Yeah, Prague politicians are also hailing victories and thanking the coronavirus. Meanwhile, housing prices are up 30%, but who cares about reality, it is Airbnb doing it and it's dead, yay!
I don't fall strongly on either side of these debates, but I'm kind of against the debate as a whole.
I just don't think that trade offs between short stay rentals, even airbnb hotels, and rental housing has much of a win in it for renters even if advocates get everything they want. It seems like a marginal, symbolic issue that sucks up a lot of attention without the potential for meaningful results.
Are bans on short term rentals going to noticeably affect housing prices of availability. If not, why are affordable housing activists so interested in this?
No, it's mainly to protect residents. The people who actually make a city a city. If you're looking for greed and cash, look to the Airbnb companies that operate hundreds or thousands of rentals.
Hotels are zoned into commercial areas so that they don't ruin residential areas. Airbnb flouts that.
There are places in Chicago where corporations that own fleets of Airbnb buildings bought up half the residential properties on a single block and turned them into Airbnb rentals. It destroyed the quality of life for the people who have put all of their money and time into the neighborhood.
Hotels are not "zoned on commercial areas" in central Paris. It's highly mixed.
The problem is really for residents of a single building when that building is pretty much turned into a hotel with people coming and going all the time because of AirBnb flats.
There is an element of truth, though, in claiming that hotels do not like the competition from AirBnb. Case in point, tourists love AirBnb.
The fundamental force at play in a place like Paris is the many millions of people who want to visit every year.
This is not a pro-AirBnB comment, I'm just pointing out gov't probably cares more about the money from hotels than "protecting residents". Same with Uber and Taxi/Transit.
It’s not just housing prices. It’s community and neighborhood. People want to live in a neighborhood with actual people, not a decentralized hotel. I say this as someone who has done short term rentals in Paris—it was nice for me, but I can see how annoying it must be for residents.
I live in a small five apartment building. Two flats were remodelled at the beginning of 2020 for airbnb. That did not work out because of covid. The owner of one flat then decided to live there herself and she is a nice neighbor (the other flat is still empty).
Exactly. The apartment complex I'm in rents out some apartments on AirBnB, including the one directly above me. The direct impact is only that it gets vacuumed far more often than a normal tenant would (between each AirBnB usage, about twice a week), increasing the noise. The indirect impact is that I do not have an opportunity to say hello to neighbors, ask how they are doing, send excess baked goods, etc. If a long-term neighbor is being loud, you can rely on that relationship to ask for quiet. If a short-term neighbor is being loud, you have no relationship with them, so you need to instead escalate to the management, who may or may not enforce noise limits at all.
Most short term rentals in apartment complexes are actually against the rental contract of the building. Thus you probably have a very strong hand when you deal with a noisy host. I would still be nice to stay friends with a neighbor, but if vacuuming bothers you and you ask the host to limit vacuuming to certain hours of the day he will likely jump to do your bidding. My 2c.
The way to fix that is to bring back effective covenants. Covenants were neutered in the US under the guise of the civil rights movement; the government explicitly wanted to stop people from deciding what kind of neighborhood they wanted to live in, because most people want to live with their own ethnic group.
I wonder if this argument holds less weight now that people in blocks of flats in some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago -- in Helsinki for instance it is a faux pas to speak to one's neighbours, and some even claim that politeness demands you check through the peephole that the hallway is empty before going out, so you don't bump into a neighbour and make him/her uncomfortable. Plus, there must be a greater turnover of tenants these days due to study and job mobility, so why bother trying to build relationships.
Like when the Amsterdam city center, in addition to made in china pot leaf trinket stores, all of the sudden was overrun with Nutella Ice Bakery waffel stores, peddling some vague idea that tourists have about waffles and Nutella being local culture, making these businesses completely irrelevant to locals.
>"I wonder if this argument holds less weight now that people in blocks of flats in some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago -- in Helsinki for instance it is a faux pas to speak to one's neighbours, and some even claim that politeness demands you check through the peephole that the hallway is empty before going out, so you don't bump into a neighbour and make him/her uncomfortable."
What evidence is there that people in "some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago"? I can't speak for Helsinki but honestly the behavior you describe sounds borderline pathological. I've lived in many cities around the world and would not describe that as common.
Apparently the travelers don't want that because they can't role play being a local. Though in Paris the hotels are, apartments and business are all mixed together in the same areas
Indeed. There's a neighborhood in New Orleans called the Bywater. Traditionally it has been a working class neighborhood. A large percentage of people who worked in the service industry lived and congregated there. They were largely displaced by AirBnBs and AirBnB guests who "wanted to live like a local." The endless parade of guests getting in and out of Ubers with their phone in one hand and a rolling suitcase in other does little to convey any sense of community and neighborhood.
I understand, but in context, I feel this supports rather than negates my original post.
I understand the "decentralized hotel" problem. But, this seems to come up with fiery enthusiasm in the context of housing affordability constantly. Ultimately, affordability is a bigger problem then neighborhood character.
No one gets this fired up about sidewalks, business licensing, speed limits, parking and everything else that makes up neighborhood character.
People were complaining that central Paris was unaffordable before AirBnb, and they will still complain after AirBnb.
Highly sought after locations will always be unaffordable to most, but politicians cannot admit this fact (at least publicly) so they will continue to discuss the issue ad vitam aeternam, and obviously pressure groups will have a job for life.
That being said, I think people mostly complain about AirBnb because it turns their building into a hotel with people coming and going all the time.
In a healthy housing market like the one I own a rental property in, long-term rental is a margin business while you have mortgage and taking to account wear and tear etc and encourages properties being kept in family friendly sizes and year round accommodation for people who need to live and work locally.
The airbnb model allows you to have much larger margins while the property empty for periods of time, promotes splitting properties into multiple smaller units to extract higher margin per sq ft and removes property from the market for locals.
I would support Airbnb if it encouraged the couch-surfing model more. As in, the owners live on the property full time and have an extra room or couch they'll willing to lend out, with extra amenities to make it worth some amount of money. Deviating from this quickly devolves into the current situation.
Yea, I've been mostly trying to stay in this sort of situation more now. There's times where I want the experience and spacial efficiency of Airbnb (A way to stay in a part of town close to friends/an event that don't live in a normal touristy area with hotels.) but I get that even if I'm responsible/quiet, it's not great to support the owners that aren't in the community.
I often find that the hosts who are renting out rooms/beds in their house are often far more interesting and fun people, and it's usually cheaper anyway. Obviously there's plenty of reasons that's suboptimal for a lot of people, but if it works for you, I'd recommend it.
- Airbnbs are generally concentrated in touristy urban areas - places that are pricey to begin with. Or spaces that did not make for good apartments (small mother-in-laws, basement conversions). Airbnbs are not displacing inventory on the low end of the market, and potentially bring new inventory to the market.
- Airbnbs rarely sit empty. The market is pretty efficient, and you can have the same occupancy year round, just at reduced rates (in winter months, it may even be cheaper than renting an equivalent unit).
- Splitting properties into multiple smaller units is a good thing. The fact that there are square footage requirements for apartments but not short term rentals is a zoning failure.
I think the takeaway should be that rental markets are very inefficient, and Airbnb reveals a lot of pent up demand.
Not GP. I agree with all of your points but I think it’s realistic for property owners to want to not live near Airbnbs. Especially on the lower end of the Airbnb market.
This is a nuanced issue, but as someone who used to famously defend Airbnb, etc, i feel the consequences are very real.
I was briefly in Amsterdam renting in an old wooden building (it was a nice place).
Anyway, the noise from surrounding Airbnb rentals just ended up wrecking it for me and I left the city as it was a city wide problem. Summer was just...noisy.
All night tourists were loudly coming and going, it really sucked and at the time it was a huge problem for Amsterdam residents.
Let me tldr; it for you. AirBnB enables companies or individuals to buy up or lease small apartments in nice neighborhoods or building and turn it into a hotel. That pushes out people who actually need or want to live in that neighborhood. In addition, the AirBnB "guests" are quite frequently exhibit awful boorish behavior . I know of apartment buildings in downtown Toronto which became unsafe for families thanks to AirBnB guests. I would not have a problem if the AirBnB host lived in the same apartment as the one they are listing on AirBnB but that is not what is happening. Instead AirBnb enable unscrupulous people to set up hotels in residential neighborhoods without shouldering any responsibilities of a hotel.
AirBnB is fucking cancer!
The answer is clearly yes. Being able to convert apartments to short term rentals for tourists while bypassing the whole legislation in place does reduce housing availability. For example, you are supposed to build an apartment equivalent to the one you are converting to a tourism rental in a lot of cities in France.
Airbnb does not enforce that and was a way for dodgy companies to bypass the law.
This won't force affordable housing issues which are a much bigger problem, but airbnb did create a gray market area and it does make sense to regulate it.
The only way to increase the housing supply is to destroy old buildings (that make Paris what it is) and to build Hongkong-style towers instead (which nobody wants).
I feel like someone first decides on a destination and then decides on where to stay. I don't think a sizable portion of travelers prioritize staying in an apartment or private home over visiting Paris.
While true, one thing to consider is that, if renting an apartment that sleeps 4 is cheaper than renting two otherwise similar hotel rooms that sleep 2, that means the travelers have more money to spend while they're there.
Is this significant to matter to the other tourism industries in Paris? That I don't know... Does it outweigh the issues people have with AirBNB? Probably not...
For a period I was a digital nomad and stayed in a few cities for ~1 month each. Airbnb allowed us to immerse ourselves in the local neighborhoods and get a real feel for the places. If I had to stay in a hotel for that same period I probably would have chosen a different destination.
We just went to París (in the time before...) and staying in an Airbnb.
We probably wouldn’t have gone if there’d only been hotels available. We have a child who needs her own room and it’s just such a massive pain figuring that out with a hotel.
Airbnb means we can get her in bed and have an evening together sitting in the lounge and making food in the kitchen without worrying about where in the hotel a baby monitor will reach, or whatever weird things come up after the photos from the hotel room turn out to be completely fictitious as usual.
Just like Uber VS minicabs and Amazon VS other online shops - the reason people like the new thing is mostly because the old thing was TERRIBLE.
When I am traveling alone, I seldom care if I stay in an apartment or a hotel. In fact I often lean towards hotels as a single room is just fine and its conveniences convenient.
But when I am with a family, especially coming from a different time zone (when someone will wake in a middle of the night and wants to read for an hour), an apartment makes a huge difference for me. Visit Paris once -- sure, even if I have to stay in a cramped room. Deciding on where to go for a quick weekend side trip with a family -- availability of Airbnb-style lodging may be a deciding factor. My 2c.
