Hacker News Reader

Hopefully those properties will come back on the market at a reasonable price so that we can offset some of the housing inequity that airbnb is directly responsible for.

Seriously. I can only hope the tide is turning and these AirBnBs will be back in the hands of the people who actually live in the cities. Sadly corporations will probably eat them up and let, though hopefully as long-term instead of short!

> will be back in the hands of the people who actually live in the cities.

There apparently is a real demand to rent such places for short terms like holidays or trips. Banning AirBnB, or AirBnB going down, won't remove that demand.

No, but it'll force them to go to places that are actually planned to accommodate them. Tourists are included in city planning, believe it or not, but they're not expected to be taking up the actual residential places of the city. That's why areas are zoned for hotels and there's regulation around them.

> Tourists are included in city planning

The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels. There's a huge demand for what AirBnB provides (Serviced and short term accommodation). Hotels are inadequate for longer stays or where you just want the comforts of home, a good middle ground is the "serviced apartment" concept found in some places (entire apartment blocks reserved for short term rentals) however there are times when you want an entire house, not an apartment.

> a good middle ground is the "serviced apartment" concept found in some places (entire apartment blocks reserved for short term rentals)

You mean a hotel? Hotels are not inadequate for longer stays. If someone desires the comforts of a home, they can move there and actually rent/buy a home.

> The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels.

This is a werid entitlement. Tourists aren't entitled to overrun and impose a serious negative impact upon a town/city's housing supply because they feel like they 'deserve' to vacation there.

>You mean a hotel? Hotels are not inadequate for longer stays. If someone desires the comforts of a home, they can move there and actually rent/buy a home.

What about a middle ground. If I go somewhere for 2-4 weeks? For that length of time I kind of want a proper kitchen, which I won't get in a hotel, but obviously it is not long enough to actually rent/buy a home.

>What about a middle ground. If I go somewhere for 2-4 weeks? For that length of time I kind of want a proper kitchen, which I won't get in a hotel, but obviously it is not long enough to actually rent/buy a home.

Not everywhere but at least in the US suite hotels with small kitchens are pretty common. Most of the big chains have one or more suite hotel brands. (Though honestly I not infrequently travel for 2-3 weeks and, while I definitely appreciate a refrigerator I pretty much never find I need a full kitchen. And being able to stretch out on a sofa is nice.)

Yeah, for exorbitant amounts of money.

Compared to what? I'm staying in a Residence Inn in a week for basically the same price as the nearby standard Marriott and Sheraton are. And Residence Inn is probably on the higher end of the big chain suite brands. They're not budget but they're squarely in the same range as midrange business hotels in general. They're generally what I book if they're a good option.

I’ve routinely found that Airbnbs are about 1/2 the price of hotels, with more amenities and classier design to boot, no matter where I visit (assuming Airbnbs are legal there).

$300 or more a day is beyond the pale IMO.

> I not infrequently travel for 2-3 weeks and, while I definitely appreciate a refrigerator I pretty much never find I need a full kitchen.

I'm guessing you're a high income individual with no kids then?

This is exactly the entitlement I am speaking of. You want to go somewhere for an extended period. You want a proper kitchen. Your expectation is that the residents of a town or TheMarket should just... accomodate your desires? Regardless of their housing market, QoL, infrastructure, etc.?

Sheesh, jamie. I typically eschew using this term, but someone taking a 2-4 week vacation is already highly privileged to be able to do so. Tourism is a privilege. Not a right.

So much judgement in one post.

1. I am not saying the market/residents have to accommodate anything, I am simply stating my preference that if I have to travel for 5+ days I would rather have a full kitchen. If the residents don’t want to provide it, fine. If many other people feel as I do, then that’s kind of what markets are for.

2. I don’t typically take 2-4 week vacations, but I sometimes do travel for work for extended periods.

I recognise being able to travel at all is a privilege but having a personal preference for a full kitchen I don’t really think warrants such a judgemental response.

