Update on the New York Attorney General’s Investigation
publicpolicy.airbnb.com
publicpolicy.airbnb.com
Every step of the way, from what I can tell, AirBnB has been at best deliberately obtuse and at worst actively lying. This post seems to be an example of the latter.
When AirBnB says things like:
> The vast majority of our hosts are simply renting out their own homes on an occasional basis. The law was never meant to target them, and we now believe the Attorney General did not mean to target regular New Yorkers either.
They are purposefully clouding the issue and making it seem like it is about things it's not. Renting out your home on any basis, no matter how occasional, is illegal if you are not present. It doesn't matter if you're a "regular New Yorker" instead of someone who operates a business renting out multiple AirBnB apartments.
The simple fact is that the vast majority of AirBnBs in NYC are illegal, and AirBnB has access to the data they need to fix the issue without significant cost to them, except for vastly shrinking their, illegal, market.
The BIG picture is general cost of living in all major metropolitan areas where AirBnB has made in-roads. Fewer apartments/rooms available result in higher rents. This has been noticed all over the world (Amsterdam, Berlin, NYC, San Francisco). While I like the the basic concept of AirBnB (let no resource go to waste) the skirting existing rules/regulations which are in place for a good reason simply has to stop.
With regards to the AirBnB post in question, my best guess is that the DA has decided to require details on those properties which indicate actual illegal hotels. The most likely scenario for 'innocent' hosts is that they will need a permit, like Berlin, and in the process of applying for one, they will be vetted appropriately.
A recent CNet article outlines issues in cities other than NYC [1].
[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/vexed-in-the-city-the-sharing-econo...
could you also make the counter-argument: the hotels are keeping prices for rental artificially high by having unused (presumably unrented, or else airBnB would not have such high demand) space they're unwilling to lower their price for.
If the room is not occupied, they miss out. This explains also why companies like HotelTonight (and Priceline bidding option) have such great last-minute deals. Hotels maximize occupancy by making remaining inventory available last-minute at reduced rates (without that rate being published).
By the way, AirBnB's demand, according to Mr YCombo, is driven by 'the experience' vs 'the price' (but I doubt that).
In NYC, the 15% hotel tax that is skipped, plus getting away with non-payment of income taxes on AirBnB revenue, plus avoiding regulations for hotel safety allows hosts to make AirBnB rooms cheaper.
It seems like rent control creates consumer surplus for renters, at the expense of landlords. The use of AirBnB transfers some of this consumer surplus from the original renter to the temporary guest.
So, the combination of rent control and AirBnB-style short term rentals takes money from landlords (by restricting their return on capital to below the market level) and shares it between tenants (who become middlemen) and guests.
In cities without rent control, does AirBnB thrive to the same extent?
We can obviously agree AirBnB is not the way to address this potential issue.
> In cities without rent control, does AirBnB thrive to the same extent?
I'd wager that less than 1% of AirBnBs are in rent controlled apartments in NYC. I'm sure rent control has a minor systemic effect, but rent control arbitrage is not the story here.
1. Destroyed building property (front door/lock, doorbells, hallways and elevator)
2. Late night parties/music on the roof stopping me from sleeping on weekdays
The guy who was renting out his place gave very stern instructions to renters. It was basically:
I'll meet you out on the street corner and let you into the apartment. DO NOT stand directly outside the lobby. DO NOT talk to anybody else in the apartment building. If anybody else in the apartment building talks to you, DO NOT answer.
I have a few guesses as to why he wants everything to remain secretive. When you have a semi-regular or regular stream of strangers going in and out of a neighbor's apartment, it's at best shady-looking and at worst a complete nuisance.
I have dealt with:
* Very loud guests hosting parties in the (small studio) apartment
* Guests loud in the hallways at 1-2am (screaming, drunk, etc)
* Guests ignoring fire alarms until other tenants call emergency services for them.
It really is horrible. AirBnB does nothing when contacted.
I travelled pre-Airbnb in Europe and was totally screwed over by estate agents and rental professionals who take your thousands of hard-earned dollars while providing tiny photos of places that end up bearing no resemblance to the actual apartment. On Airbnb I always feel like what I see is what I get. The reviews are always honest and descriptive.
I've never damaged common property, come home at ridiculous hours or drunk, or made noise. I'm a pretty tame renter but my friends often aren't so I sympathise with people who say this is a problem.
What I don't understand is why Airbnb doesn't even make efforts to educate renters about this. They could easily add in an optional course for renters to take that educates people on rental etiquette, and awards you a 'Trusted Renter' designation in the same way they have Verified Phone and ID. A lot of people have never lived in an apartment building and simply have no idea what it is like to do so. Even a text message on check in that says try to be respectful of others in the building would go some way to stopping bad actors.
Once Airbnb is regulated it would also be super easy for them to let other people in the building complain. If legitimate complaints from other people in the building went onto profiles that would be the end of bad actors on the system, IMHO.
