DIY B&B
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What those criticisms seem to be neglecting is that those--particularly for apartment buildings--these temporary visitors impact beyond just you.
In Australia, for example, one useful metric used by people when assessing apartment buildings to buy in is to look at the ratio of owner-occupiers vs renters. Generally the more owner-occupiers, the better the building.
Renters don't tend to look after properties, tend to be less mindful of behaviour that impacts the neighbours (parties, etc), etc.
This goes even moreso for really short-term tenants. There have been examples of this already (like the woman who had her house trashed in SF after renting it out on AirBnB). Such extreme examples aside, you are raising the risk of damage or theft to the property of others by bringing a stream of strangers into your home.
Yes most of the time it works out just fine but sometimes it doesn't and your neighbours didn't sign up for you opening a hotel.
Would people feel the same way if someone was operating a brothel in their house or apartment? After all, it's their property and they can do with it as they please right? What about operating a bar or a club?
This is not as one-sided as some suggest.
Tenants sign agreements not to rent out their units all the time. Home owner's associations often have rules against short-term rentals as well.
If you don't like the idea of short-term rentals in your neighborhood or building, choose one protected by one of these types of contracts. In fact, they're so common, you probably already have such protections, even if you don't know it.
The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for societal problems. I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful as to meet that threshold.
What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels?
I've used and appreciated Airbnb, but I think 'cletus is ultimately right and threads like this have a hard time of seeing the (valid) other side of this issue.
One long-term solution that could emerge is for it to be common to have provisions in leases that forbid both tenants and landlords from doing such things. It might take a while for that to happen, but if what you describe becomes much of a problem, it's likely to happen.
What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"?
Then your bargaining power is reduced in exchange for your below-market rent. Sounds fair to me.
What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels?
That's a slightly different issue. I don't think this is necessarily unscrupulous to do this, but there's certainly a potential for externalities.
This came up last Abnb thread, and a bunch of my fellow message board nerds insisted that it was a commonplace to have leases that didn't forbid Abnb, but I don't buy it. I think the right rule of thumb is "you can't do it without breaking the promise you made when you rented the apartment and exposing yourself not only to eviction but to civil liability".
Incidentally, the case law behind landlord oversight over sublessors is very solid; this issue is some substantial fraction of every tenant dispute ever, because people very commonly want to break their leases, and expect their landlord to accept the very first person the tenant finds to occupy the apartment.
Demand a no-hostel clause at signing. It's silly, but there's your answer.
And BTW, having lived in a truly rent-controlled (1/5th market rate) place before, "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!" is all your landlord says anyways.
Incidentally: I sued a landlord once a few years ago over a very simple issue (they unlawfully withheld my security deposit) and did not pull "2 years" out of my butt.
Except that the ease to which people can now rent out an apartment short term has created a situation that was not contemplated by existing laws (or if there were existing laws they were not violated to the extent to make enforcement necessary).
Let's take as an example, spam. The founding fathers of the Internet didn't anticipate that the scholarly people who first used the internet would violate the unwritten rules to not spam. The community was small enough and the members respectful enough that it wasn't even designed into the system (let's assume there could have been a technical way to prevent spam in the original design for a second).
But with the success of the internet and it being opened up to everyone the game changed.
"I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful"
If you've ever had bad neighbors you will understand why people often want a single family home with lots of land or want to live in an exclusive building.
It looks more like they are trying to shut the short-term rental business down, to please the large hotel business.
The preponderance of evidence available to message board nerds like us suggests strongly to me that enforcement of these laws is being driven by real complaints.
Airbnb rooms are usually more pleasant than the lower quality hotels a lot of businesses book.
Once it becomes socially normal in larger corporations, a lot of employees will ask to be booked with airbnb.
I'm saying: I doubt that's what's happening. I've heard too many anecdotal stories about complaints, and am too capable of looking at (a) revenue numbers for hotels and (b) stats on how people book hotel rooms to think that anyone at Marriott is really being kept up at night about this.
At some point, Airbnb will be too big and disruptive for the major chains to ignore. But now? I doubt it. I think cities are reacting to complaints.
I said, I'm sure some people in the hotel industry recognize airbnbs potential threat. I was responding to your first paragraph. I should have been clearer.
I suggest you browse areas with high AirBNB usage. In NYC, a nice AirBNB will cost roughly the same as the equivalent hotel room.
> Once it becomes socially normal in larger corporations, a lot of employees will ask to be booked with airbnb.
This is unlikely. The only reason to choose AirBNB is price, and the low price options in popular destinations are rarely particularly nice.
As a corporation, we're willing to spend the money necessary to be guaranteed determinism. Nobody in the travel department would want to deal with rebooking an employee if their AirBNB experience turned out to be poor.
I can book an employee a room at The Intercontinental and I know that there will be no issues, and we can worry about things that actually matter, like getting work done.