Well, he wants and he is willing to pay, it's not like he's demanding it for free. The residents and the town should price it accordingly so that both sides benefit from the deal.

Following your logic, going to the bakery to buy bread instead of making it myself is "entitled" and disregards the baker's quality of life since he'd be much more comfortable sleeping than waking up at 5am to start preparing the bread.

No, that was not my logic. You substituted your own. My argument is that under no circumstances is any entity 'required' to accomodate your desired market conditions. There are existing markets (i.e hotels) that towns/cities/whatevers provide. The mere desire from a consumer (or even massive group of them) does not oblige others to service that desire. And, the expectation that those desires are always met is the entitlement.

Many markets have demand, but society prevents their legal existence. For example, organ trades. I'm sure a lot of alcoholics would love just being able to go get a new liver whenever they want or when theirs fails. However, the... issues that creates have been deemed unacceptable and therefore, it's not allowed (obviously, it still happens illegally).

Some people want AirBnBs so they can have all the accoutrements of a home wherever they travel. Other people do not want such a market to exist, for a variety of reasons. I don't think that simply because an economic opportunity exists, it should be serviced or be allowed to be serviced. Obviously, advertisers want to increased the amount and effectiveness of their ads. FaceBook and Google would block out the sky and plaster it with ads if they could. Should they be allowed to?

Most hotel rooms don't have kitchens. It's not unreasonable to want a kitchen if you're staying somewhere for a week or two. But expecting those people to buy or lease a home is unreasonable. Short-term rental of homes is the solution to this.

It's called a residential hotel, and they're all over the place where business travelers stay by the day, week, or month.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartment_hotel

It might be the solution to that, but it creates a lot more problems for the actual residents of the city. Drives up their rent, lowers their supply, makes them have to deal with neighbours coming in at all hours of the night, often without a care for the fact they even have neighbours who have to wake up and go to work in the morning. Ruins any community in a place. All the negative externalities get hoisted onto the actual residents of a town.

Now, should there maybe be an area of the city explicitly for short-term rentals, included in city planning? That's a different question; but it shouldn't be mixed in normal residential area, as all it does is make life worse for the actual residents.

They make hotels for extended stays with kitchens - Homewood Suites, Embassy Suites, and Candlewood Suites are the big chains.

I lived in a Homewood Suites for three months. It was fine.

AirBnB homes are so much nicer than those sterile corporate chains. It is not the same experience.

So, again, it comes down to the entitlement felt by travellers.

Not sure what you think my point was or how that remark relates to it.

I prefer my linens to be sterile.

> tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning

Alternatively, tourists are unhappy that people in some areas don't want unlimited numbers of them and account for them properly with zoning restrictions.

No, they are accounted for. The issue is entitlement on the side of tourists -- thinking they should have access to all the local amenities and stuff they do at home, while on vacation. This was a problem, but it was never a huge problem, from how I understand it, before AirBnB. Basically AirBnB changed the expectations for tourists, at the harm of the local communities.

> however there are times when you want an entire house, not an apartment.

It's not your home, why should you deserve a house over someone who lives there?

If a local wants to open their home to me, even if it’s a second home, why should that make me feel “entitled” to enjoy a taste of local life? (Ignoring Airbnb slumlords, which should probably be fought with regulation and/or Airbnb policy changes.)

There's rules and regulations against it, for one. Should locals be allowed to do whatever they want on their property with no regards to how it will impact neighbours and local economy? There's a reason we have zoning laws, etc, in place. There's lots of things we stop locals from doing because it's for the better of the community as a whole, and renting out short-term to tourists should be one (and, again, it sometimes already is but AirBnB allows them to skirt the regulations).

Locals should absolutely have the right and power to change their local laws to prohibit Airbnb. However, I'm not going to feel guilty for using Airbnb in places where it's legal, because it's simply a better product than hotels by a long shot (when it works).

I'd be willing to bet that in most places they're not legal, there's just nobody enforcing it. They're willfully in violation of a lot of rules and regulations that are already in place. And harming the locals so entitled tourists can think they're at home.