We definitely look at the accommodations while looking at a place to travel to. If it’s too expensive, we won’t go. Airbnb is significantly less expensive than hotels for many places. We couldn’t even get a damn hotel when we tried to visit Rome. (Short of them being $300+/night, way out of our budget)
If the only thing available is extremely expensive hotels (especially if they’re not even giving you anything for that cost) then we skip on the location. We just don’t have the money for it.
Accommodation cost is the primary heuristic I use for travel. I have a personal model for places to go, and I actually prefer going to places with lower prices because the most expensive places are often just tourist traps. The places with lower prices and decent amenities but fewer tourist destinations tend to be the places that I enjoy the most.
As a digital nomad we almost always look at accommodation before deciding to go somewhere and it's mostly always AirBnB, since hotels don't have the facilities we need.
When we plan a trip we pull out the bucket list of places we want to go, then pick the week and finally look at prices.
If 4 nights in a hotel is going to cost twice as much in a certain city compared to somewhere else on the list it probally isn't getting picked that trimester.
I feel like someone first decides on a destination and then decides on where to stay.
That's true for me. I do use Airbnb, as I like to cook my own meals when traveling (dietary restrictions), but Airbnb availability has never been a major determinant of where I go. Recent trips have been 60-70% Airbnb, usually mixed within a vacation.
For Paris, I'd be fine either way. We used a hotel in London and Rome. Airbnb in Florence and Reykjavik.
Edit - both Florence and Reykjavik were apartments that very well could have been residential. Heart of downtown and all that. Neither were cheap, both were on par with mid-range hotels. Portree, Scotland was another home that likely was removed from long-term rental (or owner occupied) market.
Other Airbnb stays included St Micheals (MD, USA) in a historic home. Mt Rogers wilderness (VA, USA) in a purpose built tiny cabin. And outside Stornoway, Scotland in a crofter's cottage, where the owner lived in a new build home on the same site (and the rental was the original cottage). I don't feel like any of these would impact the local long-term rental market, but could be wrong.
Possibly it has a mild negative effect, but it's positive for practically everyone who _lives_ in Paris. Cities are generally predominantly places for people to live and work, not theme parks for tourists.
Government regulations protecting small group of people and vested interests at costs to most other residents have contributed to this.
The government is omnipresent. It restricts the supply through various mechanisms among which are these regulations, and subsidizes the demand. The result is skyrocketing rents and prices.
With Bay Area rents and low wages, I asked colleagues how people afford their lives in Paris. Apparently, people share, have inherited apartments, use government assigned buildings etc.
French might benefit from a healthier more rational (rather than idiological) look at the market economy vs central planning.
Note: I know this view is not politically correct and popular in EU, but I thought I would mention it nevertheless. Replacing textbook economy with ideology won’t be beneficial for French. At least listen to what your Nobel prize winners in economy and experts in policy are saying (Tirole etc).
What does your comment have to do with companies listing illegal short stay rents? Nothing.
Rent is going up in every big city on the planet. It has nothing to do with any government policy, much more to do with ultra rich people and other funds using real-estate as a safe "investment", because they are well aware that the stock market valuations are mostly bullshit propped up by fake money.
but the thing is government policy CAN make a difference for just the situation you described, like increasing property taxes on investment properties. Berlin is an example where government has mostly successfully kept rents stable, or a least a lot more stable that most other cities.
But the question I always wonder is what's so special about hotels that they get to build dozens or hundreds of apartments but don't have to put them on the market? It seems like there is a lot of problems baked into zoning, and it doesn't seem fair to punish Airbnb owners who are playing arbitrage.
I lived right next to a hotel. So, maybe not literally on the same ground but they can be built right next to your place.
I would never get an apartment next to a hotel. The idling diesel buses were obnoxious. Along with all the people who would smoke outside and yell and scream. Kinda ridiculous.
I haven’t had to live next to a permanent airbnb apartment though.
It's easy for a city to limit the number of hotels being built to limit the number of annoyed residents like you, if they want to.
It's not as easy to limit the number of apartments being used as airbnbs, because at time of sale or even city zoning, they're just regular apartments.
So it's not about whether one is more annoying than the other, it's about controlling the amount of each.
Arguably the pressures of increased cost is distributed exponentially, so the whatever the top of the market can tolerate puts a compounded level of stress/pressure downstream on society.
> It seems like there is a lot of problems baked into zoning
Talk about an understatement. The use of zoning, as far as I can tell, became a frenzy to use this tool to solve every pet problem. Lack of parking, businesses too loud near residences, blocking light, enforcing neighborhood character or feel, keeping "those people" out of your neighborhood, etc.
The end result is that zoning is just paralysis for urban development. You have a ton of funding to get through the zoning board and get exceptions for breaking the rules and to grease some wheels, or you don't build period.
I think a more free and more reasonable approach is like what you find in japan, where (as far as I can tell) it is both very easy to get approval for construction in a wide range of common projects and also very easy to convert a living space to a hotel space. While I was in Japan, i spent a few nights in a "standard" hotel (fancy highrise building with a nice lobby and so on), and a few nights in what was basically just a fairly large house in a desirable area converted into a ryokan-style hotel, with a few rooms downstairs where they served breakfast for guests every morning (it was delicious, by the way).
It wasn't peak tourist season, so the rates were ridiculously affordable for a fashionable and touristy region of a fashionable and touristy developed country.
I believe Houston, TX has no zoning laws either. You can find high rises right next to houses and you can have an auto repair shop in the middle of a suburban neighborhood.
That's true (houston gets a lot of the same restrictions in other ways, but indeed not from zoning), my point of view was more from the standard Big Expensive Coastal City like the one I live in
> The story of Houston’s land-use policies is a lot more complicated than “no zoning.” In reality, Houston is a big mixture of ordinances, policies, tactics by neighborhoods, and independent efforts by nonprofits, all of which play a role in determining how land is used. Whether or not the lack of zoning and the use of these other tools add up to a more equitable city or a city where the affluent are protected is open to debate.
[...]
> 3. A complicated development code that contains everything you’d expect except use zoning — and, in some cases, density and height restrictions as well — and drives applicants crazy just like the development code in many other cities.
Hotels are specifically sited to keep the nuisance of short term visitors away from residents.
If people are staying for a short term they don’t have much incentive to keep the place nice. You can call the cops and they’ll get a warning the first time but that doesn’t matter when they will fly out of the jurisdiction next morning.
Hah, that's funny. I had a horrible night at a hotel in Ireland, where the room next door was partying and the attendant was just powerless to stop it (he tried).
So I'm sure you can imagine what happens in places where there isn't even an attendant to try, and the rest of the building is not other hotel guests having a potential lousy night but people's actual homes.
Oh absolutely, and we had an experience in London where the apartment upstairs was used for a party while we were there and the landlord, who owned both apartments didn't care, wouldn't take responsibility.
Hotels in the US by far do not have security. It depends how large the hotel. Typically, places with large meeting spaces or banquet halls with a few hundred rooms and bars/restaurants will have security.
But your typical mid market hotel in the ~80 room to ~160 room range like Hampton Inn, Residence Inn, or Holiday Inn Express will not have any security, or anyone on property other than 1, maybe 2 people working the front desk. And they certainly aren't going to do anything other than call the police if something happens.
And the police may also choose not to do something if they don't feel like doing anything.
In Paris hotels have been extremely tightly regulated for a long time. The original system of 1-5 stars originated there, and was a government-mandated scale based on very specific criteria of quality and facilities. Lots of sharp practice by hotel-owners is outlawed. For example, hoteliers are not allowed to 'bundle' meals with overnight stays. This stops them selling meals of worse quality or higher price than cafes and restaurants. Given the regulation, it seems fair for them to expect that the authorities will crack down on unregulated competitors.
You might argue the pros and cons of the regulation, but it's clear that over the last 100 years, Paris is known as a great place to visit, and the availability of decent and decently priced accommodation has been very successful for the city as a whole, not just its landlords.
> But the question I always wonder is what's so special about hotels that they get to build dozens or hundreds of apartments but don't have to put them on the market?
Your average hotel room (at least in a large city) is much smaller than anything that would be permitted as a habitable apartment in most jurisdictions. The hotel also insulates residents from tourists, and hotels often have planning constraints intended to further reduce tourist nuisance (for instance, they may not be allowed have externally facing balconies).
And planning authorities can consider local needs; if you give planning for an apartment block you expect it to be used for housing, if you give planning for a hotel (or aparthotel) you expect it to be used for tourism. Airbnbs tend to break that model a bit.
I understand that this definitely helps some vested interests (hotel industry, for instance), but the issue transcends a discussion of hotels vs. Airbnb and the cost of housing.
I've had the displeasure of living in an apartment building that was used partially for long-term tenants (of which I was one) and short-term Airbnb guests. The experience was terrible. Constant noise, incredibly inconsiderate people leaving trash everywhere, etc. The interesting thing is the short-term units weren't cheap; they were actually rather expensive. So it wasn't as though we were getting a bunch of college partier types; they were typically young professionals. Given how unpleasant it was, I can't imagine how bad it would be if the quality of guests had been different.
The building was a large house that had been divided into a number of units. I spoke to some of our neighbors (who owned their homes, they were not renting units like we were) and they expressed the difficulty they'd had with the short-term guests in our building. It had been years of calling the police, legal action, etc. The people I spoke with seemed pretty reasonable; they wanted a quiet neighborhood where their kids could play. They didn't enjoy finding drugs in the drive way and urine all over their property.
Airbnb, in my opinion, definitely has a detrimental effect on communities. Even if the guests are nice, if some large fraction of the population is turning over daily, that necessarily takes away from the community.
Everyone I've talked to in Madrid has had the same experience you describe.
Neighbor communities ("comunidad de vecinos", akin to a homeowner's association) are enshrined by Spanish law and I believe they can act against the AirBnBization of buildings in some cases, but further EU-level protection for locals are more than welcome.
I own in a building that used to be rampant with AirBnb rentals. Once we had enough owners to vote on new bylaws we reduced short term rentals dramatically. From do as you want, to 30 days, and now 6 months. I used to not mind Airbnb and was a long time proponent. But the edge cases aren't even edge cases anymore.
Just within the last few days one of the more popular buildings in our neighborhood had a shooting. The owners and tenants are absolutely pissed. Because at $3000+/month this is not how they wanted to live. That building management company was fired and a new one brought in. With armed security now.
The straw for me was the variability of the owners. If I get a substandard hotel room I call the desk and get moved to another suite. If I have a substandard Airbnb I only get a refund. I'm still left scrambling to find new, last minute accommodations.
