Airbnb Is a Risky Neighbor
bloombergview.com
bloombergview.com
Strangers with keys to the front door, easily copied because our landlord didn't invest in secure locks. Strangers coming home at 3am on a weekday (Mo-We), inebriated, slamming the doors waking us up and the kid as well, quite often with more raucous strangers in tow for a night cap. Strangers picked up in a bar of our 'gentrifying' hood, who left at 5am after knocking back more beers and/or some boots.
I paid rent, for the joy of living in a virtual dorm, they collected monies while affecting my quality of life and safety. The lease specifically forbade short-term subletting. We lived in that place for 13 years, 10 without problems, but the last 3 at times unbearable because of these "good friends from Europe".
When we moved, our friendly neighbors across the hall, avowed AirBnB hosts (they came clean), suggested that we renew our lease one more year (rent stabilized) and put our apt. on AirBnB "as a source of income". They would happily "manage" our AirBnB listing (key transfer, cleaning) for a piece of the pie. We declined, we liked our other neighbors too much...
With reports from Berlin, San Francisco and other cities showcasing how AirBnB has affected availability of apt's and is one of the main drivers of rising rents ( eg see http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/item/airbnb-san-francisc... and http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1230/Berlin-squee... ) it's about time something is done about this.
Let's stop calling them social sharing companies, and just rename them "loopholes", who make money by assisting others in breaking the law, violating the terms of their lease, and enabling tax evasion whilst denying any type of responsibility for "sharing" my quality of life to pieces...
Glad regulation is in the pipeline. Private home owners who reside in their own houses, share away, but keep AirBnB out of apt. buildings.
Edit: words/grammar
I've written to my alderman, complained to the city with listings on AirBnb. Nothing. No response.
It would be a dream come true for me someone prosecutes AirBnb and puts the founders behind bars.
What have they done wrong? Made it easier for people to share living space? God forbid people make tools that make travel easier and more accessible.
Did you read the article?
I have to wonder what proportion of Airbnb's transactions ever cause any kind of disturbance to anyone. If it's the rule rather than the exception that "vacationers" turn out to be party animals who tear up the place, it's surprising that tenants in prosocial environments would even continue to take that risk.
That's why I have to wonder what the real situation is. I see a few complaints about disturbances with nothing being done by the landlord (which is what I'd expect at my old slum apartment), but nobody complaining about being evicted for using Airbnb (which is what I'd expect if a tenant were to turn a nice apartment building into a party hotel, as some complainers insinuate).
In any case, this seems like a problem that already has a resolution: Evict people for subletting if the contract prohibits it, regardless of whether the customers were found on a web site or in the back alley.
Maybe it's not willful, and that's why I'm asking? Would you care to help alleviate my ignorance?
FWIW, I've actually heard a lot of viewpoints against AirBnB; I just think they're all poorly reasoned.
People don't want to be regularly woken by strangers in their building.
My HOA board was ready to put a lien on someone's condo because their dog frequently pooped in the common areas. HOA management companies issue liens with regularity and it would certainly force the owner to take action. I'd recommend attending the next board meeting an appealing directly to the HOA chair.
Then it sounds like your lease agreement isn't being enforced. That's a landlord problem, not a legal problem.
>Glad regulation is in the pipeline.
Why? So that all of us who use AirBnB have no options left? I know I can't afford travel without it.
How about instead of trying to ham-fist legal solutions to minor problems, you just get your landlord to enforce the lease agreement that already bans AirBnB renting?
Uh, ask them? If they refuse, just threatening them with a court case will probably do the job. They are legally obligated to uphold their end of your lease agreement.
>This seems like a textbook example of an externality that's only solvable by regulation
Again, why? It's covered under existing laws. If that doesn't do it, why do you think more laws will?
That is not correct.
Let L = the landlord,
R = the tenant who is renting out his apartment,
T = the tenant who is being annoyed by the
problems R's sub-renters are causing
The lease agreement being violated (at least as far as the term that prohibits sub-renting the apartment goes) is the one between L and R, not the one between L and T. T would not have standing to sue since T is not a party to the contract between L and R.