What about what the neighbors of the local’s home want? Do you want new neighbors every few days moving in to your neighbor’s house? Wouldn’t you be worried about your family‘s safety given the velocity of people going in and out of your neighbor’s house?

Technically, the reason AirBnB exists is that if you aren't paying for most of the "serviced" part, including obeying the city planning and safety regulations, you can rent a property for less than an actual hotel and still make a lot of money.

There's a real demand, but at one point the cost becomes too steep.

The cleaning and service fees are being universally complained about. It definitely reduced some demand, especially since some of it seemed to have started recently - last year ?

For long weekends, it becomes a very bad deal: the overhead of big service fees that are usually more than 1 day's rental, then you tack on the cleaning which can be 125-225 typically. You put those numbers together and sure, while there's demand, the demand is mitigated by the high cost. There's a demand for all sorts of consumer items in the world but people hit their limits.

And fundamentally, Airbnb competes with hotels. Their niche is to provide a better hotel experience: a bigger space, maybe a backyard, and definitely a kitchen. But many would rather go back to the tiny fridges filled with pricey junk food they never touch, if it means saving hundreds of dollars a weekend and flexible cancellation policies.

>There's a demand for all sorts of consumer items in the world but people hit their limits.

That's the thing with a lot of VC-subsidized services. There are a lot of services that consumers would be happy to, well, consume if they were cheap enough. Drivers, personal chefs, weekly housekeepers, lawn services, laundry pickup, etc. Even people with an upper middle class income are pretty selective about that sort of thing.

>But many would rather go back to the tiny fridges filled with pricey junk food they never touch, if it means saving hundreds of dollars a weekend and flexible cancellation policies.

Kitchens are not a big deal for me when I travel. A fridge is nice but you get a small one you can use a lot of the time in hotels these days and minibars seem to have mostly gone out of fashion.

> Kitchens are not a big deal for me when I travel. A fridge is nice but you get a small one you can use a lot of the time in hotels these days and minibars seem to have mostly gone out of fashion.

For me this is true if I'm traveling for < 1 week If I'm gone for more than that i don't want to eat every meal out and want to have some food + drink stored in my accommodation.

With 3 kids every meal at a restaurant is closer to $50 than $10, it adds up fast. Then getting 3 kids to sit down and not embarrass you! And then one isn't hungry! I love what airBnB could be. What it is right now sucks. The kitchen / whole house is a big deal. Just walking outside for a few minutes at a real house is a big relaxer that's a lot less manageable at a hotel.

I can certainly see with a family. I just personally don't use kitchens when traveling even when available.

>cleaning which can be 125-225 typically

I agree with your point. Cleaning fees tend to make it hard to consider AirBnB for a weekend. That said, assuming the host doesn't just do it themselves, they're going to get a housekeeper in, rates are up for that sort of service, and that's about what it costs.

Then display it in the search criteria in the initial filter on the map view, instead of only when someone has selected the property and begins filling in dates.

It's a bait and switch by selecting which UI components are displayed in that search screen, and hiding the added costs ("service fee" and "cleaning fee").

Also, unlike a hotel an Airbnb host will give you a list of items to do upon leaving. And often passive-aggressively, "And it would be appreciated if you could put the towels and sheets in the washing machine for one wash as you leave so it's less work for the cleaning person" type commentary.

I hate it generally when booking something doesn't make the final bottom line price obvious until you're ready to pay. Rental cars are another bad offender with all the taxes and fees.

VRBO existed before Airbnb, and I’m sure it will exist for quite a while longer. The concept isn’t the issue.

> 225 in cleaning fees

Ah yes, and then you read in the notes that you also have to do the laundry and wash the dishes.

Doing the dishes seems reasonable, I behave as a guest in an Airbnb.

If there's a $150 cleaning fee? Not really. Sure, I'll throw a few dishes in a dishwasher and run it. But it's not like I'm staying in a friend's condo for free.