The nondeterminism thing with Abnb is a good point. I've always figured that if something fell through, I'd just book a same-night hotel, but it was a concern.
* A 4-bedroom 2-storey attached (townhouse-style) house in W'burg, less than a block from the Bedford stop; full kitchen, back yard(!). Cost less than any 3-star pair of adjoining bedrooms we could find --- and we booked 2 months in advance.
* A full-kitchen king bed studio in Chelsea, for ~150/night.
The last one is from a few months ago, the other from last year.
By the way: both of these feel like textbook cases of the kind of situation where Abnb is a win for everyone involved. The owner of the house was picky about us, checked in on us while we were there, and was renting a whole building to one party. The Chelsea apartment was its occupant's primary residence; they were renting it out while themselves traveling.
I think it's the situations where people are literally running full-time businesses on top of Abnb where we start to run into trouble.
Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building with its own style.
Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins.
NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories.
In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.
Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building.
Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins.
NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories.
In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.
When we talk about regs on HN, we tend to be thinking of rules, codes, and controls restricting what businesses can do. That's obviously a major function of regulation.
But another function of regulation is removal of uncertainty.
The alternative to regulation is contract and tort law. Airbnb participants who violate leases and homeowners agreements will be sued for breach; participants who create noise, theft, crime, and increased costs for neighbors will be sued for tort claims.
Court cases take for- fucking- ever to resolve themselves. Every B2B case I've witnessed up close dragged until it settled --- I've never seen (firsthand) a company stick it out to trial. The one (trivial) case I was involved in directly --- a statutory claim for unlawfully withheld security deposits --- took years to resolve.
Perhaps partly in recognition of that, and partly because of the spectacular cost of representation, the damages awarded in these cases can be enormous.
Long-term rentals indicate tenants that are stable enough to at least afford the lease. They are subject to at least some vetting (including background checks) prior to moving in. Short term tenants can be anyone. No background checks are conducted.
Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything.
I hear this a lot and my guess is this is simply a function of how much time family and friends spend with a child (in relative privacy) compared to complete strangers. The surface area of attack is way smaller for random people; they don't have the "reasonable" opportunity.
The danger comes from the self selected, if you have a crowd of random people and you choose one at random, then the chances that they have malicious intent are related to the incidence of that in the population; OTOH if you ask for volunteers, or worse, if someone spontaneously volunteers then the chance is way higher...
If strangers were afforded equal access to your children, the numbers would not be so favorable. Having strangers around does not make your kids safer. At best, your kinds would be just as safe around strangers. At worst, they would be exposed to far more risk.
I personally feel that short term rentals work very well in some places, but they can be very disruptive to neighborhoods as well. I guess it comes down to whether you feel that the preservation of the residential nature of a neighborhood is a legitimate reason to regulate. As you can probably tell from the way I set this up, I do.
Here's the real issue: So many people say this industry needs regulation. I don't necessarily agree; I lean Libertarian and tend to think the market will take care of itself. I have an incentive to make my guests super happy because I know they will write bad reviews and my days making extra money via Airbnb will be over if I don't treat them well.
Having said that, even if you do agree that the industry needs regulation, this isn't regulation! This is heavy-handed making an entrepreneurial venture illegal because of vested interests who are threatened by said entrepreneurial venture. As an entrepreneur and someone who's in favor of eliminating middlemen in general, I'm against this form of regulation.
Airbnb issues 1099's to its customers, so I do pay taxes on the money I make from it. If the city wants me to get a license and inspections, I might also be okay with that. But I'm firmly against making this illegal, no matter what strawmen others might throw up. (Heck, there is a "Hotel Hell" show coming out in August here in the U.S. featuring Gordon Ramsay screaming at hotel owners who have cockroaches and bedbugs. I've certainly never had that sort of experience at an Airbnb rental.)
As citizens, we have the right to make our own decisions. As a citizen and a voter, I hope we can start a campaign much like we did against SOPA and PIPA to help make sure our voices are heard. I'm sure these cities have heard plenty from hotels. Now it's our turn.
What you're asking is for people to engage in activism to overturn statutes and codes that every major city already has on the books. What statutes and codes do you propose to replace them with?
"In 2010 New York passed a law requiring a minimum thirty-day stay for any rental in a residential building—in effect making shorter-term rentals, the bulk of the market, illegal."
Am I mistaken about either of those points?
What AirBnB does is profit from an externality. When a company can profit by shifting risk to other parties who are not in contractual privity (and thus cannot bargain for consideration in return for assuming that risk), it's a classic case of where government regulation is required. AirBnB is a textbook example of this little bit of Econ 101. They shift the inherent risk of running a hotel business onto not just the hosts, but to the neighbors of the hosts, who are not parties to the rental contract.
Same from my experience on the east coast. I will assume that's universal.
"Renters don't tend to look after properties, tend to be less mindful of behaviour that impacts the neighbours (parties, etc), etc."
