, though unfortunately some companies are big enough now to change the laws they violate [1]

[1] https://abc7.com/22-california-prop-2020-ca-what-is/7585005/

Uber seems to get a pass because taxi services were so utterly terrible and had no incentive to get better.

People like Uber because it's cheaper than taxis but I'm hearing complaints that prices are up. Seems the reason it's cheaper than taxis is Uber is subsidizing with investor money and they shifted costs to the drivers, many who are realizing it's not worth it. Seems to me Uber has always been unsustainable (they're billions in the red, spending to capture market share) but they were hoping to have self driving cars to eliminate drivers by now.

I hated taxis long before Uber showed up.

I think people take Uber because the price is known in advance. Taxis were considered the biggest theft profession of the world (excluding politicians) because they relied on extremely nasty techniques, such as threats, misconfiguring the counter, letting it run between clients, in Mexico abducting people as part of racket networks, using the wrong route, pretending there is a station charge and, last but not least, using law and local police against the customer. It’s sad that Uber has lower prices, because I would have liked to see a real match, I think everyone is happy to see taxis go bankrupt and another system with a reputation framework.

>Seems to me Uber has always been unsustainable (they're billions in the red, spending to capture market share) but they were hoping to have self driving cars to eliminate drivers by now.

I'm starting to think it is a rational strategy. Grow at a loss during a recession and make profits during the coming boom. Of course, the fact that they are still growing at a loss implies that we aren't out of the recession yet.

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation.

Howard Scott

Or to pay several retainers!

Tell one lawyer specifically what you will do, or did, and let them tell you what to do but that they cant represent you anymore, fire them. Go to the second lawyer and play dumb but using the rubric provided by the first lawyer.

> A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation.

That definition is much too kind to corporations.

> The person submitting the tip about an illegal AirBnB receives 25% of the fine.

I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

It absolutely would. But who's to say it was your neighbor instead of a random person in the city who's looking for a quick buck and knows AirB&B is illegal in the city?

You can already do this with the IRS and receive 15% to 30% of what is owed[1].

[1] https://www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-office

This good samaritan compensation model works well in New York to catch illicitly idling commercial vehicles. How are illicit short term rentals significantly different?

But it’s not ratting on your neighbors. They’re not your neighbors anymore when they moved away from your neighborhood and rented their place out to people from outside your neighborhood who are not going to stay long enough to be your neighbors either. You no longer have neighbors in that home.

In that case, I suppose yes the neighbors are gone. At the same time, what if they rent out their apartment only for two months and then they're back? Maybe that can be solved by waiting a month or so with complaining, combined with asking them about it

> I feel like the whole "rat on your neighbors for money" thing has a lot of negative unintended consequences.

1) If they are running an AirBnB, they're not your neighbor. They just own (or rent) property close to you.

2) There are a lot of negative unintended consequences to you because the unit was rented out. Why should you be expected to bear those costs and silently suffer when you can end it?

Yeah I imagine it could be the new swatting. Don't like your neighbors (as in, your actual neighbors, who aren't running an illegal hotel)? Anonymously report that there's an AirBnB in their property, and watch as the cops show up and tell your neighbors to pack their bags and find a real hotel.

How would your thing even work? You'd have to provide an AirBNB link plus legal tenants have papers.

You set up a fake listing with real outdoor photos and stock indoor photos.

Many legal tenants don't have their paperwork on-hand, stuff like deeds is stored in safe-deposit boxes where it's not readily accessible to show police who spontaneously arrive to kick you out.

Doesn't AirBnB require identity verification to use the platform as a letter, let alone to list a property?

Maybe you can pay a friend to borrow his identity?

Negative unintended consequences to the illegal AirBnB on my street was having my car shot up. Some of the bullets also hit the neighbors car parked in front of my bedroom window.

There is a lack of funding for enforcement. Where I am, the AirBnB market is huge, has led to unprecedented house price growth, and there were already rules requiring short-stay properties to be licensed...85% of properties on AirBnb aren't licensed, and department is a handful of people that are somehow meant to monitor tens of thousands of properties. I have heard of councils employing people to check but that means: looking at properties online, going to the area, trying to work out where they are, finding out where the property owner is (AirBnb have said they will refuse to comply with any requests from local govt).

The rules have been made more solid now. They are introducing a very punitive fine and some areas can have no short-term rentals but AirBnb has thrived because they exploited regulation. Local govt has to be in control (although where I am, the reason they didn't introduce anything even stricter is because the tourist economy is so large...so...it is tricky when there is money coming in).

NYC has that tip line: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/specialenforcement/stay-in-the-kno...

tl;dr: Don't use it, it is worthless.

I called once after an AirBNBer tried to kick down my door at 3AM because he was on the wrong floor. Same guy projectile vomited red wine and bile all over the hallway as he stumbled away before falling asleep in the stairwell.