Not even a refund sometimes. If you look at the 30+ day Airbnb rentals their policy is "full refund, except for the first 30 days." I had to be really careful to pick a place that had good reviews because I wouldn't be able to get much back.
If there are problems with the place, like that it looks like shit you are going to ultimately win the chargeback dispute, but it's annoying regardless. And of course the Airbnb dispute resolution process is complete garbage designed to annoy the user enough so that they give up. Gotta get those numbers up, right?
Datapoint of just one: I had one AirBnB disaster as a renter. Support did initially steer me towards a compromise (to accept the place with a reduction in rent) but as soon as I persisted, they agreed to a full refund (including the platform fee). It wasn't a difficult experience at all.
I was on my own to find a place to stay, but it was Vegas, so that was trivial.
> I was on my own to find a place to stay, but it was Vegas, so that was trivial.
I was in the south of France during peak vacation season. Every hotel in this small town was booked. With a toddler who was visibly worried and extremely tired. To put it conservatively, it was a fucking nightmare.
> Once we had enough owners to vote on new bylaws we reduced short term rentals dramatically. From do as you want, to 30 days, and now 6 months.
is this really a good thing? once you start banning rentals in the 1-6 month range, you are no longer just targeting tourists. you're also hurting folks without stable jobs who can't commit to a typical lease length.
How many are in this category though? It seems like a minority case and any decent job which may require relocation or unpredictable permanence offers moving assistance that handles breaking leases.
> It seems like a minority case and any decent job which may require relocation or unpredictable permanence offers moving assistance that handles breaking leases.
first of all, this is pretty uncommon outside of relatively high-paying professional gigs. the average person's idea of a "decent job" is probably quite different from mine or yours. also not all leases have a buy-out clause. you might be on the hook for the entire remaining term of the lease, which, on the margin, can change a new employer's willingness to pay. I actually just had this situation with my previous roommate. we had just signed a new one-year lease when he got an offer. they almost declined to pay out his share of 11 months' rent when they learned there was no buyout clause. this was a tech company hiring him as an SWE.
I don't know what share of short-term renters are doing it out of necessity, but I do have several friends that are in this position. I'll use one of them as an example. he dropped out of school with about a year's worth of credits left, so most white-collar positions are not on the table for him. he currently works in a restaurant, but he has a worsening health condition that makes this a short term option at best. he's trying to get into a trade that would be at least a little better for his health, but not having a lot of luck at the moment. basically he needs to be ready to get up and go at a moments notice to anywhere he can find better work.
It's a good question and a hard one to answer. Many factors could contribute to needing under 1 year leases. I don't have a good answer, but you can look at your local leases. Near me on apartments.com, the 'short-term' category is ~40% of all the listings. Drilling down a bit into some of those categories, 3 month leases seem to be the lowest, outside of month-to-month leases.
My area may be an outlier, it is covid time afterall. But 40% is not an outlier, especially when it has an option in a drop-down menu.
When the larger property manager companies offer short leases (3 - 6 mos) the monthly price is usually higher to 'recover' the cost of more frequent unit turns (Thanks to 'revenue management' from companies like YieldStar). These options aren't really intended for people on the edge, since applicants still need to pass the same credit screening requirements which are usually based on income to rent ratio.
There are already extended stay hotels serving this market. I've used them myself several times for work that only lasted a couple months and they were fine.
The average rent starts at $2500/mo here. That is $7500/mo gross single or $3700/person/mo combined income. Folks without stable jobs would have been weeded out long ago, unfortunately.
I'm glad it worked out for you, but this is one of the main reasons I escaped condo life and will never, ever go back to living in one or in any place with a HOA. The idea that Nosey Karen 5 doors down can actually vote to prevent me from doing something legal in a house I own... well, it's just not for me.
If I could get a place without an HOA I'd do it in a heartbeat. But finding a home is all about compromises. Our realtor when we met I gave him my requirements. so he showed me those homes I could afford without an HOA. And they were rough in some really rough places. My other option is to move to an unincorporated part of the city, >2hr commute.
I'm active on the board and didn't want to get into the fight over Airbnb. But once we saw how much we were paying in additional security, insurance claims, and police and fire calls enough was enough. We've had robberies, suicides, and overdoses. I've got a great flat, it's downtown, looks out onto the bay and South beach. I'd love to put it on Airbnb, from time to time. I also know the juice simply is not worth the squeeze. You only need to get 1 bad visitor who trashes your place or gets into a fight with the neighbors.
But I fight tooth and nail against new bylaws. We have a good board. Most of the resident owners are young professionals, we make it known we'd rather not have an HOA so the HOA tries not to be visible.
This type is of stuff is why cities have zoning, and I feel like all this Airbnb discussion is just people realizing why things were like they were.
As a tourist who occasionally used Airbnb myself, of course I enjoy it but it’s not like I couldn’t enjoy a hotel. I completely understand why it’s bad for communities. There must be some middle ground to be reached here, but when in doubt, I would err on the side of communities, not the Airbnb property owners; the negative impact it has on communities is far worse than the positive impact it has on tourism.
I guess as a tourist with a family, it's completely different. Hotels suck for small kids. Having a room with a door that can close, and a space outside is such a massively different experience than a hotel room.
Thankfully more hotels have realized this and seen where ABB was winning. At least around western Europe it is ever more common to have kitchen, baby cots, suites without dangerous staircases, patios/gardens/baby-pools etc. Once kids are >=5, they can sit and dine in restaurants, enjoy buffets, etc, so the classic hotels become comfortable again.
Maybe I'm privileged? I don't want to sound tone deaf if I am, but hotels have always been fine for my family on short trips. Kids and all. It's not that long, for me a max of a few days. Typically, even for other families max would be maybe 2 or 3 weeks. Normally much shorter than that. I don't think having to use hotels for short term stays is all that inconvenient.
I confess to using apartments for long term rentals. The last time we were in Paris, I took an apartment for the 3 months of the summer through a service that's something like airbnb. That was better for the kids. But that's also longer term stuff.
Hotels are honestly not all that terrible for short term family stays. If you have to go somewhere in France long term, airbnb would likely still be available to you.
How old are your kids?
Mine go to sleep at 7:30, and sleep for 12 hours. It's pretty well impossible to do that when you're all in the same room. There's also no room for play in a hotel room without bouncing off the walls.
It's fine sure, but being able to rent something different is a much more enjoyable experience for my family. Especially if we were going to meet someone somewhere and can do a shared accommodation.
I think this talk of "community" is a bunch of hogwash. People living in cities don't have communities, they barely know each other.
What they are really protesting is being unable to afford rising rent, which is caused by a lack of apartments, which is somewhat exacerbated by Airbnb, but zoning laws have a far bigger impact.
The same people who can't afford the rent anymore wouldn't want to live in (or next to) a highrise though, so the zoning laws still make sense.
This is pretty true for very high-density buildings in North American cities. It might be less true in lower-density areas in North America, and the rest of the world in general.
I don't know why you say that. People that live in a place get involved in local things. Events, meet ups, classes. Vacationers don't do that, they might drop in, but they're not a regular person showing up.
As a digital nomad I live my life in AirBnBs (with the exception of the occasional hotel and housesit). Over the last 2 years I have stayed in ~20-30 AirBnBs in Asia and Europe (we were going to do the Americas this year...alas).
Without AirBnB I don't know how we would be able to live as digital nomads. Hotels are not acceptable because they lack kitchens and laundries (and laptop friendly workspaces).
I understand that we're not the normal tenants, we stay for weeks to months, recycle when possible and rarely if ever make any noise that would irritate other tenants. But I like to think we're not detrimental (I understand this is a little #NotAllMen).
Interestingly, AirBnB is far from a perfect solution for us either (some of the AirBnBs we've stayed at have been absolutely shit). But one of the things the we value as digital nomads is living as the locals live (or as close as possible). Going to the supermarket, living outside the old town.
As far a bad tenants go, before we left Australia we owned an apartment in a fairly average apartment block. There was a council flat within the block, and the tenant was nothing but trouble. Leaving rubbish and furniture around the property. Drinking to excess. Having raging arguments with associates. It does not take AirBnB to have problems with other parties within an apartment block.
(None of this is necessarily negates what you say, just an interesting counter point)
Edit: I would love to know why people are downvoting?
I'm pretty sure there is a lot of options other than Hotels that would cover your needs, that existed long before Airbnb.
Just to name a few you can stay in aparthotels , a common thing in almost every country, or you can just rent a regular apartment directly with the owner, instead of doing it through Airbnb.
IMO Airbnb does more bad than good and transform centric areas of big cities in amusement park for the tourist.
> you can just rent a regular apartment directly with the owner, instead of doing it through Airbnb
AirBnB actually solves a lot of this problem, though. I can't imagine the difficulty of finding 20-30 different, independent, 1-month apartment stays directly with the apartment owners, dealing with security deposits and short-term leases, etc.
They're a directory/marketplace/availability clearinghouse. They're an intermediary. They're a payment processor. They provide ratings and reviews. They provide some miniscule level of support.
It might be the case that AirBnB is more bad than good, but I think it's at least a little unreasonable to suggest "you can just rent a regular apartment directly with the owner" for the digital nomad case.
It's easy enough to filter to self-catering apartments on booking.com. My partner and I generally stay self-catering wherever we go, we prefer the comfort of an apartment over the amenities that a hotel is able to provide.
I agree there are many other AirBnB competitors. If AirBnB went away 100% and these competitors stepped in to fill that gap, I'm not sure the neighborhood impact is reduced by much. I mean, I've rented on vrbo, homeaway, booking, expedia, and airbnb.
Regardless of which platform I booked on, I'm the same tourist when I show up.
I don't know anything about vrbo and homeaway, but booking and expedia do not eskew local tourism regulations, AFAIK. That's one of the problems with AirBnB.
Yep that's true. Though I have stayed in some really bad aparthotels, that are just not livable when you stay in them for a month (tiny studios, with barely a kitchen).
As far as renting from a regular owner, I think the hard thing about that is discovery.
Imagine that you are moving every two months, and you need it down to a standardized process? Here's an example to try: Rent a furnished apartment in Washington DC from April 13th 2021 to June 17th 2021. This is trivial in Airbnb. How would you do it?
> just rent a regular apartment directly with the owner
In a lot of countries the rental market is broken and prevents this. I've had this issue in the UK when I needed to move to London on very short notice after getting a job offer (and didn't have enough money saved up to afford a month's worth of hotel until I sort things out).