Do you charge guests in your home $100/night to stay there?

I wonder if this is a chicken/egg thing? Host are charging this silly fee because guests were not cleaning up after themselves?

Like at a cafe, it's socially accepted that you put away (bus) your finished utensils.

More than likely but that's not the point. If I stay at a hotel and I don't clean up after myself, I won't get charged a fee.

Just making sure I’m understanding you, at cafes where you live you clear your own dishes?

I haven’t encountered this before.

You don't do your own dishes but it's common with counter service to put them in a designated container and to throw your trash out.

That what I mean - I haven’t encountered this.

I’m way down in New Zealand.

There are almost certainly automatic machines for both of those. Throwing the sheets and dishes into the washers before leaving on your last day isn't an unreasonable request. It only takes a few minutes.

(That said, fining somebody hundreds of dollars for not doing that is unreasonable for the same reason that the request is reasonable; because it's an easy thing to do.)

The question of reasonableness cuts both ways: the high cost for the Airbnb unit plus the added fees including the cleaning ones, and the lists of guest to-do items upon check-out. The two combine and quick it becomes the feeling that you're paying a lot more than a hotel and yet have a lot more servicing to do yourself. If there is a very high cleaning fee, it becomes increasingly unreasonable to ask a lot of your guests to spend time cleaning everything before they leave.

I bet someone on Hacker News can set up a website that mirrors AirBnB reviews as they are posted. This would prevent revisionism.

They can slap vacation ads on it and now they have a stable source of income!

That's an excellent idea. I'd even consider paying a subscription for it (assuming I used Airbnb again, which I might with this service).

Could Airbnb challenge it legally though?

They will allege that reviews on the platform are Airbnb's copyright.

Yeah, I almost never consider an Airbnb nowadays for these extra costs. Hotels do this too (with city tax for example), but that is just a few extra dollars a night, and not almost as high as the cost per night.

I think the original spirit of someone renting out extra space they have is long gone. It's either a big company renting out what could have been rental units in the first place, or someone renting their place but you have to almost beg them to be flexible with timing, amenities, etc. I would feel much more comfortable complaining to a hotel if the beds are dirty, as opposed to an Airbnb host.

Well and I don't have to do chores at a hotel. AirBnB says pay us $200 for a cleaning fee but make sure to take the sheets off the bed, cut the grass, and paint the walls before you leave.

I got a negative review on a property that charged a $250 cleaning fee for washing the dishes but not putting them away

>It's well known that negative reviews are scrubbed and even edited

If this is true, then I see no other blame than Airbnb themselves. If you make a platform allowing reviews in such a way that the "seller" can edit the reviews "users" make, then that's never going to become anything other than scammy. Even allowing a review to be scrubbed/removed by the seller is bad. There should be a mechanism to work with the platform to handle fake/false reviews, but the seller should never be able to do that on their own.

They have a long list of things you can't complain about. One example is things that the seller can't change, like a loud train nearby. At least when I last used it if a single sentence in your review violated one of those policies your whole review was deleted and you couldn't submit a new one.

Interestingly their dispute process is very buyer-friendly, though. When a seller demands money in compensation for damage they often lose. I believe this is because Airbnb is on the hook if they can't collect from the buyer.

While I broadly agree with what you've written here, I think that:

> Airbnb needs hosts for its revenue. Clients are the product.

is not a useful way to think about this. AirBnb lives in a sort of weird parasitic-symbiotic relationship with both its hosts and the "guests". They are not trying to sell "guests" to anyone (they may do data collection and sale, but I think this not the cornerstone of their business model): what they rely on is an abundant supply of matching properties (not hosts!) and "guests". The hosts as people are irrelevant. If they lose "guests", less revenue. If they lose properties/listings, less revenue.

> Is the business model unsustainable?

The original AirBnb model (people renting spare rooms in their own homes, or maybe a casita on their property) was sustainable, but growth-limited. I don't know about the current one.

It's a scam. Plain and simple. VRBO is worse.

Why is VRBO worse?