It's a combination landlord (lease) and legal problem. In NYC short term leases are explicitly not allowed. Also note, as others have below, that it is very difficult to evict someone in New York.
Glad because just 4 apts. in the building ruined it for the rest of us. I don't care about your travel plans, I care about my quality of life.
Nothing ham-fisted about it and I definitely wouldn't call the mediam rent increases in BK a minor problem - http://gothamist.com/2014/04/04/brooklyn_rents_cant_stop_won...
And why should it have to be incumbent upon everyone else to enforce rules? What the f$*&? The more I hear of you the more I agree that regulations can't come fast or hard enough.
There are people who have actually lived and invest in these places. Now, there's a whole "disruptive" community thinking because they have a phone with an app, they should be able to help transfer the value of someone else's life and homes into the pockets of AirBnb's founders? Let me catch your tears in this jar so I can savor them.
If AirBnB were serious about legal compliance, there are plenty of tools they could make. Any developer here could suggest several, I'm sure. But they're intentionally sailing very close to the wind. They've done well by it so far, but I could imagine this strategy biting them in the ass if they push it too far. A couple of spectacular failures yielding some dramatically written articles would be enough to generate a lot of public outrage.
If AirBnB were serious about legal compliance, 100 copy cat sites will sprout trying to take a piece of its pie. You can't stop it. It's like Napster.
http://www.priceline.com/hotels/
http://www.travelocity.com/Hotels
http://www.hipmunk.com/hotels-search
http://www.bookingbuddy.com/hotel.php
http://bookit.com/hotels/?tripType=hotel
?
- Running illegal hotels in buildings that are not zoned for commercial use.
- Running a business without a valid business permit.
- Failing to pay the hotel tax and other business taxes.
- Violating fire regulations that govern hotels and other commercial property.
I didn't think AirBnB was a thing in Bangkok at all!?
:-)
Besides, I've lived in private room in a hostel in a developing country for the last three months and haven't experienced any of these problems. I find it hard to believe the average apartment building with AirBnB units would be worse.
> [...] don't they deserve to be there more than you?
Nope. In fact, they don't deserve to be there at all if they're violating the contract the tenants signed with the owner.
I'm just saying it's totally unfair that someone who lives in NY should pay considerably less for housing than someone visiting and since the city isn't willing to do something to fix that, this black market has popped up to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity.
People who live there are in the market for long term housing. People visiting are in the market for short term housing. Comparing this is kind of ridiculous, because they serve people with quite different needs.
This is the mirror of taxis vs owning a car. There is no good reason for it to cost so much more to take a taxi than to get a ride from some guy with a car besides government regulation.
As soon as you ignore that regulation you get products that everyone loves except the people who were benefiting under the old unfair system. In the taxi case it's people who were charging above market rates for transportation. In this case, it's people paying below market rates to live in NYC.
Long-term renters make up-front commitments. They are "buying in bulk", which reduces the inventory risk for the landlord. A hotelier, on the other hand, has to set prices to account for vacancy rates, and for the risk that their vacancy rate estimation is going to be wrong.
Long-term renters are self-serve customers. Short-term renters depart after a few days, leaving the room they leased uninhabitable. Not only does it cost money to reset and restock a room after a guest leaves, but to do so involves retaining staff, which introduces all the expense of headcount.
Without the regulation, it would be unprofitable to sublease a single apartment on AirBnb as you'd be unable to compete with people who can run a whole building at scale with dedicated maid service etc.
Anyways if you improve the legal alternatives and the margins get low enough I think a lot of the owner-occupied ones will simply give up. Right now it's so insanely profitable that it's well worth the work and inconveniences (and legal risk!) even for middle class people.
The product is not the same its "a place to sleep" vs "a place to live" and they are very very different.
Honestly I just wanted everything to go smoothly since I was getting married, but man, I felt sleazy housing my family in a hostile environment. And you know what, I can't really blame the neighbors at all. This was my first and last experience with Airbnb. It just felt dirty to be apart of such neighborhood hostilitly.