Once again true from my experience. And here we aren't even talking about longer term rentals. We are talking about days and the fact that you could literally have 50 to 200 different occupants per year greatly increasing the chance statistically that there would be some people who might cause problems.
"you are raising the risk of damage or theft to the property of others by bringing a stream of strangers into your home."
Iirc, while the Fred Wilson emails with PG regarding airbnb didn't reveal this I feel that this fear of strangers and what they can do played into his thinking as far as not wanting to invest in airbnb. It was my gut immediate reaction.
Edit: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/03/17/fred-wilson-o...
By the way there is also the chance of the renter having their things owned.
If I stay at a hotel there is at least some control over who can enter my room and presumably key card logs, as well as videos showing access (and a safe in the room). While this does not provide absolute security obviously, I feel more safe leaving my laptop in a hotel room then in someone's apartment where anyone (old friend or perhaps the super) could have a key and something could disappear.
Renters don't tend to look after properties. No, that's why it's called rent and they have property managers or landlords who have that responsibility. That said, I've been in my rented place for 12yrs and take good care of it, as do other tenants in our building. Myth busted.
How would I feel if someone opened a brothel? Not great, but then AirBnB doesn't really cater to brothel operations, and those don't usually fly by night so what point that is supposed to make other than setting up a BS false dichotomy (restrict renting or live with the sex trade next door).
Bars and clubs are regulated by zoning, so how would that ever happen?
The point is that a scummy hotel industry is trying to hedge out competition by using deep pockets to lobby local government into reinforcing their monopoly. Making apologies for them puts you against people like the guy in the article: hard times, tries to make a few extra bucks and gets shut down by the five cops at his door. Sound like America to you? Sound like he was opening a brothel? Look him in his unemployed eye and call the cops on him while you do.
I wonder if it exists? The room with a higher than expected rate and veiled hints of extra "amenities"...
I remember New York when any murder of less than a dozen people wasn't worth bothering with.
Not saying this is the case, but not saying it isn't either.
you are a tenant on the land, and your deed says this. the county is the owner.
Saying that "one person complained, once .." is just silly. Wherever you live, you may have a bad neighbor, but that doesn't mean your entire condo building is full of them. More so, if your bad neighbor buys a condo or a house right next door to yours, there's nothing you can do about it either. With short-term rentals, you at least know that less fitting people are only staying for a few days.
Finally, the only reason this issue is getting a lot of attention is because AirBnB is so freaking successful. Before them, you could find any short term rental, but you'd go to Craigslist to find it. You'd then have to connect with some shady people and pay them in cash, upon your arrival. With Airbnb, you get quality postings in great location, hosted by some really great folks. Travelers love it and use it. Because of that, hotel industry is getting upset. This small SF-based startup just kicked them where it hurts and shows no signs of slowing down. As a result, hotels are using outdated legal system in order to get their way.
Unless you never travel anywhere beyond your backyard or you just love to give up all your money to the hotel owners, you should be jumping up and down and cheering for AirBnB and for short-term guests in your area.
Transient tenants are not part of the community. They are not answerable to the community. Invariably a great deal of them will be poor members of the community, especially in an apartment building, and especially given that they're on vacation (and the rest of us aren't): late nights, smoking, drunken antics, or in the case of our building -- lighting the roof deck on fire by dropping smoldering cigarettes on flammable material.
> Unless you never travel anywhere beyond your backyard or you just love to give up all your money to the hotel owners, you should be jumping up and down and cheering for AirBnB and for short-term guests in your area.
People pay for hotels because they provide deterministic quality. I know that when I show up, the room will be clean, ready, and of a certain level of quality. It's less for me to worry about; worrying about the accommodations is not something I want to spend time on.
For some people, that determinism is not worth the money, or is not even something they're looking for. AirBNB offers an option for those people, but at significant cost to the surrounding community and commons.
What you described is handled quite well by regular contracts between tenants/landlords. If a tenant signs a lease where short term rentals aren't allowed and violates it then they can be evicted, lose their deposit, etc. Similarly, landlords who don't allow it could face slightly lower rents by losing tenants who want more flexibility. In other words, it reaches a balance as people negotiate contracts.
There is a big difference between violating a lease and making something illegal.
There's no question that most leases are done on boilerplate contracts that forbid Airbnb-type arrangements, often by spelling out by name each of the occupants, but at the least almost invariably specifying that the landlord gets reasonable approval over any sublessor. I'm sure there are pinholes to be poked in this point but I think as a general rule of thumb we can stipulate: apartment renters cannot lawfully put their apartments up on Airbnb, and the simplest remedy to them doing so is indeed to evict and then sue them.
But getting back to 'cletus point: focus your attention on those "apartments" we call "condos". If your association contracts are good, there are remedies for Airbnb abuse here too, but they're nowhere nearly as clean as the remedies for apartment renters.
Or, here's another wrinkle: go back to the apartment rental scenario, but stipulate that the landlord doesn't care to assert their right to curb Airbnb abuse. What recourse do the other renters in the building have now? They probably do have some; for instance, they can break their lease. But this is messy.
