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Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

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What happens in small tourist towns when all of the available property gets bought by outsiders wanting to 'Airbnb'?

Let's face it, 'Airbnb' isn't about letting out the spare room or the flat whilst one is away for some pocket money (whilst helping some weary traveller out). Airbnb is about buying places specifically for rental.

So, what happens?

The few real 'Bed and Breakfast' hotels have a hard time of it and local people (not on big city wages or the money for a deposit) get pushed even further down the housing ladder.

So, even if the culture is not messed up in the hip Mac-book Air stuffed office of AirBnb, the culture could be messed up in some far off town.

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That describes startup companies in general. It's about taking over a market that is run by small companies and driving them out of business by using Wall Street money to generate efficiencies of scale.

So a pox on those who seek to reduce costs through scale and redundancies?

It appears there is a lack of short-stay housing supply. AirBnB facilitates that market. Short-stay property owners should seek to spread their operating costs across multiple properties. This will drive out mom-and-pop operations - that is good business. The added wealth from leaner short-stay operations should make up for the temporary displacement.

The displacement is a process our political process has to manage. But spitting on markets for eroding the incumbent's edge is an old game for tired societies.

It appears there is a lack of short-stay housing supply. AirBnB facilitates that market.

AirBnB undercuts existing hotels by sidestepping required regulations. There isn't a lack of short-stay supply; AirBnB just works more cheaply because it has fewer expenses.

The added wealth from leaner short-stay operations should make up for the temporary displacement.

The point of the parent comment is that that wealth is not kept in the town, but siphoned off somewhere else.

I, too, was hoping the culture that AirBnB shouldn't fuck up was that of the locations where they are doing business. I guess asking them to care about that would be too much to expect.

I agree with the other comments in this thread, AirBnB essentially opening up the market of desireable destinations to real-estate speculators, regardless of any impact this may have on the local population. Facilitate residential hotels, let speculators invest in them and handle the management, take a nice cut, damn the local regulations (and taxes) by claiming to be only an intermediary, and who cares about disruptions to the lives of the locals (directly through residential zoning violations, indirectly by warping the local real-estate market).

I think voters in destination cities and towns need to pass AirBnB legislation to limit residential subletting to something like 40 nights per year and collect sales and hotel tax on every transaction.

The picture of an appartment turned into commercial space (startup office) is telling of their "culture." Culture of cheating and disrespect, essentially.

In a way it seems no different from the Big Box stores putting the Mom and Pop shops out of business, except in this case we have middlemen agents in between (apartment owners) who are taking a cut and taking up risk.

As someone who has let his flat on airbnb for pocket money - or a bit more while on hols at least some of us do that. It was fairly win win. I got some money and central London isn't exactly overrun with cheap half empty hotels for me to take business from.

well yes, but generally people don't learn to control the expansionist tendencies.

Further, Culture is the achievement of various people pre-globalization. By discarding that, we are not becoming better, the results are positive in short term, but wait till it takes the nosedive, just like the real estate crisis of 2007-08.

Extraordinary accusation requiring extraordinary evidence. Everything I've seen of airbnb suggests it's exactly what you claim it isn't.

Note: The existence of a minority of people gaming the system does not equate to what you claimed.

No, really. Here are a few articles. There are more:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3021179/secrets-of-running-a-six-...

http://mashable.com/2013/11/04/bought-apartment-rent-airbnb/

http://www.quora.com/Airbnb/Does-it-make-financial-sense-to-...

The $billion$ numbers don't make me think it is anything otherwise. Compare with the 'Youth Hostel' movement of a foregone age and how that broke even as a charity (no tax), with well meaning folk leaving property to them (no debt) and the 'youths' doing their own cleaning with bedding they brought. AirBnb stinks of speculative bubble money and it is only a matter of time before the rentseekers of the buy-to-let market get their fat arses into it.

This post deserves more upvotes. You are right on spot , Sir. I earn moderate income and nothing from Airbnb but if we are really talking about shortening income gap there has to be check at some level. Right now, with AirBnB model , there is no way to guarantee that this actually helps needy than those who own more than one house/apartment homes. There are chances of ( or infact already happening ?) system abuse where people buy houses solely to list it on Airbnb. I would wholeheartedly expect cities to chip in at this point and make adjustment to tax code to heavily tax those , who solely buy to list houses on Airbnb.

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