But if I rented a unit and it turned out that the unit was actually not legal to rent, and even more-so if the neighbors are hostile, why PAY for it? Sounds like a great basis for contesting the charge.
A savvy landlord or condo association would want to capture this. Because it’s new, it’s seen as a disturbance. A little bit of thinking would reveal that there is now $XXX new money coming in the door (due to better utilization of the property).
It’s in the owners’ ultimate interest to figure out how to either a) accommodate this explicitly and safely, and capture some of the new revenue or b) prohibit it because the tenants prefer it, but know that the price of a “non-shared” building will carry a premium.
One way a condo association might adopt the idea is to point out that Airbnb’ers $$ might be used for building upgrades or to reduce condo fees.
Lenders not only want to be able to have Fannie/Freddie buy their loans eventually, but they also want the home to be easily sold. And traditionally home buyers want the "white picket fence" dream. Once the property turns into a an apartment/vacation/commercial complex, their market of buyers totally changes. There's nothing wrong with that inherently but it means that different people need to be underwriting and making those loans who can properly assess the value.
If Airbnb received a legal notice from a property owner demanding it delist his property, it seems like they would have to comply. Otherwise they might face a pretty simple case of negligence for listing an owner's property for rent without his approval. The only evidence the owner needs to supply is a signed copy of the lease and public records of ownership.
So why aren't landlords doing this? I think the issue is either they don't care, or there's no easy way to do it. Perhaps somebody should set up a service that facilitates this process by reducing it to uploading a copy of the lease agreement and ownership records, then sending a request to Airbnb. If enough property owners use a service like that, it could gain some significant attention.
Part of the story here is that the extra income the hosts generate allows them to raise the rents or at the very least reduce turnover.
I love AirBnB as a customer, used it a few times and have a great experience with it... but I would be worried if somebody rent apartment next to me without they presence at all...
... on the other hand how would you enforce non-subletting policies? Likely only some high-end biometrics access could do that, but that won't happen any time soon in vast majority of the places.
If other tenants are being disturbed, they won't object to a camera at the building access door.
I am not a party to the contract between B and C, so can't do anything to terminate that lease. My landlord A hasn't done anything to breach our contract, so I have no grounds to terminate that. So I'm SOL.
But sure, I was thinking from the perspective of the owner, not a neighbor.
So AirBnB pretty much has to do the wink-nudge thing, where they officially forbid 90% of transactions, but let them happen anyway.
IANAL, but I would think that if Airbnb ignored a request to exclude addresses, that would likely expose them to a greater chance of losing a lawsuit.
Additionally, cities or states could pass laws requiring services like Airbnb to have easy opt-out policies for landlords rather than banning the service altogether.
So how do you effectively enforce that? Should the owner have cameras in the hallway? Should the tenants be subject to random checks? some balance has to be found to keep both sides happy.
The other question is why are tenants going through the trouble and risks of subletting. And this guy knows why:
http://moodyeyeview.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/toodamnhigh....
You might notice Airbnb has virtually no presence (relatively) in countries where the rent is lower, especially in relation to people's income.
The alternative is living on the street, which brings with itself inability to maintain employment and so on down the spiral. It's literally better not to eat for a few days, than it is to find yourself on the street with all your stuff. A point of no return.
So the incentive to seek "tricks" is high (whether it be Airbnb, or living with 5-6 other people in a small apartment), and demand is dictated purely by how many people are there needing to rent, versus how much money they have.
I understand what you're saying with your ice cream analogy, but I'm not sure I agree that it relates to housing in the way you suggest.
Really? Is that your first response whenever you don't like something? Just make it illegal!
How about you ask for enforcement/introduction of non-subleasing policies for your building? There is absolutely no good reason to screw over everyone else in the process.
Evicting tenants who don't follow it? That's how lease agreements work.
Safety is a real concern. The area still has muggings, drug dealing and even a few murders. Knowing who belongs in your building and who has a key is an important aspect of living in BK.
Having the building you live in double as a downscale hotel is absolutely craptastic. From all your comments, you seem not to understand this rather simple point.