If the goal by which we make neighborhood/city wide planning decisions is the ability to "look after" one's property, I propose homeowners are clearly more socially derelict and likely to ignore the community.
[only partially sarcastic]
1. http://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news30381/nearly-24-...
A better argument would be about health regulations and competition. It is unfair advantage for these home motels because they don't have to abide by regulations and aren't even required to be insured/bonded. There's also a public safety risk since health regulations aren't being followed.
1) HN wouldn't understand because they're young men
2) Value of property in an area can go down
3) Property can suffer damages
4) Rentals may inconvenience neighbors
All these points can be overcome without eroding our property rights. While values of homes can go down, they can also go up. Property can be damaged, but it can also be insured. Rentals may inconvenience neighbors, but disturbing the peace is already a crime.
You are missing the point. I don't want common property in my condo building to be damaged, period. It just spoils my day.
The GP said that having too many renters increases the risk of property damage (which is very true), to which you replied (essentially) - why worry, let them damage, the insurance will pick the tab - to which I said that it's the actual damage, not the cost of repairs that is an issue.
may i interest you in some Bear Patrol Tax?
[EDIT] When I go down to the polling station on election day, I assure you my rights are equal.
Yes, of course. Starting with the obvious, your landlord could just throw you out. Your agreement almost certainly prevents you from making significant changes to the structure of the building. You can't sell the property. Your rights are much, much less than your neighbor.
I am speaking of my rights in the community, not to the property. That is, should there be a speed bump on the street, should a WalMart be allowed to build on the condemned lot around the corner.
Discrimination is discrimination. These are public neighborhoods. Protecting one's property value does not make discrimination noble or any less discriminatory.
If you are not a voter, you do not and should not have the same rights because your social and economic investment in the community is not as great as your landlord's, or your underwater neighbor's.
(personally I consider the super-serious-HOA-attending-is-my property-value-always-increasing-neurotic undesirable, but that's just my bias.)
Yes, someone should be able to operate a brothel or bar on their own property. I don't see why this is even controversial, but for some reason it is incredibly so.
If the neighbors don't like it, they can move. As long as the owner isn't physically harming anyone, they should be left alone on their own property.
This whole argument is disingenuous, however, since the people complaining aren't neighbors, but hotels pissed off at having competition.
It is hotels complaining, for now, and I don't think anyone is taking the POV that we should respect their legally privileged position just because they already have it. But a lot of these and similar laws have existed for awhile, because various bad actors have abused short term renting in the past. And if Airbnb and similar setups become more widespread (as they're bound to do), we do want to have some legal framework to deal with issues as they arise.
I've traveled & stayed in Airbnbs quite a bit and have met the full range of hosts: those just doing it for fun & to meet people, working to cover their rent, allowing themselves the freedom to cut down work and finish their book, work on their startup, bring their B&B business back after 1 bad trip advisor review, and on and on. These are honest, good people with a variety of motivations. I've never stayed with a host that is doing it to screw over their landlord, spite the hotel industry or trouble their neighbors. Similarly, we aren't crafting our product to damn the man - we are driven by the lives we are enhancing by existing.
Regarding opening a brothel, bar or club in their dwelling? Think of it this way: if your neighbor has parties, all of the activities of those establishments can/will happen. As far as neighbors go some will not care and others will. If it is degrading your quality of life or endangering your wellbeing - then talk to the person and explain your side, file a complaint or whatever it takes to feel safe again.
As a side note, I am not a host. As I signed the lease my landlord said "I know you work for Airbnb and it's unfortunately not allowed in this building." I want to be host for a number of reasons but I've been told no, and that is fine. Though it is certainly a bummer.
The folks offering short-term rents are not excused from such laws. Why do we need new laws? If your neighbor's short-term tennats are loud assholes, make a noise complaint.
There is a place for piecemeal litigation of individual disputes. There is also a place for regulation and zoning to maintain order, especially in a large, tightly-packed city.
The assholes problem is why we have restrictions against short-term leases in so many areas. (Most such restrictions predate AirBNB, despite what the article would have you believe.)
I'm pretty sure you could actually correlate with life experiences as well (even though age and life experience correlate).
Someone who has not been burned and who hasn't seen or experienced some negative consequence of being open is going to tend to have a negative reaction when something like this is discussed. They don't know what they don't know.
Further, with the overlay of a giant social network, you can rent your spot out only to people with whom you share some indirect but useful level of acquaintance. So you can ask before renting: "Is Mr. X an inconsiderate ass?" And Mr. X knows bad behavior can affect their reputation moreso than just via a semi-anonymous blurb on a website.
That's the way you're going to go with it? Why don't you try it. You'll find that those issues are actually already handled by local laws in most places.
Over time, the beach has gotten tacky. Big billboards. Lots of nightlife. Amusement park rides. All kinds of things that reek of Las Vegas, but not so much a relaxing family vacation.
