Congrats for building something!!!
Too bad it feeds into the affordability crisis though.
Too bad it feeds into the affordability crisis though.
Bigger picture though, there’s a major contradiction in housing around the world and that is that owners who tend to be older and more likely to vote benefit enormously from rising home prices and governments which collect property tax as a percentage of property value receive more revenue when prices rise. Both groups have grown to depend on perpetually rising property values and factored it into their long term financial plans. There are numerous ways this is achieved that vary somewhat from location to location but the result is the same. After years of housing simply eating up more and more of renters and new homebuyers income we are reaching a breaking point and governments are looking for something other than their own policies (which they have every intention of continuing) to blame.
Governments if so motivated have numerous tools at their disposal to reduce home prices, which all in all is probably easier than the reverse. There are a handful of governments which have successfully done this, but the ones that haven’t won’t do this because they’d simultaneously anger both property owners and recipients of government spending which would need to be cut.
The fault is entirely with those who don’t want more housing built. The government can use this as a wedge issue and blame immigrants (the ones who work and pay taxes) rather than the wealthy retirees
Any money you save by using Airbnb is pushing the cost of your tourism onto locals. Pay for a hotel (or other licensed accommodation) or stay home.
So your assertion is not true for all Airbnb rentals.
If airbnb was banned, my apartment would be vacant during that time. This would push tourists into hotels, driving up the cost of a hotel room, and furthering the affordability crisis since developers would see more upside in hotels rather than residential development.
Which is the least charitable way of interpreting their comment and as such against hn guidelines.
Residential development and hotel development is very different, both as a business and a practice. You would not choose to build a hotel in place of a residential building. That’s why Airbnb is so problematic: people are taking residential housing and turning it into a business.
There’s certainly some “ethical” Airbnb property owners but they’re a dying breed. If you’ve spent any time on Airbnb in the last few years, you’d see the majority of listings are for property specifically owned/rented to Airbnb it. There are public companies that are entirely focused on Airbnb.
It just feels dirty to me now to use Airbnb, but that's not even why I stopped. It's now not necessarily cheaper than a hotel and with little recourse when you get a dud.
Maybe the problem isn’t Airbnb, it’s your jurisdiction.
Barcelona for example is flooded with tourists and "nomads" and save for basically banning short term rentals and eradicating cancerous Airbnb there is not that much that can be done...
If the issue is simply too many tourists flooding the city and changing the character, it's a different point than I was responding to and I don't have any well-formed thoughts on potential solutions and causes.
For the latter one there exists tourist tax that could curb a bit the overflood but AFAIR it was harder to enforce / collect with Airbnb and short term rentals (as opposed to typical licensed hotels and hostels) that only exasperated the situation by pushing more people to try to cash on the airbnb
This seems unlikely to be true. Especially In the places where housing is most expensive. Do the majority of voters in NYC and SF own homes or other real estate?
Property owners vote at much higher rates than non-owners. Property owners are the only ones with the right to put up election signs. Property owners are far more politically connected than non-owners.
#shutdownTravelling