I had enough money to pay a deposit and a couple months worth of rent, so all of that paid upfront plus the employment contract should be enough to make most landlords happy.
The problem? The rental market around here seems monopolized by agencies and they all had referencing/application fees which means that even if I agree to pay the fee and take the risk of losing the fee if I get rejected I still wouldn't be able to get the flat quickly (my objective was to pay 2 months + deposit upfront and get the keys the same day). If I wanted to mitigate the risk of being rejected it would mean I need to apply to multiple properties at once, paying them a referencing fee to each (which I guess I'd lose if I back out even if I end up accepted).
Airbnb took my money no questions asked and I had a place to sleep on the same day. I'm still in that place 3 years later (paying direct now obviously)! I hate Airbnb for other reasons, but there definitely is a need for a better short-term rental system.
Well said, I am similar. Ive traveled and lived in airbnbs for a total of 3 years, ive always tried to be a good neighbor. I despise hotels and love what airbnb built. I hope they can figure out a middle ground to make this work.
As an experienced AirBNB customer, what do you do when a unit goes bad and your out in the street? Do you just eat the extra high cost of booking the same night somewhere else?
I don't think I've had one go bad so as to not have a bed for the night. Having one go bad 2 days before you arrive and having to rebook, or having one that is really bad that you just can't stay at any longer (and then yes, you eat the high cost).
I had one experience where we walked away the next day and opened a support ticket due to misrepresentation and a landlord who was mentally unwell and scary. AirBNB dragged their feet a little but did refund us fully within 24 hours. In that case I just booked something new and it was all good.
I agree with a lot of your points, AirBnB has just made it much more accessible (they're not alone just the point)
Regarding living like the locals live, of course it's not exact. For example, knowing the language matter a lot, but it's a very different experience to staying in a Hotel in the middle of the old town. Many cities that get rave tourist reviews are not near as nice if you don't stay in the tourist quarter (for example).
You being nice and enjoying a service that is a pain in the ass for a loooot of people doesn't change the fact that it still is a pain in the ass for a lot of people. "digital nomad" issues are high on the list of first world problems too, the vast majority of people living next to these airbnbs can't afford to be digital nomad and escape their hell.
Come to Berlin and our party airbnbs if you want a taste, bring an umbrella, condoms are literally raining from the sky around these. It's even worse now that clubs are closed due to covid.
Yep, though in the context of this article AirBnB is just the biggest target. The problems that people are complaining about (justly) are no different if the short-term rental offered on Booking.com.
I didn't downvote, but your post seems to come from a place of privilege. It puts your comfortable, posh 'digital nomad' touristy lifestyle as something that is worth sacrificing others' lives for. Oh no, you might have to stay in a hotel or long-stay vacation home instead of a short-term rental. Imagine the discomfort.
To me, if you visit some place, you do as the locals wish - after all, their way of life built the place you're visiting in the first place.
That's some good context, and I am absolutely privileged to be able to travel, though it's not some unobtainable goal, it is very possible to keep to a budget similar to renting at home (in Australia).
The important thing is actually to be able to work remotely, which has become much more common this year.
I'm conflicted on this one and can see both sides. The "if you visit some place, you do as the locals wish" is a bit of a slippery slope.
It's hard to understand the nuances of a culture. I've been living in Colombia for 5 years. It took me a couple years to understand the subtleties of Paisa Spanish and another year to really start understanding the culture. Visitors need years to understand what the locals want. And no, you can't simply ask them what they want... that doesn't work in indirect communication / "que pena" cultures.
Flipping this around, I'm from New York and certainly don't want tourists to do what I want when they're in my home town. They can do whatever they want.
As a gajin, no matter if tourist or foreign resident, you will never grasp the nuances of Japanese culture in detail.
But you don't have to. You just need to understand and respect the basics. Be polite, respect customs, take your shoes of, when appropriate and you will feel welcome.
It may be a lot harder if you live there and you'll probably never be really accepted.
But not running into cultural disasters is fairly easy to avoid.
I don't know much about Japanese culture, but I've heard some bars / restaurants don't even allow foreigners to enter, so I agree with your premise that being accepted depends on the culture.
From what I've observed in Latin America, lots of foreigners commit big cultural faux pas without even realizing it. The standard American way of closing a car door is considered extremely rude in Colombia. Most foreigners leave a taxi, close the door as they usually would, and walk off without noticing the locals are offended. That'll surely vary by culture too.
>> I don't know much about Japanese culture, but I've heard some bars / restaurants don't even allow foreigners to enter, so I agree with your premise that being accepted depends on the culture.
That's true. From my experience for two reasons:
Either they really don't want foreigners in their place. For example: in a hostess bar that caters to Japanese salary men you are not welcome as a foreigner.
The other reason is that they are afraid that they could offend you by not living up to your expectations, since they assume that you're unable to make yourself understood, and that they could lose face in the process since they won't make you happy.
You're porobably not interested in establishments that don't want to cater to you. And if option B happens then you just thank them, bid good bye and find some other place. What you don't do is raise a stink. That would embarass everybody, be unhelpful and lead nowhere.
There's a plus side to the hard communication part too. That's if you're adventurous and eat everything:
You go into any restaurant that catches your fancy (and it's hard to find a bad place just about anywhere in Japan. Frankly, it never happened to me) indicate that you want to eat and probably frighten them.
Then what you do is smile at the chef and announce: Omakase![1] (literally: I leave it up to you).
After he serves you something (which is usually incredible tasting food) you get to the most important part: You take a few bites, small at the chef and announce: Oishi! (delicious) You can repeat this a few times during your meal.
See, the chef is afraid that he could disappoint you and when you signal how much you like it you make him a very happy person. You may leave the place as a friend and he will be delighted when you return.
What you should never do is asking to exchange things on the menu. That's extremely confusing and very uncommon. If there's anything you can't eat it's a good idea to have a note in Japanese that you can show him.
All those tips are thanks to HNer Mike Charter[2], who wrote some incredible useful tips about Japan (he's a Canadian living there for a long time) and unfortunately stopped posting.
So to cut back to your statement: Yes, there are racist and xenophobic places and people in Japan. But it's not always what it seems. And if your curious and accept things which seem peculiar to us you can experience unbelievable awesomeness in Japan.
> But one of the things the we value as digital nomads is living as the locals live (or as close as possible).
Nah, mate. Nomads living like locals is an oxymoron. It doesn’t come close. I wish Airbnb-ers would stop touting this.
You haven’t seen restaurants come and go. You don’t know the intricacies of local culture and etiquette. If you do speak the language, you don’t speak the lingo. You have never fought with the local municipality over some triviality. You’ve never voted in local elections. There’s no investment from your side. You have no roots in that place. You have no part in that place’s soul and I doubt it has a place in yours. By definition it’s not your home.
If anything, nomads displace people who do want to build a life there.
__Edit__
RE immigrants. I see where that counterargument came from, it may indeed be a fine line. Though it is not what I intended to say. Do note the ”want to build a life there” part.
My line of reasoning is more akin to creating the soul as opposed to leeching off of it.
great point. virtually all AirBnb users espousing "want to live life like the locals" are basically using coded language for "don't want to stay with the 'other' tourists" - as if they are not tourists themselves.
it may also mean that they don't want to pay the hotel prices they see, so in order to sustain their lifestyle financially, they'll find a cheaper place via Airbnb.
I think that's being uncharitable to travelers. That might be true for some tourists, but I believe there are plenty of travelers who have honest anthropological curiosity about the cultures of the places where they're visiting. And that's a good thing.
The problem is that policy around short term rentals is agnostic to the renter's intentions. There's no real way I can think of to enforce "conscientious renters only" without also creating a system that gives too much leverage to badly intentioned hosts (for lack of a less context-specific word). So on the balance of considerations, and alongside all of the other effects that short stays have on communities, I'm mostly on the side of throwing this particular baby out with the bathwater.
> I think that's being uncharitable to travelers. That might be true for some tourists, but I believe there are plenty of travelers who have honest anthropological curiosity about the cultures of the places where they're visiting. And that's a good thing.
agreed. I don't think airbnb users honestly think they are living "like a local" when they stay somewhere for a few weeks. they just want to stay in a residential area as opposed to a hotel, and see the markets/restaurants that locals would walk to. or they might just want to pay less.
This sounds like what people say about immigrants. They don’t have deep roots or a command of the local lingo either, but they are still “locals” once they are living where locals live, shopping where locals shop, etc.
Nomads, migrants, whatever: if you treat your neighborhood and your neighborhood with respect, that’s what matters.
I live in a foreign country for 10 years, in the same place. I never voted in the local elections (I cannot), never fought with local municipality, but I see it as my home.
You haven’t seen restaurants come and go. You don’t know the intricacies of local culture and etiquette. If you do speak the language, you don’t speak the lingo. You have never fought with the local municipality over some triviality. You’ve never voted in local elections. There’s no investment from your side. You have no roots in that place. You have no part in that place’s soul and I doubt it has a place in yours. By definition it’s not your home.
This sounds like gatekeeping to me. That's almost by definition what an immigrant's life is like until they naturalize, but I'd never tell an immigrant that this place isn't their home.
this sounds like the kind of attitude that makes it hard for any newcomer to settle in a different city or country. how many years does it take before my family is accepted as a local and not treated like an outsider? how long does it take to grow new roots?
the reality is for many that point is never reached. in some places, if you are not born there you are not accepted as a local.
i am not talking about digital nomands, but families with children who move because of a job or because of their kids school or other personal reasons. my family was forced to move 3 times in the past two years, and not because we didn't intend to stay, but because we couldn't.
a friend of mine tried to run a business in a german city and had to give up because the local old boys club would prevent him from getting customers.
this is the attitude that xenophobia is rooted in.
sure, someone staying only for a few days is a tourist, no matter how you turn it, but if someone staying for a few months is still treated like a tourist, then i'd consider that a problem.
I'd say you need to be in a new place for 3+ years to stop being treated as an outsider, assuming you learn the language, get local friends, and adopt the culture in the meantime.
If you can't speak the language and use local expressions, then you'll always be an outsider.
Source: moved to Colombia 5 years ago and took me 3 years to have people say "tu si eres bien Paisa" and "usted es mas Paisa que una arepa". Have seen a small minority of other foreigners get accepted. Most never learn the language / culture enough and will always be outsiders.
> how many years does it take before my family is accepted as a local and not treated like an outsider? how long does it take to grow new roots?
When you start paying taxes and contributing/engaging to the area (working, consuming, giving)
This, quite obviously, varies a lot from place to place - but IMO, if you fill the above points, you're as good as natives. But I think the biggest divider between insiders and outsiders is engagement - if you start engaging in the community, that's the fast-track to getting accepted.