Anyways, so I called the tip line, and they asked me "When do they show up?". I said I don't know, these people are strangers and I don't know their schedule. I was told to call back when I see them entering the building. So I did that when I saw them entering the building, and I was told "Thank you, we will send someone around shortly". But there were 90 units in my building...how would they know where to look or who to talk to? I was told "We'll talk to management". And then I asked them when they will be here, and they said "Within 6 hours, or possible tomorrow". Why it was so important that I only call them when I physically see someone entering the building if they are going to wait 24 hours to do anything - I do not know.

I'm fairly convinced the NYC tip line is just for show and no one really cares in NYC about stopping illegal short term rentals.

But who should pay for the increased enforcement?

> anonymous tip line

Run by Airbnb? Seems reasonable.

Ideally the fines would pay for the program, but how expensive is it really to have an anonymous phone tip line, and reuse existing infrastructure to fine or ticket a property owner?

> how expensive is it really

The answer, as with all govtech, is “a lot more than it should be.” Governments, especially local governments, have no internal technology competence, and have to rely on vendors and contractors for absolutely everything.

It's also a 2-part cost.

To run a tip-line and collect tips: probably very little.

To act on that information, so you're able to identify and punish violators, without which there's no point in having a tip line: looooooots more.

You just have to make the fine enough that it covers the cost of defending it against the people that do contest it.

I'm not sure why there needs to be a lot of tech involved for a phone line for people to call in tips.

I mean you can have Joe writing it down on a piece of paper, sure. But when it gets to a computer, costs start coming up. It depends on how the software works but the products used tend to be a) ancient and b) often either not configurable enough to support new use cases or so complicated that you have to submit a change request to the vendor to do it for you.

Idk I imagined an excel spreadsheet, which hits the middle ground between paper and some complex govtech application. If it is successful and fines/funding rolls in then maybe upgrade

I haven't seen any evidence that governments, local or otherwise, spend "a lot more than it should [cost]." They are (correctly) unable to subsidize the cost of development by selling data, which in some cases means they cannot use certain preexisting libraries. But many groups have to rely on vendors and contractors for their technical needs. Their costs should be compared to other groups outsourcing their needs.

> They are (correctly) unable to subsidize the cost of development by selling data, which in some cases means they cannot use certain preexisting libraries.

This is not what raises the cost of development. It’s not having any in-house knowledge of software development or even how to manage software development contracts effectively. Most companies that require a lot of software end up building development organizations, because they recognize that paying someone else to do it is more expensive long-term. That’s not an option available to most governments.

It’s possible that this is just an inherent effect of outsourcing but even if it is, it ends up being too inefficient to justify.

Do you have any evidence that it is "too inefficient"? Because you keep asserting it and I just don't believe you.

And the cost for an enforcement agent/department to investigate. And each agent's salary, benefits, and pension.

In many cities, the police don't even respond to auto/bike burglaries -- they're very minimally staffed.

Most cities have ample police force them being understaffed is somewhat of a bullshit narrative.

For example NYPD has 36000 ifficers for 8.4M residents or 1 for every 230 people. In Chicago it's 225. In Seattle it's over 500 but they could probably afford more if they weren't paying individual officers up to 400k including non electronically tracked probably fraudulent overtime.

"Increased enforcement" is the new "self policing". Clap louder, Tinkerbell is sure to fly.

If Airbnb is violating local laws it seems like a simple subpoena would yield the necessary information.

This is almost impossible to enforce. Depts. of Buildings are notoriously slow if the issue is not a clear and present safety hazard. By the time they get out there, the visitor will be long gone.

They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end?

> They have to spend resources on the investigation, and build a pile of evidence. You think someone is gonna stake out every suspected violator for days on end?

The property is listed on AirBnB.com, where you get the address and the name of the person operating the AirBnB.

They don't need an elaborate sting operation. They just take the link, test book it through the website, confirm the address and name of the operator from the booking, and they have all the evidence they need. Hit up AirBnB for a refund (illegal rental) and it doesn't even cost them anything. Hour or two of work at most.

> The property is listed on AirBnB.com, where you get the address and the name of the person operating the AirBnB.

Owners play a shell game and will have property managers list their properties under their names or their employees' names, along with fake addresses that are only revealed via messages after booking.

Renting a space at an address and sending your renters to a separate address is a big no-no with Airbnb terms. Easy to detect as Airbnb sends mail to check and confirm where you live.

And Airbnb could not caution that game, they would get sued for falsified contracts.

Wrong! (unless they changed policy) It happened to me. AirBnB claimed it was policy to let the listing on AirBnB show the wrong location.

https://blog.greggman.com/blog/yet-more-airbnb-issues/

Sounds like a nice theory, but I haven't stayed in an AirBnb in a major city where that wasn't the case.

If they did this right it could be more lucrative for lazy revenue seeking cops than hiding behind overpasses waiting for speeders.