So this year we decided to try something different. I got onto VRBO online and picked out a beach house 1000 miles away in Florida. The owner included pictures, and there were lots of references and reviews for me to assess risk beforehand. I sent them a check -- which they could have cashed and absconded with -- and we drove down on the day scheduled.
It was the best beach vacation we've ever had. In addition, it was half or a third as much as our previous vacations.
Vested interests can fight as much as they want, but this is a done deal: people own their stuff and they're damn well liable to do what they want to with it. If I can sell you a 8-passenger airplane without warranty, you can certainly come stay at my house for an night or two. Laws which were used to increase the quality of hotel stays back in 1890 have extremely little applicability today.
I don't know if we're going to use the same house again this year -- the owner was magnificent, and I'm not about to share where it was! -- but I know that we'll be sticking to this model for a good while.
I think this is absolutely the case. Right now we're seeing what happened in the early days of Napster. The RIAA and governments were shocked shocked at the widespread disregard for the law. Now a decade or so later it's common and widely accepted that breaking copyright is just something that happens.
Airbnb & Homeaway/VRBO & Craigslist are currently the exchanges for a p2p transaction, like Napster or Kazaa were for music. I suspect they will be targeted by existing interests and governments and they might even be taken down in some jurisdictions. But if they do, more will pop up in their place, as always seems to be the case in distributed p2p markets.
1) Most people live in apartments, therefore a person who is an approved tenant is now inviting an un-approved tenant to take there place, giving them access to the building and common areas.
2) More importantly most NYC apartment buildings are co-ops and not condos. They are usually selective about owners and have appropriate sublet policy. Most Air BnB type sites would violate the sublet agreements in co-ops.
There need to be some protection for those that live in apartment buildings and don't share the same feelings about short-term sublets.
You own your car. You are not allowed to set up as a cab service without some kind of insurance and registration.
You own your home; you own the kitchen. You could not set up as a restaurant without a bunch of paperwork.
> Laws which were used to increase the quality of hotel stays back in 1890 have extremely little applicability today.
I want there to be an effective fire escape in case the building burns down. Is that law irrelevant?
I want the hotel to have a clean kitchen. Is that law irrelevant?
I would agree that perhaps there's too much paperwork for businesses.
(http://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/02/confiscating-your-ice-cream-...)
Moreover, the type of people who would pay extra for a sanitary kitchen or a proper fireplace are not the type of people who would use AirBNB (or similar services) in the first place.
The problem here is what you mean by "market forces".
For a market to be truly open, free and efficient, buyers and sellers must be able to enter into transactions without hindrance. There must not be an overhead associated with transactions, and buyers need relevant information. People rail on "free markets" when really they miss the point. Unless the market is also open and efficient, being free doesn't amount to much.
In the past, you'd call a telephone number in New York and reserve a hotel. You had no relevant information about your purchase -- yes, you probably assumed a lot, such as "hotels in New York are nice" but you really didn't know. The market was open -- anybody could play.
So you ended up in a flea trap in a high-crime neighborhood and the manager took all of your money. You complained, and New York took action (Note that I'm making a generous case for regulation here. You could make a case that most regulations were the result of trumped up charges by monopoly players) People had no idea of what they were getting into. There was a lot of money and perhaps lives wasted due to people making deals in which they were unaware of the consequences. The market was not efficient.
What New York was doing, in a way, was creating a brand as a way to increase efficiency at the expense of market freedom. So when people came to New York they would know generally how hotels would treat them. This increased the amount of knowledge the buyers had, so it made the market more open. (But less free)
But that is _somewhat_ an outdated model. Note in my story I specifically said I was able to compare or contact previous tennants, look at the property on a satellite map, check references, and so on. The internet has made the market vastly more efficient. I no longer make a blind phone call and then show up and see what I get. There's still risk, of course, but the risk is distributed throughout the system. One bad actor steals 2 or 3 people's payment, then that property is effectively blacklisted. In a way, the penalties on the sellers is much more harsh than it used to be under the old system.
So this isn't an argument about free markets or some kind of laissez-faire capitalism. What we're talking about is simply what's necessary for people to trade efficiently. For many things (but not all) we simply don't need the same kind of government guarantee that we used to.
The problem was never in "market forces". It was in creating efficient markets. We've made some progress on that problem since those rules were enacted. We don't have to tear down all the rules, but we should at least acknowledge changing conditions. I'd argue in this case existing rules exist much more to protect vested interests than anything else, but that's just me.
Cool. Do you check for "Number of patrons who've died in a fire"? Because having working smoke detectors, or adequate fire escapes, are not the kind of things that work for market forces.
Not speaking specifically about your situation and experience which was positive for you but the laws also have other purposes. For example when you live in certain residential neighborhoods you're not expecting to have transient population.