There is truth to the fact that I can't stay everywhere and experience everything, but I have a deeper understanding of the different ways the people live and the different things that communities value than I could ever have dreamed before I left.
It's also true that I can't have the depth of experience that comes with living in a place for years (or your whole life).
I wasn't exactly sheltered before becoming a nomad, but there is a difference in the experience. You do come to understand in at least a small part the differences between even countries/cities that are a few hundred kilometers apart.
I have found myself revisiting places, and finding places that I like the most within a city. Being sad when I leave Sweden because MAX burgers doesn't really exist outside the Nordic countries.
I am slowly learning another language, though that is a long term project. Ich spreche jetzt ein bisschen deutsch
they're suite hotels or what they call extended stays in america. that come with all those amenities. I used to be a proponent of airbnb but then noticed in NY how affordable housing all lost out due to airbnb. so yeah airbnb should be limited to maybe 2 weeks a year for a property.
It's not hard to understand. If permanent housing is taken off the market for AirBnB usage, then the supply of housing for locals is reduced, thereby increasing the cost. Also, I'm going to guess most AirBnb rentals aren't paying the rental tax that most hotels do. (At least here in the US it's common to have a hotel tax).
> It does not take AirBnB to have problems with other parties within an apartment block.
This is important to note. AirBnB is not the "cause" of the problem, but seems to make it easier to cause the problem. Shouldn't they just increase the guest liability?
I'm a strong proponent of "living like the locals" so hope that spirit of AirBnB does not fade away.
> Hotels are not acceptable because they lack kitchens and laundries (and laptop friendly workspaces).
You're looking for an aparthotel (generally purpose-built building with special planning designed for this use-case). Common in many European cities, at least.
Sure, but it's better for a hotel for your case, so it's an option if major cities succeed in abolishing holiday lets (which certainly seems plausible in the medium term).
"To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing."
The trap with AirBnb and urban STR's is the idea that you can live like a native, but the truth is you're not fooling anyone but yourself.
I think this is of course fine, and if you stay for months there should be few issues you are introducing for other people in the buildings etc.
The problem is that airbnb is not sustainable with just these "guests" (I mean is it sustainable at all?). So you are not paying the real price for this service, but are subsidized by they guests that are not wanted.
I suspect we pay a higher price because of the competition for short term rentals in much the same way that it has an impact on rental and for-sale markets.
Assuming it was still possible, without AirBnB we would likely be paying private rental rates on Craigslist/Gumtree.
Both Christmas' and NYE so far we have not stayed in AirBnBs because we get priced out of the market (we have ended up house sitting instead)
of course no one wants an air bnb neighbor. when you own a house and the property next door is a renter that’s worse than an owner there full time. what if a fence needs to be replaced on the property line? you think that owner will care as much? you put so much of your money and value into property that you want everyone around you to do the same. the shared investment makes everyone try a little harder. short term visits or even renters don’t share the investment and don’t care
This is equally true of a apartment block full of long-term tenants (at least in Australia). If none of the owners live there then they have precious little incentive to fix things and the tenants have no power.
Indeed we did, which helps strengthen my point that Airbnb disrupts communities. I put almost a year into living there, trying to get to know my neighbors, establishing relationships with local store owners and employees, etc. I've now left, so now the community has one fewer people in it that actually gave a shit about the place.
The house behind ours in our little community was an AirBnB rental and it was a constant source of issues. Like you said, these weren't lower-income people causing these issues, but young professionals here for outdoor recreation (skiing, mountain biking, etc). There was zero regard for the families living all around them and eventually the town passed a bylaw to deal with short-term rentals.
Long story short, everyone within earshot of this house now hates AirBnB.
I recall one summer probably freshman year in college, we went to the Wisconsin Dells. I was busy flirting with ideas about how I would start my life, so certain topics were on my mind that hadn't thought too hard about before or since.
This whole town is tourism. I wonder what it must be like to live here? I felt vaguely uncomfortable the entire time, until I felt really uncomfortable, in ways that only an angsty 19 year old can manage.
I still have this vignette in my head of this moment in a convenience store. It was one of those counters where the register goes to the depth of the counter, so I'm standing basically face to face with the clerk while my parents are paying to my left. She's about my age, and I'm wondering, is this really what she wants to be doing? Or is this all there is, here? She could be teaching a class or training to be a gardener but she's selling M&Ms to a bunch of self-absorbed tourists who don't even see her, and are just here for the day and will be gone tomorrow. It must suck to date around here, too.
The ride on the Ducks through a bit of nature was by far the high point.
(That is also the only time I've ever witnessed a golden retriever be anything but adorable - threatened to bite me for an abortive attempt at a head pat. Man, fuck the Dells.)
> The whole follow your passions thing is an upper middle class developed world thing.
I'm convinced it's worse advice if you can afford to follow it without tremendous sacrifice or time to save up for it. If you can't afford to do it without long-term planning and commitment, then it's maybe good advice.
People rent airbnb's to do things at where they don't want to do it at their primary residence.
Quality of guests have nothing to do with the noise/etc because that's the specific purpose that people rent airbnb's for - to host parties, do drugs, and basically trash the place.
> People rent airbnb's to do things at where they don't want to do it at their primary residence.
You're totally right. For example, I can't live in Barcelona from my house in Washington State so I'll go rent one there if I want that amenity.
Your claim that people mostly rent Airbnbs to host parties, do drugs, and trash houses requires a citation. I would not be surprised if less than 1/100 of 1% of Airbnb stays are for folks who aim to do any of what you claim.
And Paris is one of the most touristic place on earth, so the pressure to convert long-term rentals in short-term rentals is extreme.
Paris has been testing that detrimental effect for several years now. It is so lucrative that an economy on top of AirBnB, flourished.
I do not know what is the right answer, but for a city like Paris, hotels are probably the most efficient way to deal with the flow of tourists. Maybe AirBnb in src location should buy outright some buildings and convert them in hotels , dedicated to short-term rentals ?
> seemed pretty reasonable; they wanted a quiet neighborhood where their kids could play
This is certainly a valuable thing, I can see why people want it and I support it being available to them. But why are these the only people who seem reasonable? This land use is just as disruptive to the enjoyment of others as "a vibrant city with street life and parties." Why is this preference so privileged over all the others?
Like most things in life, this may boil down to who came first and who holds most of the power? If someone lands in a suburbia and wants to convert it into a dense metropolis because he wants to enjoy city life, existing residents have enough power (and moral high ground) to ask him to fuck off to Manhattan. By the same rule, if someone were to go to Manhattan and wanted a peaceful life with lots of open space, he should move out to suburbs instead of trying to convert Manhattan to his tastes.
Only way a status quo can change is if the newcomers amass enough power to change it.
This was an otherwise quiet residential neighborhood, not particularly close to any attractions. No one is saying that these people who bothered everyone around them were doing something fundamentally wrong. Partying and traveling are great and I do these things as well. However, it is a pretty difficult position to take, in my opinion, that it is okay for short-term guests to come in for a few days to a few weeks, disregard all norms held by those around them and who actually care about the community, and bother everyone while doing so. You do you, but please don't do it in my neighborhood if it is going to disrupt everyone's lives.
If you’ve never been drunk and loud late into the night, are you really living life?
Nightlife districts and rowdy student/yuppie neighborhoods are as essential to the fabric of a city as its sleepy suburbs. If you want to go to one and live a quiet life, that’s fine, but trying to shut down your neighbors’ lives isn’t.
I live in a tourist town and have lived in different tourist towns my whole life (even in other countries) so I'm quite well acquainted with the issues that AirBNB has. Overall, I think it's not a new thing to AirBNB.
I think it's a NIMBY vs YIMBY thing.
Established players in any community have little desire for expansion.
Non-established players in any community have greater incentive to want to see expansion. For the most part, the non established are seeking to become established by filling the niches created by expansion.
Expansion will always have a cost, as well as a benefit. These two are un-evenly distributed and cause tension.
Overall, at least where I live, I know that removing vacation rentals would decrease tourism. As we have seen with COVID, less tourism in a tourist town and city budgets are restricted, services cut and business close. I like to see my little city vibrant and economically healthy, so I support YIMBY projects, even with their necessary negatives. That means I have to put up with unruly-annoying people.
We can't eat our pie and have it at the same time.
> We can't eat our pie and have it at the same time.
We can still talk about the pie, how good the pie is, that they don't make pie like this anymore - anything to distract from the fact that the pie has long been eaten.
Glad to see this. The same thing (to a worse degree) has happened in Athens, where the supply of rental units has diminished to more than 1/3 (with average rents going 2-3x in a 1-2 year period), as landlords converted units to short-term rentals. This is particularly touchy for Greece, as tourism accounts for 25%+ of GDP, so tourist-friendly regulation has a big impact. OTOH, it's a country with one of the lowest average wages in the EU, which means that the rent increases has made the situation unlivable. Example: average net monthly salary is something in the 800-1000 EUR range, with 300EUR renting you something decent 5 years ago. Today, not only it's much harder to find vacant rental units, but their prices have also bumped to 600-700 EUR.
IMO, the best approach to this is similar to what the city of Santa Monica has -- hosts can only rent a room in a property (i.e. no "entire house to yourself"), i.e. similar to the couchsurfing model. I've found this a pleasant experience when visiting a new city, as living with a local can make the stay more personal and enjoyable.
I came to Athens last summer and spent 4 nights in the city staying in an AirBnB style rent. I thought it would be better doing this than giving my money to a generic international hotel chain but you disagree apparently.
I find your solution unworkable personally. When I travel I like to have somewhere private I can come back to after a long day, the coach surfing model doesn't appeal to couples.
Unfortunately, most of the owners of Airbnb and other short-term rentals in Greece are non-Greek citizens who got a "golden passport" in the recent years, buying off a huge chunk of the apartment inventory in Athens and elsewhere.
Re: couch-surfing -- probably a bad metaphor on my end. I meant the "rent a room in a house" model that Airbnb offers.
I had no idea. Thinking back I doubt the place we stayed was ever intended to be a rental, it felt like a very large house which had been portioned up in to 4 flats and a make-shift reception area added.
Cool city but some worrying experiences, might check out some islands next time.
> Unfortunately, most of the owners of Airbnb and other short-term rentals in Greece are non-Greek citizens who got a "golden passport" in the recent years, buying off a huge chunk of the apartment inventory in Athens and elsewhere.
why is this unfortunate? I thought investment is good for economy?