Redfin, the online RE brokerage, does classes in major metro areas for new home buyers. There isn't any reason Airbnb couldn't sponsor the same in New York. The cost would be minimal compared to the potential revenue. I hope someone from AirBNB reads your post!
Of course, we tolerate chicanery in online auctions because the damage from chicanery is limited to the dealer and the buyer. But that's not the case with Airbnb.
I hope Airbnb works through these issues and, if I had to bet, would bet they will.
I want to believe, because I've used AirBnB successfully as a consumer before. But I don't see a way they continue to succeed at such a massive level if they actually start enforcing these policies.
It's far simpler than that: AirBnB just needs to create a place where, as a landlord or a neighbor, I can:
a) check if any apartments in my building are on airbnb
b) file complaints with airbnb on specific apartments
They will not do this because it would dramatically shrink their market size by making it trivial to enforce the law on illegal subletting in NYC.
You simply can't invite dozens of strangers into apartment buildings without causing pain to the other inhabitants. Noise, damage, violence, and other issues are inevitable. Apartments are usually hellish enough with long-term tenants that are subject to real consequences.
No Airbnb employee or investor would put up with living in an apartment building full of Airbnb users. They'd go insane. But they do seem wiling to inflict this pain on others. That's evil.
Well there's your solution! That's some good out-of-the-box thinking right there.
Renting out an entire apartment can be selected to answer the second question on their signup process. https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/new
Reading through the various hospitality pages, I don't see anything saying it's only to be used casually to rent out an apartment while you're away. The "Responsible Hosting" page (https://www.airbnb.ca/help/responsible-hosting) seems region specific, but still doesn't say anything along the lines of "renting on AirBnB full time is considered abuse".
For something they consider abusive, there doesn't seem to be any large warnings against doing it.
For all we know, a person who is an abusive user means a person who holds multiple leases on separate apartments where a no-sublet clause is in the lease, and rents all of them out simultaneously (pocketing the difference over their rental rate) while providing no further services other than a key drop.
They also drew a pretty clear line between the time when (a) "we banned some users we considered abusive" and with (b) "the state of New York asked for information pertaining to a subset of our users in New York, which had a substantial intersection with our banned list from (a)".
It's also clear from the article that they don't know what criteria were used by NYS investigators to select 124 users for closer investigation.
I can't imagine only 140 of their New York postings are offering places for less than 30 days. There must be other selection criteria.
I believe the term "abusive" here means "users whose behavior doesn't support our narrative of a populist/grassroots service". This would probably mean people who listed multiple properties, since that doesn't play into AirBnb's desired image as helping "regular people" make ends meet.
I recently used airbnb for the first time while visiting Washington DC. Unfortunately, my car was broken into while parked on the street overnight. The responding police officer inquired about where we were staying and I told him about airbnb. He has never heard of the service before. About an hour later the officer comes back and asks to speak with the landowner (who was out). The officer was about to give him a warning about operating an unlicensed bed and breakfast with the threat of a $1,000 per day fine.
Good PR spin. Less than <1% of number of users "in our community"... providing 15% of the inventory. Whoops, leave that last part out.
http://skift.com/2013/05/21/airbnb-is-not-illegal-in-new-yor...
Honestly - as an AirBnB host - this worries me.
The fact of the matter is that most Airbnb listings in NYC are illegal, and pretty much everyone I know that lists their place on it is aware it's against the law. They do it anyways.
Airbnb is trying to cooperate as best they can without giving up too much of their users privacy as they need to get laws changed here in NYC (and other cities) if they want to keep operating in these markets.
Full-apartment listings, yes. As I understand it, many listings renting out a shared part of the living space in which the leaseholder also lives (and is present) are legal, since that's considered taking in a short-term boarder, not subletting, which is allowed in NYC (and in fact protected as a tenant right, even if the landlord tries to ban it in the rental contract).
> The law seems to include an exemption for hosts who rent out an extra room or couch to a "lawful boarder" for less than 30 days, but remain in the dwelling while the guest is there. Because Warren's roommate was home while his Russian boarder was there, he argued that the exemption should apply. However, the judge interpreted the terms "boarders and lodgers" in the law to mean "occupants who share the life of the dwelling with its permanent occupants" and not to "complete strangers who have no, and are not intended to have any, relationship with the permanent occupant." Because the Russian visitor did not interact with Warren or his roommate, the judge said, the exemption should not apply.
That last sentence is an interesting interpretation of the judge's decision, but the rest of it is pretty spot on. The opinion in question is here: http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/702734/decision-and-or... [PDF]
I just want airbnb to go away. For god's sake please go away. Please ban this website, put the owners in Jail.
How can one find out if an article was penalized?
That said - I'm very pro-airbnb, but I still really need to know about this in case they decide they're going to operate like this in places outside NYC>