Many communities restrict single family homes to "1 family" and many condo buildings restrict rentals to "1 lease per year" to prevent occupancy by people who presumably create a different atmosphere than regulars.
"the owner was magnificent, and I'm not about to share where it was!"
I love the old school way of thought. (Reminds me of not wanting to share a good mechanic or babysitter for fear that they won't be available when needed for ones own work!)
Morally true, perhaps, but not legally the case.
It's another example of how laws are extremely difficult to enforce if they go against the public morality; an extreme example was how difficult it was to outlaw dueling until the fashion finally turned against the practice.
A more modern example is how most people really want laws against plagiarism instead of the copyright laws we actually have in most of the world: People get up in arms if someone plagiarizes someone else's work, but will gladly support copyright violators who are scrupulous about proper attribution.
A large number of people seem to think that's actually how the law works. This doesn't stop any prosecutions, but it makes the prosecutions no more effective than trying to bail out the Titanic with a colander.
So shall it be with this law, I predict.
It's a genuinely thorny issue in this case, though. On the one hand, you can easily imagine mechanisms where allowing widespread commercial short term tenancy in your building would increase crime rates and put your own self and property at risk. At the same time, it's abhorrent to me to imagine my condo building saying that I can't have non-paying visitors over several nights per week, which would likely have identical effects.
So where does the line fall?
"For more than a year now, New York City has been enforcing a new state law that makes it illegal for homeowners like Hogan to rent out their house or apartment for less than a month. All across the city, police raids have shut down hundreds of similar informal bed-and-breakfast establishments, with nearly 1,900 different violations issued in under twelve months. Often, the fees associated with the citations stretch into tens of thousands of dollars. Hogan was threatened with a $25,000 fine—all for marketing the empty rooms in his house.
. . . .
"The crackdown in New York is similar to ones happening in several major European cities. Paris, for instance, passed a law in 2005 banning the rental of any residential property for less than a year, and began enforcing that law in 2010. London is now engaging in a wave of enforcement in the run-up to the 2012 Summer Olympics."
This is the first journalistic report I have seen of such widespread, persistent enforcement actions. Is this the general experience of HN participants (and, especially, Airbnb participants) in your part of the world? What is your rating of the risk of being cited for a local law violation if you list your place as a short-term rental online?
It seems the first wave of enforcement has come from HOAs, I've heard of various people having to remove their listing for that reason. [1]
Now it appears, according to the article above, municipal authorities are pushing back. Could this be a result of lobbying from hotels? Vacation rentals is not a new concept, and couchsurfing has been around for years as well. It seems that just because couchsurfing/vacation rentals are getting a wider audience that it's now suddenly a problem.
I personally don't want my HOA or government telling me who I can or can not have over to stay. Their place is not in my home.
1: http://betabeat.com/2011/05/airbnb-takes-manhattan-with-2k-b...
They aren't telling you who you can or can not have over, they are prohibiting you from having temporary guests that pay.
Why? Well, an establishment that houses temporary guests traditionally has to answer to health & safety codes and regulations. Under-the-radar AirBnB rentals circumvent that system.
You'd probably get similar kickback if you tried running an informal restaurant out of your home. "Who is the government to tell me who I can and can not serve food!" Well, restaurant health codes, that's who.
It wasn't my main source of income, and I'm not running a business. In fact, I'd rather not have someone on my couch every day, I like my space. I'm saying it should be my choice to have a kid from Massachusetts, a student from Spain, or a grandmother from South Carolina, or my family stay.
edit: http://cookitfor.us/
Right. Now try to get the average person to care about the distinction.
The average person can understand that. In fact, most people do. The "benefits" of AirBNB are usually lost on the average person, who cannot understand why someone would rent out their house directly to total strangers.
Different considerations apply in communities which are not vacation spots.
Which sucks, but it is the free market. Just goes to show that contract rights aren't enough to ensure freedom.
We aren't telling you that you can't do X...but Article 294-984b, section 49a states that doing X is a $50,000 fine.
You choose to join an HOA.
check it, i am certain you signed something like this
Co-op = the cooperative owns the shared areas; the members own shares in the coooperative entity.
Both = the entity (HOA/cooperative) pays for the maintenance/other costs of the shared areas. Co-ops collect the money for these expenses through monthly dues and yearly assessments. I do not know how co-ops collect for these expenses.
My unit is a condo; I fractionally own portions of the building and land. My condo pays for the expenses associated with the common areas through monthly dues and yearly assessments.
There is no legitimate justification to infringe on a contract between a willing buyer and a willing seller, but to actually fight these crackdowns you have to spend lots of $$$ on local political campaigns in every municipality. Easier said than done. Unless that massive lobbying investment (or at least a publicity campaign, like SOPA boycotts) happen the entrenched interests win by default and lots of peer-to-peer transactions will move to gray/black market.
Prohibition always creates speakeasies and the organized crime to protect them.
