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Comment by jksflkjl3jk3 | Hacker News Reader

I think we're just the silent majority.

I've been a digital nomad for the last 9 years. Airbnb is a huge reason why my experience has been so great. How else can I show up in a city in a new country , spend 5 minutes the day before I arrive, and end up with a nice furnished apartment in a great location for a week's stay?

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Oh, how lovely it is so convenient for you, e.g. the "silent majority" while the residents of those cities foot the direct and indirect bill from reduced availability of the real-estate and the ever-increasing costs.

Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing, so they pose the same issue. There is necessarily some tension between using space for permanent housing and using it for tourism / short term stays. Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy, and having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc).

The housing issue is more complex than just Airbnb / short-term housing as well: is there enough housing investment? what is the effect of international or corporate investment? are local regulations supporting or sabotaging the effort to build more housing? is there a large speculation market?

But...why should some direct investment towards "housing" if they can direct them towards the day-rentals ? Its definitely in their economical self-interest. So as long as we allow these platforms (be it AirBnB, Amazon or FB) to amplify a single parameter at the detriment of everything else in the society as a whole, I am afraid all the philosophical discussions about "complex" aspects will not help.

This is a supply/demand problem. Your solution is to restrict the supply of short term rentals. Restrictions rarely work, the hypothetical situation you mention would benefit from allowing more building of long term rentals.

Most of the case it is because more building is simply not possible.

And anyway as long as there is no restrictions on the day-rental, investor will choose the option in their economical self-interest. Restriction must apply to force long term rentals.

No, I did not suggest the solution you are implying my comment meant. What I am saying is that these PLATFORMS are not the right way to handle the supply of short-term rentals, as they incentivise the home-owners to take them off the market for long-term rentals. I would be perfectly fine with short-term rentals which were not the converted living units. We have to think differently here. But if the push comes to shove, actually restrictions would work here in favour of the long-term rentals, because being, as you said yourself, a supply-demand problem, it would raise the supply of long-term rentals and reduce the prices. Just as it was happening before AirBnB. Its just that we have to be moral enough to recognise that the basic human right of a local in a tourist location to live affordably is set higher than the luxury problem of the so-called digital natives, namely, booking a short-term rental in a city center (so they can produce yet another piece of "content"). Not to mention that a platform which does not generate profit should not even be allowed to exist.

That's the problem, isn't it? Capitalism sucks. City governments could set rules like: you must build 3 residential units for every hotel room.

> Tourism often keeps a city's economy healthy

I would not say "healthy", there is many situation where it is wealthy but not really healthy

I think what's at play here is the unusually palpable crowding out effects of tourism compared to any other industry. That is, when local stores get replaced by tourism shops, Landmarks etc. become more important than everyday amenities and the town becomes a sort of museum of itself.

Of course tourism can pipe in money and help a place invest in high quality services and amentaties compared to catering to industry.

However tourism often has a tremendous income distribution problem (see Hawaii or Colorado living conditions of service workers). This remains a fundamentally political problem to guarantee income distribution through living wage guarantees etc.

> Anywhere you could build a hotel you could also build more housing

Not really in practice. Ex: there's lots of hotels around airports and highways. Would anyone want to buy a house there? Definitely not. The markets and thus economics are totally different.

> having short term stays is important for those visiting even for non-tourism reasons (e.g. in town to visit family, for work, etc)

I don't know about "important", but "useful" yeah. The thing is like, how ubiquitous is this? I'd naively guess for every 1 person who finds this useful, 1000s more are negatively impacted by Airbnb.

There is endless housing immediately by airports and highways. Like literally any major American airport or highway has tons of housing right next to it. Even in more rural areas people deliberately building a house right by the airport to make routine traveling easier

"Endless"? The proportion of housing near to not near airports and highways is infinitesimal.

Ignoring some nuances, I see what you're saying-- At least in the long run.

The issue is however in the short run, air BNB encourages taking existing rentals out of the market to turn into short term rentals. The effect is driving long term rental prices toward the short term price level supported by income level of the visitors. (untenable for most residents).

The conversation of new units refers to a decades long process dependent on credit cycles and investment interest.

It is like arguing that the exodus from the rust belt in the late 80s and 90s was good for the cities because it made the cost of housing go down.

This is true if we focus entirely on housing cost and basically ignore all the down sides. Of course, ignoring the perspective of those who owned real estate too at that time.

Real estate always has quite a bit of preference falsification associated with it too. Everyone is always publicly outraged at the cost increase of real estate while those who own the increasing real estate are internally quite happy with the situation. I suspect that is the main variable why we can never solve this problem.

You're blaming the wrong people for the issue. Obviously there is demand for tourism in a way that hotels do not fulfill and the people who bought and rent out/host these residences are the ones enabling it by adding supply.

As someone who spends time being digital nomad myself, it isn't my fault when I stay in an AirBNB that is available somewhere since I'm just consuming the available supply that is permitted by the local government and I'm all for residents having priority. Often time its a local resident who owns and rents out the place in the first place, blame them for not renting to locals if you want. Its the local regulations and governments responsibility to regulate this.

real estate supply is not fixed. It is the cities fault for refusing to expand supply in the face of rising demand.

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