No wonder you hear so much cheering from Skid Row whenever the stock market has a big day. "Things are looking good for GDP growth!" they shout, from their tents.
Then get a hotel. While tourism may be important and economic interests of local residents need to come first and AirBnb and it's like are harming local residents.
off topic: please developers stop hijacking the back button for no reason. It's extremely hostile behaviour and you are getting nothing out of it but contempt from the user. Why does the BBC website needs to do that exactly?
"Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful."
What's in a title? "Paris hails victory". No. The city government of Paris hails a victory. Whether that's a victory for the city and its inhabitants is a very different matter.
Paris could also allow higher buildings in its core too... AirBNB is insignificant in prices compared to that measure.
Banning AirBNB is like banning plastic bags in grocery stores while not do the real things to fight global warming. It's a distraction from the real causes of high rent in Paris.
Just because the losing side isn't yet willing to start shooting people over it doesn't mean that the people who are pro-whatever outnumber the people who are anti-whatever by any margin worth mentioning.
This doesnt seem to be controversial. And TBH i believe the airbnb-airlines-instagram tourism boom party is over. Post covid, with rising unemployment, remote work, and relocation to more livable places, people aren't going to be chasing cheap flights for more selfies.
I'm not sure the tourism boom is over. Addressing your specific points:
* rising unemployment - overall employment is falling, but most digital nomad jobs haven't been impacted
* remote work - this makes it easier to digital nomad (e.g. a NYC dweller that travels for the winter)
* relocation to more livable places - Suppose you relocate from SF to a more "livable" place like Tucson, not sure that'll reduce demand to go to places like Brazil, Europe
I'm typing these words in the Medellin airport. Travelling sucks now. If travelling stays this crappy, then it's likely people will move around less.
Nice, but the vast business of airbnb is for tourism. There will surely be a sizeable market for the remote working population but it's tiny compared to the tourism boom of 2000-2020.
Maybe the time is ripe for change. Time to start a Airbnb competitor that doesn't follow the mantra "growth at all costs", and doesn't put its own revenue stream above the good of society.
> Short-stay specialist Airbnb said it welcomed a decision that "will go to help in clarifying the rules".
Why does that leave me with a feeling that Airbnb now considers itself to be entrenched enough that they are welcoming government regulations which will prevent upstarts from competing with it?
Airbnb has been open about its willingness to work with regulators. They are honest about the fact that they are in a grey area and would like regulators to define the rules. but they also push back to say look, Airbnb is providing a service that is missed in the market so don't be quick to just ban it because hotels hate us.
For reference:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/airbnb-want-to-be-regulated...
Okay, then ban it (at least until tight regulations are enforced well) because locals hate it too. :-)
It guess it's a bit hypocritical for me to say that as I've used airbnb to live in and visit various countries, but I also have seen how inconsiderate and downright rude short term renters can be.
It's good that airbnb wants to be regulated, but bigger businesses can easily deal with tight regulations, whereas it's much harder for small newcomers. -Obviously- Airbnb will prefer policies that gain it public favor while also making it harder for competitors.
As a family of two adults and 3 children we've very much appreciated being able to stay in places where we can cook for ourselves, be able to do laundry, and have space to spread out a bit.
In the US, there are chains like Embassy Suites that work well for families because they have two bedrooms separated by a living/cooking area. The fact that they're typically far outside downtown matters a lot less because we've rented a car.
In Europe, we usually didn't want to rent a car. Having 5 people was a problem with hotels because their typical limit was 4 people to a room. So being able to rent an apartment or house near downtown was wonderful.
If you don't have kids, there's nothing quite like watching your 3 kids refuse to eat the $15/each meal that you ordered. Repeatedly. And have to resort to crackers or chips from a convenience store.
It's going to be interesting to see what the outcome of the pandemic will be. We stayed on a house on a canal in Amsterdam and it was amazing. But you can see why the locals would want that house available to themselves.
This is how my family prefers to travel too. Given our preferences for mountain hiking, we've found apartments to rent during the summer in ski resort towns. Those towns are already set up to handle that kind of rental, and we were doing it long before AirBnB was ever a thing.
Also, longer term rentals made more sense. We could get up and leave at 6 AM for a day long hike without also having to take care of checking out of a hotel and packing our car first.
I can't understand why anybody in their right mind would subject themselves to taking kids to a restaurant. Not only is the expensive food typically wasted, but it takes half of your waking hours getting them in and out of those accommodations.
It's nice that this is your preferred way to travel, but I live in Amsterdam and our city center is ravaged by tourists and the companies that profit off them. Enabling restrictions that limit overtourism, and that actively work to reverse the monoculture and disneyfication of our city are so incredibly important. Your ability to budget travel Europe with a family of five, due to your budget constrains, should not drastically raise rent and house prices. The center should belong to its residents.
Not only do short term rentals like airbnb drive up the prices for regular rent and ownership, but they negatively affect everyone who does manage to afford a spot. Living in an apartment block with one or several airbnbs is awful, destroys the fabric of neighborhoods, and especially introduces plenty of loud guests who don't care about the neighbors within the block.
Airbnb and similar platforms are exploitative of the environments that allow them. Your comfort to travel with a large family for cheap is not defendable against the negative impact on residents.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 239 ms ] threadI just don't think that trade offs between short stay rentals, even airbnb hotels, and rental housing has much of a win in it for renters even if advocates get everything they want. It seems like a marginal, symbolic issue that sucks up a lot of attention without the potential for meaningful results.
Are bans on short term rentals going to noticeably affect housing prices of availability. If not, why are affordable housing activists so interested in this?
The whole thing feels like win hunting.
No, it's mainly to protect residents. The people who actually make a city a city. If you're looking for greed and cash, look to the Airbnb companies that operate hundreds or thousands of rentals.
Hotels are zoned into commercial areas so that they don't ruin residential areas. Airbnb flouts that.
There are places in Chicago where corporations that own fleets of Airbnb buildings bought up half the residential properties on a single block and turned them into Airbnb rentals. It destroyed the quality of life for the people who have put all of their money and time into the neighborhood.
We used to have arguments about whether bitcoin is valuable if everyone didn’t have a chance to mine.
I guess such is capitalism.
The problem is really for residents of a single building when that building is pretty much turned into a hotel with people coming and going all the time because of AirBnb flats.
There is an element of truth, though, in claiming that hotels do not like the competition from AirBnb. Case in point, tourists love AirBnb.
The fundamental force at play in a place like Paris is the many millions of people who want to visit every year.
Of course residents want tourists and visitors to stay in hotels or serviced apartments, and the city to collect taxes.
I live in a small five apartment building. Two flats were remodelled at the beginning of 2020 for airbnb. That did not work out because of covid. The owner of one flat then decided to live there herself and she is a nice neighbor (the other flat is still empty).
What evidence is there that people in "some metropolises have less interest in interacting with their neighbours than decades ago"? I can't speak for Helsinki but honestly the behavior you describe sounds borderline pathological. I've lived in many cities around the world and would not describe that as common.
That's what "zoning" is for.
Maybe the city should just designate a zone / neighborhood for short term rentals and call it a day.
I understand the "decentralized hotel" problem. But, this seems to come up with fiery enthusiasm in the context of housing affordability constantly. Ultimately, affordability is a bigger problem then neighborhood character.
No one gets this fired up about sidewalks, business licensing, speed limits, parking and everything else that makes up neighborhood character.
Highly sought after locations will always be unaffordable to most, but politicians cannot admit this fact (at least publicly) so they will continue to discuss the issue ad vitam aeternam, and obviously pressure groups will have a job for life.
That being said, I think people mostly complain about AirBnb because it turns their building into a hotel with people coming and going all the time.
The airbnb model allows you to have much larger margins while the property empty for periods of time, promotes splitting properties into multiple smaller units to extract higher margin per sq ft and removes property from the market for locals.
Airbnb is a cancer frankly
I often find that the hosts who are renting out rooms/beds in their house are often far more interesting and fun people, and it's usually cheaper anyway. Obviously there's plenty of reasons that's suboptimal for a lot of people, but if it works for you, I'd recommend it.
- Airbnbs are generally concentrated in touristy urban areas - places that are pricey to begin with. Or spaces that did not make for good apartments (small mother-in-laws, basement conversions). Airbnbs are not displacing inventory on the low end of the market, and potentially bring new inventory to the market.
- Airbnbs rarely sit empty. The market is pretty efficient, and you can have the same occupancy year round, just at reduced rates (in winter months, it may even be cheaper than renting an equivalent unit).
- Splitting properties into multiple smaller units is a good thing. The fact that there are square footage requirements for apartments but not short term rentals is a zoning failure.
I think the takeaway should be that rental markets are very inefficient, and Airbnb reveals a lot of pent up demand.
This is a nuanced issue, but as someone who used to famously defend Airbnb, etc, i feel the consequences are very real.
Anyway, the noise from surrounding Airbnb rentals just ended up wrecking it for me and I left the city as it was a city wide problem. Summer was just...noisy.
All night tourists were loudly coming and going, it really sucked and at the time it was a huge problem for Amsterdam residents.
This won't force affordable housing issues which are a much bigger problem, but airbnb did create a gray market area and it does make sense to regulate it.
The only way to increase the housing supply is to destroy old buildings (that make Paris what it is) and to build Hongkong-style towers instead (which nobody wants).
Is this significant to matter to the other tourism industries in Paris? That I don't know... Does it outweigh the issues people have with AirBNB? Probably not...
Paris was not one of the places we stayed though.
We probably wouldn’t have gone if there’d only been hotels available. We have a child who needs her own room and it’s just such a massive pain figuring that out with a hotel.
Airbnb means we can get her in bed and have an evening together sitting in the lounge and making food in the kitchen without worrying about where in the hotel a baby monitor will reach, or whatever weird things come up after the photos from the hotel room turn out to be completely fictitious as usual.
Just like Uber VS minicabs and Amazon VS other online shops - the reason people like the new thing is mostly because the old thing was TERRIBLE.
But when I am with a family, especially coming from a different time zone (when someone will wake in a middle of the night and wants to read for an hour), an apartment makes a huge difference for me. Visit Paris once -- sure, even if I have to stay in a cramped room. Deciding on where to go for a quick weekend side trip with a family -- availability of Airbnb-style lodging may be a deciding factor. My 2c.
We definitely look at the accommodations while looking at a place to travel to. If it’s too expensive, we won’t go. Airbnb is significantly less expensive than hotels for many places. We couldn’t even get a damn hotel when we tried to visit Rome. (Short of them being $300+/night, way out of our budget)
If the only thing available is extremely expensive hotels (especially if they’re not even giving you anything for that cost) then we skip on the location. We just don’t have the money for it.