EDIT: To address "devil advocates", yes, most regulation mandated and enforced by government is a terrible imposition. Self-regulation that preserves consumer choice is a much better idea. You want to pay extra $$$ for a better level of service / protection /etc? Make it an optional line item with explicit cost.
Devils advocate: are food standards also a terrible imposition? The government insists on coming around to all the restaurants in the city and inspecting them to make sure that no-one will be poisoned or killed by the food they eat. How dare they stand in between a willing buyer and seller. Right? Right?
Food standards, restaurant inspections, building codes, health and safety codes... the list goes on. Are they all illegitimate attempts to stand between a willing buyer and seller?
Inspections are there because large institutions don't always take the care they should, and as a consumer I sure as hell want -somebody- to look into it. If it weren't a government institution then I'd expect some sort of company to do it, and any restaurant that hadn't gotten inspected I would avoid.
On the other hand I -don't- worry when I use Air-BnB, because it has reviews that signify quality, and because there's not much that can go wrong with sleeping on a couch.
You're not going to convince me that I would still buy raw milk, or that pasteurized milk would be unavailable, in the absence of FDA regulation.
There's a competitive advantage to labeling food, and there's no stopping companies from labeling food in the absence of food labeling regulations. The most trusted organic certification is from a for-profit certification company, Quality Assurance International. McDonald's published nutrition information before it was required by any law. Intentionally incorrect labeling is already covered by fraud and tort law.
Of course, this doesn't make health codes good, necessarily.
But what I'm more interested in - what kinds of prohibitions lead to speakeasies/organized crime, and what don't, particuarly on the scale of the Prohibition, with Al Capone, Elliot Ness, etc. ??
As you can probably tell from my phrasing, I do think it is. I wish I had a cite, but I do remember reading an article about the actual, monetary value of good long term relations with neighbors... there is an argument to be made that short term rentals are selling not just the unit but the neighborhood itself, and doing some harm to the neighborhood in the process. If that is the case, this is an externality that could be legitimately regulated.
this was a common refrain of slave holders - it was a pure market mechanism, the buyer and seller agreed on a price, why does the govt care?
Also I think the government loses out on special taxes from Hotel business, but maybe those taxes could also be collected from these B&B type operations? Hotels have no business using the law to fight a competitive threat, in my opinion anyway. Does not seem to make sense to me.
Factor in the concentrated nature of the hotel industry (fewer of them, more at stake) and you can see why they are motivated and able to put pressure on the bureaucracy.
The whole thing does strike me as morally irresponsible in that a city with a persistent and undealt with homeless problem should not be limiting the availability of housing units until the blatant market failure has been dealt with.
Red herring. These people are not inviting the homeless into their homes. They are operating a hotel/B&B without following any registration, safety, health, or tax rules.
This also hurts renters--rooms that would otherwise be rented out to long-term tenants (monthly or longer) are now instead "rented" out to transient visitors. This decreases the available supply of units to renters, driving up prices across the board.
But in NYC, there's some reason to believe that the intended target of those regs isn't homeowners trying to make an honest buck, but rather unscrupulous businesspeople abusing Airbnb to operate "off the books" hostels --- my many NYC friends and acquaintances have taken to calling these "mob hotels".
you are a TENANT.
before downvoting me, go and look at your deed. find the term "owner" anywhere on it.
yes folks, the county has permitted you to enter into an agreement to make improvements on the land and resell that right to others. the county "owns" the land. most first-time home buyers are surprised to find out that they actually are only considered tenants
Ok, I happen to have a deed right in front of me for a property having forgotten to put it in the safe deposit box.
On the first page appears the following:
"1. Transfer of ownership. The grantor grants and conveys (transfers ownership of) the property (called the "Property") described below to the Grantee. This transfer is made for the sum of..."
"3. Property. The property consists of the land and all the buildings and structures on the in land in the city of ..."
Seems pretty clear to me that this contradicts what you are saying. I am located in a state on the east coast USA.
this is why, for example, foreclosure evictions often involve the sheriff's office - the county is protecting their own property rights. also, mineral rights, right to dispose of hazardous waste, etc etc
AirBnB should be doing this already to clear the cloud around their business, but doing so would be an admission that their current practices are abetting illegal activity.
The beauty of Airbnb and other community marketplaces is that I'm incentivized to make sure things go well. If my neighbors complain, it will become hard to host. If my guests complain, it will become hard to host. If I complain at a hotel? No one cares.
I would happily pay a flat yearly tax to register as a short term rental host. I won't however spend 10s of hours working through ridiculous paperwork, spending thousands of $s to get onside of this antiquated system. We should be thankful of companies like Airbnb, like SideCar, Uber, TaskRabbit, Exec, pushing our outdated world forward.
Just my $.02
Since then I've realized that the positive impact goes far deeper. For example, as a host I tell every guest about my favorite local establishments. Not only am I exposing my guests to true San Francisco flavor, I'm also helping local businesses that don't traditionally see tourism dollars.
