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Comment by alexb_ | Hacker News Reader

"Cracking down on Airbnb"... you say this as if Airbnb is a horrible thing or something LOL

I don’t know about other places, but Airbnb has been a mixed bag for NYC: I’ve seen it used to keep housing stock off the market, to dodge the obligations associated with keeping a property livable, and to essentially run entire illegal hotel businesses without attracting regulatory (including safety) scrutiny.

Also, tourists are the absolute worst to have as neighbors.

Warnings for noise complaints and rubbish don't really work if the person is just going to be gone by the time a third strike happens.

AirBnb in NYC is also a fertile ground for scams

Explain. I thought finding a high rated host is enough?

https://www.vox.com/2019/11/14/20961972/airbnb-scam-how-to-s...

Or just google it, there are plenty of examples

AirBnB (and similar) has been really bad for the property market in the Scottish Highlands. Lots of people buying up scarce housing stock to use for holiday lets, means that locals who work in the area (where a lot of local employers can't pay stellar rates) can't afford to buy.

Combine that with the fact that these areas are often in National Parks which have restrictions on new-builds and you'll inevitably reduce the amount of people actually living in the area.

Airbnb is a horrible thing if you (like me) live in a tourist city and making rent inaccessible to the local residents

why do you live there though. Can't you ask your employer to match the deficit.

employers could not care less about your housing problems because employers have greater bargaining power than workers. places like CA think they can control where people live by depriving people of housing but it's not true. people just become ever more desperate, paying more and more for shelter. It's employers who decide where people are. this is because we've created a world where people can't live without money. so he who controls wages, controls where people live.

Think about a hypothetical city where 100% of the properties are AirBNBs. There will be no source of employees for any local businesses because there are no long-term residents. There is no vested interest to improve the city via taxes and volunteerism, because no one truly lives there. No one will move to that city because the property rates are so absurdly inflated thanks to AirBNB rates.

It’s an absurd example but cities frequently see these effects when they let AirBNB and rental properties run wild.

this is basically all mountain towns now.

Other than perhaps zoning restrictions, how does this differ from traditional hotels/motels in extreme tourist areas, like Niagara Falls. If people don't want to live permanently in a city for whatever reason, of course the city will suffer.

Hotels/motels are dense enough that they don't take usable land away from residential housing while still allowing for short-term residents to enjoy the city.

However, AirBNBs and rental houses suck away the usable land such that you begin to meaningfully remove potential long-term residents from the city. The flipside of this, of course, would be apartments/duplexes, which would add more long-term residents than single-family zoning would allow, even with the problem of AirBNB proliferation.

It is if you live next to a landlord that houses loud guests. Is this even a question?

It’s my understanding that Airbnb is pretty bad when it comes to gentrification and driving city natives out of affordable housing.

Mixed bag if you live next door to one. We had one guy wake us up early in the morning on a Sunday because he locked himself out. Another time we were gifted half a cooked spiced lamb from a Saudi Arabian family.

AirBNB, like Uber, lives on sucking externalities. They are the modern Oil that sometimes spill and kill some ecosystem, but because the ecosystem is far away nobody cares.

Like a pimp, AirBNB is the helpfull middleman for the desperate or the sociopaths.

So, yes, at it's core AirBNB is horrible.

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