I still can't tell which is happening:

1. You're trolling us with masterfully-ported prohibition-era enforcement mechanisms 2. You consider yourself a prohibitionist (of alcohol, drugs, or airbnb) and are advocating for prohibition-style responses to AirBnB. 3. You don't consider yourself a prohibitionist, and don't see how your opposition to AirBnB (and recommended enforcement mechanisms) is very similar to prohibitionists opposition to alcohol sales.

Which one sounds closest? Would you propose a 4th option?

Prohibitionist? Enforcing hotel regulations and zoning is not prohibiting hotels.

Unless the zoning prohibits hotels.

Local authorities do licence checks on pubs and bars at the moment. If there was someone illegally running a pub out of their own house it would definitely be cracked down on in this way — does that mean that we currently have "prohibition-era enforcement" on alcohol too?

Yep. It's prohibition-lite, but still a holdover from that era.

They send a subpoena to ABNB and the company responds or people fo fo jail.

So, like swatting, but less deadly, and with no repercussions?

I think criminalising what you do to with your own property is slippery slope to no property ownership.

There are very few slippery slopes and too much fear about them.

Property ownership, especially real estate, is limited in many ways. Try depositing asbestos in your condo and see how far you get.

We already have plenty of laws to regulate what you can do within your own property so it doesn't inconvenience your neighbours — burning rubbish out your back garden, playing loud music in the middle of the night, putting up structures that block daylight coming into their property etc. etc.

I think having zoning laws that say hotels aren't allowed in "this area" but they are allowed in "that area" isn't unreasonable. (Most people have no problems with a long-term resident going away for a weekend and letting their house on AirBnB, it's when you turn a property in a residential neighbourhood into a permanent short-term let that's the issue.)

Prohibition has already been tried with alcohol and drugs. Lets leave it in the past.

Why single out AirBnB? Why not go after Uber, Lyft and others running illegal taxis?

For all the talk of privilege lately, it takes a whole other level to blatantly break the law en masse under the guise of "disruption".

This is a strawman argument and totally different.

They aren't "illegal taxies" They've been allowed by the local governments and are taxed. Austin got them all to leave at one point by requiring stricter standards of vetting drivers.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and treat this like a genuine question. I say this because this argument has become so prominent in recent years as a means of defending the indefensible. It's often referred to as "butwhataboutism".

There are a few variations of this. For example:

- Arguing against legislation because it leaves some problems unsolved. This applies to literally all legislation and an improvement is typically better than nothing. The problem is that those making these arguments typically know this and don't want any change;

- Why prosecute person or company for X when some other person or company does something vaguely similar? Well is there sufficient evidence for the prosecution to proceed? If yes then the "but what about X" argument is simply being used as a means to stop a prosecution where there's a vested interest. Because otherwise it's like saying "because this person over here wasn't charged with murder then we shouldn't charge anyone with murder".

I really hope that people develop the critical skills to see through this for what it is: a means of manipulating people. So the next time someone tries this stop and ask yourself why they're bringing up a new topic rather than addressing the existing one. Who are they trying to manipulate and why?

I think AirBnB, Uber and Lyft should all be targeted. Uber and Lyft's externalities increase traffic. AirBnB's drive up everyone's rent. Clearly AirBnB's is worse.

The question isn't "legal or not". It's how badly does the illegal act impact society. Same reason we prioritize arresting drunk drivers over red light runners.

"Illegal Hotels"

This always makes me laugh. A lot of hotel regulation was written with fire safety in mind (large building with a lot of small rooms in it and a high number of occupants). But AirBnBs... are just regular apartments so they don't break the fire safety rules (if the appartment is zoned for two occupants, really you aren't breaking any laws by housing two guests).

The rest is simply NIMBY and cities trying to fleece tourists really. Or bureaucrats trying to justify the red tape and regulation that keeps them employed.

EDIT: Wow, I see the downvotes yet no explanations!

Allowing landlords to buy up housing supply to rent by the day drives up prices for the 90% who need a house to live in them not profit from them. It's disadvagous for society to allow it. Society doesn't have to let you live your life at everyone else's expense. If I had to guess the down votes are either for lack of awareness, facile dismissal, supreme self confidence not matched by good grasp of the topic or the often unpopular complaining about down votes.

The number one rule of down vote club is don't talk about down vote club.

> Allowing landlords to buy up housing supply to rent by the day drives up prices for the 90% who need a house to live in them not profit from them

Notice how the conversation is always about a limited supply; never about how the cities could remove barriers for larger, denser constructions. Wonder why that is.

We should fix the other problems but if we fail to or in the meantime we ought to prevent the existing problems from being exacerbated by Airbnb.

Maybe because not everyone is interested in living like an animal in crowded apartments?

A lot of people like living in dense urban places. I wouldn't say they like living like animals.

And the price to rent plumets when there is a glut of houses up for rent (via AirBNB or not). That this doesn't happen speaks more to the lack of supply than anything else.

Govenments have failed their constituents by not provisioning adequate land for new housing, and not buying up abandonned or severely run-down areas to redevelop.

Our populations have expanded greatly in the last decades, yet housing supply has not kept up at all!