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't hear about how we've helped someone, both travelers and hosts.
That's not to say I don't have full respect for you as a company. Just want you to be aware there is a counterpoint, and that people using your service should be following local regulations and leases. When they don't, it creates headaches for neighbors and resentment towards your company.
People have been renting out their homes to visitor for a long time but what Airbnb has done by creating a central marketplace is incredible. It feels as important as Amazon reinventing online purchases. Like many of the great internet companies Airbnb is ruffling a lot of feathers from intrenched businesses and changing the way people think about their private space. What other company has been so successful at fostering connections between people who have never met in the real world?
The fact that we allow government to get involved in our personal lives at this level should scare everyone. They are telling some of these people that they can't earn money to make-up for the fact that they fell upon hard times by using the one asset that they work so hard to acquire. You can't even rent your couch? This isn't right.
As for the hotel industry. Well, offer a better product at good prices with exceptional service and you'll keep your customers. In other words: Compete.
What if you decide to start charging strangers to eat dinner at your house. Does the government have a right to start inspecting your kitchen? What if you take children in during the day. Should the givernment have any say in your qualifications as a day care operator or the conditions of your property?
Corruption is a problem that should be solved. Regulation of business to enforce standards of health and safety is exactly what the government is supposed to be doing.
He told me he was running into issues with the city. Not from hotels or what not, but complaints from neighbors. They did not like the fact that strangers were constantly going in and out. BUT he said that he had heard hotels and motels were not happy about the popularity, especially from other short-term vacation home owners.
It's going to be a two front battle, one side from big business, and the other from neighbors. In the end my guess is that the city will license it, and heavily tax it, in other words the cities win.
i hate all of mine. But the hotels have nothing against them. so i will have to live with them. that's life.
If you could choose neighbors... the world would be very empty because everyone would be living alone.
What's to stop someone from acquiring a bunch of property in, say, Paris and put it all up on airBnB?
"What's the problem with that?" you ask? Well, this makes housing more expensive (you now have to compete with that industry), further gentrifies residential neighborhoods, and pushes the middle class further away from the desirable spots.
I haven't thought all of this through, but perhaps a rule requiring lodgers to live at least 1mo/year full time in the place for rent would be useful?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/travel/escapes/07backlash....
There's a wide range of opinions on this topic, and a lot of it probably comes down to personality. I'm sympathetic to people who don't really want their neighborhood to become a revolving door of short term residents, even if those residents are respectful and quiet. Some people would happily give up the right to rent out their own property short term in exchange for a neighborhood with less turnover, where you get to meet, know, and become long term friends with the people around you.
Other people not only disagree, but are appalled, even angered, that anyone would presume to make this decision for someone else - if their tenants are quiet and respectful, what right does someone else have to regulate what they do with their own property?
This is the sort of issue that reminds me of an interesting branch of libertarianism that actually supports highly restrictive laws provided that these laws are kept very local and decentralized. For instance, religious communities would have the right to demand everyone wear certain clothes, as long as people can easily leave and they promise not to try to enforce their dress code on the next township over.
I see some value in that point of view here. I do think neighborhoods, on a very local level, should be allowed to enforce strict laws on vrbos and short term rentals. I wouldn't want to see these laws state-wide (or even city wide), but at the neighborhood level, I don't think I have any objection (and I would prefer to live in a neighborhood with these restrictions).
These laws predate AirBnB by decades.
Not more than two (2) persons not related to each other by blood, adoption or marriage, living and cooking together in a single dwelling unit.
A lot of towns also expect you to get a rental permit too.
In other words, you can't just pay the tax.
On http://www.mcar.com/montereycounty.html, we find:
County of Monterey Non-Coastal: Administrative permit required for rentals less than 30 days in R-1 zoning district Minimum rental period 7 days Zoning Ordinance 21.64.280
Coastal: Contact: Planning and Building Inspection Department (831) 883-7500
I'd guess that the county is easier to deal with on this than the various cities (where the hotels and the bulk of the housing are).
http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/historic-properties/_sea...
I used to understand headline corrections on HN, especially when they made changes away from blatantly abusive headlines. Now it seems they're done indiscriminately.
You purchase the joint right to use the house x/365 days a year, but your "lease" is a month/year long.
Might not get around the safety type laws though.
Wow this is just plain wrong. The laws were meant to be made for citizens not for any one industry. As was the case with SOPA, PIPA and other bills, the law making process in USA is clearly broken and needs to be changed. It is a problem you (Americans) need to fix.
pg, please do something about this. It is getting absolutely out of hand.
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Seems django debug is ON
instead of simply enforcing it, they changed the law to be zero limit AND enforced it.
this is the same idiocy.
trashing a place is already illegal. Disturbing the peace is already illegal. Reducing your neighbor property value is already illegal (our intern complains he keep getting citations for not cutting the grass ...a $300 fine)
Name ONE thing this law does that wasn't illegal before. ONE. I challenge you.