For less than the hotel 2 blocks away from the Pantheon I got a rental with an actual view of the Pantheon.
When we plan a trip we pull out the bucket list of places we want to go, then pick the week and finally look at prices.
If 4 nights in a hotel is going to cost twice as much in a certain city compared to somewhere else on the list it probally isn't getting picked that trimester.
That's true for me. I do use Airbnb, as I like to cook my own meals when traveling (dietary restrictions), but Airbnb availability has never been a major determinant of where I go. Recent trips have been 60-70% Airbnb, usually mixed within a vacation.
For Paris, I'd be fine either way. We used a hotel in London and Rome. Airbnb in Florence and Reykjavik.
Edit - both Florence and Reykjavik were apartments that very well could have been residential. Heart of downtown and all that. Neither were cheap, both were on par with mid-range hotels. Portree, Scotland was another home that likely was removed from long-term rental (or owner occupied) market.
Other Airbnb stays included St Micheals (MD, USA) in a historic home. Mt Rogers wilderness (VA, USA) in a purpose built tiny cabin. And outside Stornoway, Scotland in a crofter's cottage, where the owner lived in a new build home on the same site (and the rental was the original cottage). I don't feel like any of these would impact the local long-term rental market, but could be wrong.
www.pap.fr
https://www.seloger.com/
Government regulations protecting small group of people and vested interests at costs to most other residents have contributed to this.
The government is omnipresent. It restricts the supply through various mechanisms among which are these regulations, and subsidizes the demand. The result is skyrocketing rents and prices.
With Bay Area rents and low wages, I asked colleagues how people afford their lives in Paris. Apparently, people share, have inherited apartments, use government assigned buildings etc.
French might benefit from a healthier more rational (rather than idiological) look at the market economy vs central planning.
Note: I know this view is not politically correct and popular in EU, but I thought I would mention it nevertheless. Replacing textbook economy with ideology won’t be beneficial for French. At least listen to what your Nobel prize winners in economy and experts in policy are saying (Tirole etc).
Rent is going up in every big city on the planet. It has nothing to do with any government policy, much more to do with ultra rich people and other funds using real-estate as a safe "investment", because they are well aware that the stock market valuations are mostly bullshit propped up by fake money.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-19/berlin-se...
But the question I always wonder is what's so special about hotels that they get to build dozens or hundreds of apartments but don't have to put them on the market? It seems like there is a lot of problems baked into zoning, and it doesn't seem fair to punish Airbnb owners who are playing arbitrage.
I would never get an apartment next to a hotel. The idling diesel buses were obnoxious. Along with all the people who would smoke outside and yell and scream. Kinda ridiculous.
I haven’t had to live next to a permanent airbnb apartment though.
It's easy for a city to limit the number of hotels being built to limit the number of annoyed residents like you, if they want to.
It's not as easy to limit the number of apartments being used as airbnbs, because at time of sale or even city zoning, they're just regular apartments.
So it's not about whether one is more annoying than the other, it's about controlling the amount of each.
Talk about an understatement. The use of zoning, as far as I can tell, became a frenzy to use this tool to solve every pet problem. Lack of parking, businesses too loud near residences, blocking light, enforcing neighborhood character or feel, keeping "those people" out of your neighborhood, etc.
The end result is that zoning is just paralysis for urban development. You have a ton of funding to get through the zoning board and get exceptions for breaking the rules and to grease some wheels, or you don't build period.
I think a more free and more reasonable approach is like what you find in japan, where (as far as I can tell) it is both very easy to get approval for construction in a wide range of common projects and also very easy to convert a living space to a hotel space. While I was in Japan, i spent a few nights in a "standard" hotel (fancy highrise building with a nice lobby and so on), and a few nights in what was basically just a fairly large house in a desirable area converted into a ryokan-style hotel, with a few rooms downstairs where they served breakfast for guests every morning (it was delicious, by the way).
It wasn't peak tourist season, so the rates were ridiculously affordable for a fashionable and touristy region of a fashionable and touristy developed country.
https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2020/01/09/no-zoning-in-Ho...
> The story of Houston’s land-use policies is a lot more complicated than “no zoning.” In reality, Houston is a big mixture of ordinances, policies, tactics by neighborhoods, and independent efforts by nonprofits, all of which play a role in determining how land is used. Whether or not the lack of zoning and the use of these other tools add up to a more equitable city or a city where the affluent are protected is open to debate.
[...]
> 3. A complicated development code that contains everything you’d expect except use zoning — and, in some cases, density and height restrictions as well — and drives applicants crazy just like the development code in many other cities.
If people are staying for a short term they don’t have much incentive to keep the place nice. You can call the cops and they’ll get a warning the first time but that doesn’t matter when they will fly out of the jurisdiction next morning.
Airbnb units often don't have anyone supervising their visitors.
Most decent hotels have staff and security.
But your typical mid market hotel in the ~80 room to ~160 room range like Hampton Inn, Residence Inn, or Holiday Inn Express will not have any security, or anyone on property other than 1, maybe 2 people working the front desk. And they certainly aren't going to do anything other than call the police if something happens.
And the police may also choose not to do something if they don't feel like doing anything.
You might argue the pros and cons of the regulation, but it's clear that over the last 100 years, Paris is known as a great place to visit, and the availability of decent and decently priced accommodation has been very successful for the city as a whole, not just its landlords.
Your average hotel room (at least in a large city) is much smaller than anything that would be permitted as a habitable apartment in most jurisdictions. The hotel also insulates residents from tourists, and hotels often have planning constraints intended to further reduce tourist nuisance (for instance, they may not be allowed have externally facing balconies).
And planning authorities can consider local needs; if you give planning for an apartment block you expect it to be used for housing, if you give planning for a hotel (or aparthotel) you expect it to be used for tourism. Airbnbs tend to break that model a bit.
I've had the displeasure of living in an apartment building that was used partially for long-term tenants (of which I was one) and short-term Airbnb guests. The experience was terrible. Constant noise, incredibly inconsiderate people leaving trash everywhere, etc. The interesting thing is the short-term units weren't cheap; they were actually rather expensive. So it wasn't as though we were getting a bunch of college partier types; they were typically young professionals. Given how unpleasant it was, I can't imagine how bad it would be if the quality of guests had been different.
The building was a large house that had been divided into a number of units. I spoke to some of our neighbors (who owned their homes, they were not renting units like we were) and they expressed the difficulty they'd had with the short-term guests in our building. It had been years of calling the police, legal action, etc. The people I spoke with seemed pretty reasonable; they wanted a quiet neighborhood where their kids could play. They didn't enjoy finding drugs in the drive way and urine all over their property.
Airbnb, in my opinion, definitely has a detrimental effect on communities. Even if the guests are nice, if some large fraction of the population is turning over daily, that necessarily takes away from the community.
Neighbor communities ("comunidad de vecinos", akin to a homeowner's association) are enshrined by Spanish law and I believe they can act against the AirBnBization of buildings in some cases, but further EU-level protection for locals are more than welcome.
Just within the last few days one of the more popular buildings in our neighborhood had a shooting. The owners and tenants are absolutely pissed. Because at $3000+/month this is not how they wanted to live. That building management company was fired and a new one brought in. With armed security now.
The straw for me was the variability of the owners. If I get a substandard hotel room I call the desk and get moved to another suite. If I have a substandard Airbnb I only get a refund. I'm still left scrambling to find new, last minute accommodations.
I was on my own to find a place to stay, but it was Vegas, so that was trivial.
I was in the south of France during peak vacation season. Every hotel in this small town was booked. With a toddler who was visibly worried and extremely tired. To put it conservatively, it was a fucking nightmare.
is this really a good thing? once you start banning rentals in the 1-6 month range, you are no longer just targeting tourists. you're also hurting folks without stable jobs who can't commit to a typical lease length.
first of all, this is pretty uncommon outside of relatively high-paying professional gigs. the average person's idea of a "decent job" is probably quite different from mine or yours. also not all leases have a buy-out clause. you might be on the hook for the entire remaining term of the lease, which, on the margin, can change a new employer's willingness to pay. I actually just had this situation with my previous roommate. we had just signed a new one-year lease when he got an offer. they almost declined to pay out his share of 11 months' rent when they learned there was no buyout clause. this was a tech company hiring him as an SWE.
I don't know what share of short-term renters are doing it out of necessity, but I do have several friends that are in this position. I'll use one of them as an example. he dropped out of school with about a year's worth of credits left, so most white-collar positions are not on the table for him. he currently works in a restaurant, but he has a worsening health condition that makes this a short term option at best. he's trying to get into a trade that would be at least a little better for his health, but not having a lot of luck at the moment. basically he needs to be ready to get up and go at a moments notice to anywhere he can find better work.
My area may be an outlier, it is covid time afterall. But 40% is not an outlier, especially when it has an option in a drop-down menu.
I'm active on the board and didn't want to get into the fight over Airbnb. But once we saw how much we were paying in additional security, insurance claims, and police and fire calls enough was enough. We've had robberies, suicides, and overdoses. I've got a great flat, it's downtown, looks out onto the bay and South beach. I'd love to put it on Airbnb, from time to time. I also know the juice simply is not worth the squeeze. You only need to get 1 bad visitor who trashes your place or gets into a fight with the neighbors.
But I fight tooth and nail against new bylaws. We have a good board. Most of the resident owners are young professionals, we make it known we'd rather not have an HOA so the HOA tries not to be visible.
As a tourist who occasionally used Airbnb myself, of course I enjoy it but it’s not like I couldn’t enjoy a hotel. I completely understand why it’s bad for communities. There must be some middle ground to be reached here, but when in doubt, I would err on the side of communities, not the Airbnb property owners; the negative impact it has on communities is far worse than the positive impact it has on tourism.
I confess to using apartments for long term rentals. The last time we were in Paris, I took an apartment for the 3 months of the summer through a service that's something like airbnb. That was better for the kids. But that's also longer term stuff.
Hotels are honestly not all that terrible for short term family stays. If you have to go somewhere in France long term, airbnb would likely still be available to you.
What they are really protesting is being unable to afford rising rent, which is caused by a lack of apartments, which is somewhat exacerbated by Airbnb, but zoning laws have a far bigger impact.
The same people who can't afford the rent anymore wouldn't want to live in (or next to) a highrise though, so the zoning laws still make sense.
Without AirBnB I don't know how we would be able to live as digital nomads. Hotels are not acceptable because they lack kitchens and laundries (and laptop friendly workspaces).
I understand that we're not the normal tenants, we stay for weeks to months, recycle when possible and rarely if ever make any noise that would irritate other tenants. But I like to think we're not detrimental (I understand this is a little #NotAllMen).
Interestingly, AirBnB is far from a perfect solution for us either (some of the AirBnBs we've stayed at have been absolutely shit). But one of the things the we value as digital nomads is living as the locals live (or as close as possible). Going to the supermarket, living outside the old town.
As far a bad tenants go, before we left Australia we owned an apartment in a fairly average apartment block. There was a council flat within the block, and the tenant was nothing but trouble. Leaving rubbish and furniture around the property. Drinking to excess. Having raging arguments with associates. It does not take AirBnB to have problems with other parties within an apartment block.
(None of this is necessarily negates what you say, just an interesting counter point)
Edit: I would love to know why people are downvoting?
Just to name a few you can stay in aparthotels , a common thing in almost every country, or you can just rent a regular apartment directly with the owner, instead of doing it through Airbnb.
IMO Airbnb does more bad than good and transform centric areas of big cities in amusement park for the tourist.
AirBnB actually solves a lot of this problem, though. I can't imagine the difficulty of finding 20-30 different, independent, 1-month apartment stays directly with the apartment owners, dealing with security deposits and short-term leases, etc.
They're a directory/marketplace/availability clearinghouse. They're an intermediary. They're a payment processor. They provide ratings and reviews. They provide some miniscule level of support.
It might be the case that AirBnB is more bad than good, but I think it's at least a little unreasonable to suggest "you can just rent a regular apartment directly with the owner" for the digital nomad case.
It's easy enough to filter to self-catering apartments on booking.com. My partner and I generally stay self-catering wherever we go, we prefer the comfort of an apartment over the amenities that a hotel is able to provide.
Regardless of which platform I booked on, I'm the same tourist when I show up.
As far as renting from a regular owner, I think the hard thing about that is discovery.
In a lot of countries the rental market is broken and prevents this. I've had this issue in the UK when I needed to move to London on very short notice after getting a job offer (and didn't have enough money saved up to afford a month's worth of hotel until I sort things out).
I had enough money to pay a deposit and a couple months worth of rent, so all of that paid upfront plus the employment contract should be enough to make most landlords happy.
The problem? The rental market around here seems monopolized by agencies and they all had referencing/application fees which means that even if I agree to pay the fee and take the risk of losing the fee if I get rejected I still wouldn't be able to get the flat quickly (my objective was to pay 2 months + deposit upfront and get the keys the same day). If I wanted to mitigate the risk of being rejected it would mean I need to apply to multiple properties at once, paying them a referencing fee to each (which I guess I'd lose if I back out even if I end up accepted).
Airbnb took my money no questions asked and I had a place to sleep on the same day. I'm still in that place 3 years later (paying direct now obviously)! I hate Airbnb for other reasons, but there definitely is a need for a better short-term rental system.
Doesn't happen too often though.
I had one experience where we walked away the next day and opened a support ticket due to misrepresentation and a landlord who was mentally unwell and scary. AirBNB dragged their feet a little but did refund us fully within 24 hours. In that case I just booked something new and it was all good.
I've never had someone cancel on me on AirBNB.
> It does not take AirBnB to have problems with other parties within an apartment block.
No but AirBnB exacerbates that - and adds a host of other problems too.
> But one of the things the we value as digital nomads is living as the locals live (or as close as possible).
But you're not, not really. Come on. Not in "weeks up to months", you need "months up to years" for that.
>Edit: I would love to know why people are downvoting?
(FWIW, I didn't).
Regarding living like the locals live, of course it's not exact. For example, knowing the language matter a lot, but it's a very different experience to staying in a Hotel in the middle of the old town. Many cities that get rave tourist reviews are not near as nice if you don't stay in the tourist quarter (for example).
Come to Berlin and our party airbnbs if you want a taste, bring an umbrella, condoms are literally raining from the sky around these. It's even worse now that clubs are closed due to covid.
Though its nowhere near as expensive as people seem to imagine (depending on your destination).
My intent was just to share a little.
Holiday home rentals have been around way longer than AirBnB, allthough I do admit that AirBnB makes the rental experience much easier.
These days, lots of flats are still on other booking engines too such as Booking.com or HomeAway.
I didn't downvote, but your post seems to come from a place of privilege. It puts your comfortable, posh 'digital nomad' touristy lifestyle as something that is worth sacrificing others' lives for. Oh no, you might have to stay in a hotel or long-stay vacation home instead of a short-term rental. Imagine the discomfort.
To me, if you visit some place, you do as the locals wish - after all, their way of life built the place you're visiting in the first place.
The important thing is actually to be able to work remotely, which has become much more common this year.
(also, the concept of privilege is overblown imo)
It's hard to understand the nuances of a culture. I've been living in Colombia for 5 years. It took me a couple years to understand the subtleties of Paisa Spanish and another year to really start understanding the culture. Visitors need years to understand what the locals want. And no, you can't simply ask them what they want... that doesn't work in indirect communication / "que pena" cultures.
Flipping this around, I'm from New York and certainly don't want tourists to do what I want when they're in my home town. They can do whatever they want.
As a gajin, no matter if tourist or foreign resident, you will never grasp the nuances of Japanese culture in detail.
But you don't have to. You just need to understand and respect the basics. Be polite, respect customs, take your shoes of, when appropriate and you will feel welcome.
It may be a lot harder if you live there and you'll probably never be really accepted.
But not running into cultural disasters is fairly easy to avoid.
From what I've observed in Latin America, lots of foreigners commit big cultural faux pas without even realizing it. The standard American way of closing a car door is considered extremely rude in Colombia. Most foreigners leave a taxi, close the door as they usually would, and walk off without noticing the locals are offended. That'll surely vary by culture too.
That's true. From my experience for two reasons:
Either they really don't want foreigners in their place. For example: in a hostess bar that caters to Japanese salary men you are not welcome as a foreigner. The other reason is that they are afraid that they could offend you by not living up to your expectations, since they assume that you're unable to make yourself understood, and that they could lose face in the process since they won't make you happy.
You're porobably not interested in establishments that don't want to cater to you. And if option B happens then you just thank them, bid good bye and find some other place. What you don't do is raise a stink. That would embarass everybody, be unhelpful and lead nowhere.
There's a plus side to the hard communication part too. That's if you're adventurous and eat everything:
You go into any restaurant that catches your fancy (and it's hard to find a bad place just about anywhere in Japan. Frankly, it never happened to me) indicate that you want to eat and probably frighten them.
Then what you do is smile at the chef and announce: Omakase![1] (literally: I leave it up to you).
After he serves you something (which is usually incredible tasting food) you get to the most important part: You take a few bites, small at the chef and announce: Oishi! (delicious) You can repeat this a few times during your meal.
See, the chef is afraid that he could disappoint you and when you signal how much you like it you make him a very happy person. You may leave the place as a friend and he will be delighted when you return.
What you should never do is asking to exchange things on the menu. That's extremely confusing and very uncommon. If there's anything you can't eat it's a good idea to have a note in Japanese that you can show him.
All those tips are thanks to HNer Mike Charter[2], who wrote some incredible useful tips about Japan (he's a Canadian living there for a long time) and unfortunately stopped posting.
So to cut back to your statement: Yes, there are racist and xenophobic places and people in Japan. But it's not always what it seems. And if your curious and accept things which seem peculiar to us you can experience unbelievable awesomeness in Japan.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omakase [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mikekchar
Nah, mate. Nomads living like locals is an oxymoron. It doesn’t come close. I wish Airbnb-ers would stop touting this.
You haven’t seen restaurants come and go. You don’t know the intricacies of local culture and etiquette. If you do speak the language, you don’t speak the lingo. You have never fought with the local municipality over some triviality. You’ve never voted in local elections. There’s no investment from your side. You have no roots in that place. You have no part in that place’s soul and I doubt it has a place in yours. By definition it’s not your home.
If anything, nomads displace people who do want to build a life there.
__Edit__
RE immigrants. I see where that counterargument came from, it may indeed be a fine line. Though it is not what I intended to say. Do note the ”want to build a life there” part.
My line of reasoning is more akin to creating the soul as opposed to leeching off of it.
it may also mean that they don't want to pay the hotel prices they see, so in order to sustain their lifestyle financially, they'll find a cheaper place via Airbnb.
The problem is that policy around short term rentals is agnostic to the renter's intentions. There's no real way I can think of to enforce "conscientious renters only" without also creating a system that gives too much leverage to badly intentioned hosts (for lack of a less context-specific word). So on the balance of considerations, and alongside all of the other effects that short stays have on communities, I'm mostly on the side of throwing this particular baby out with the bathwater.
agreed. I don't think airbnb users honestly think they are living "like a local" when they stay somewhere for a few weeks. they just want to stay in a residential area as opposed to a hotel, and see the markets/restaurants that locals would walk to. or they might just want to pay less.
Nomads, migrants, whatever: if you treat your neighborhood and your neighborhood with respect, that’s what matters.
This sounds like gatekeeping to me. That's almost by definition what an immigrant's life is like until they naturalize, but I'd never tell an immigrant that this place isn't their home.
the reality is for many that point is never reached. in some places, if you are not born there you are not accepted as a local.
i am not talking about digital nomands, but families with children who move because of a job or because of their kids school or other personal reasons. my family was forced to move 3 times in the past two years, and not because we didn't intend to stay, but because we couldn't.
a friend of mine tried to run a business in a german city and had to give up because the local old boys club would prevent him from getting customers.
this is the attitude that xenophobia is rooted in.
sure, someone staying only for a few days is a tourist, no matter how you turn it, but if someone staying for a few months is still treated like a tourist, then i'd consider that a problem.
If you can't speak the language and use local expressions, then you'll always be an outsider.
Source: moved to Colombia 5 years ago and took me 3 years to have people say "tu si eres bien Paisa" and "usted es mas Paisa que una arepa". Have seen a small minority of other foreigners get accepted. Most never learn the language / culture enough and will always be outsiders.
When you start paying taxes and contributing/engaging to the area (working, consuming, giving)
This, quite obviously, varies a lot from place to place - but IMO, if you fill the above points, you're as good as natives. But I think the biggest divider between insiders and outsiders is engagement - if you start engaging in the community, that's the fast-track to getting accepted.
It's also true that I can't have the depth of experience that comes with living in a place for years (or your whole life).
I wasn't exactly sheltered before becoming a nomad, but there is a difference in the experience. You do come to understand in at least a small part the differences between even countries/cities that are a few hundred kilometers apart.
I have found myself revisiting places, and finding places that I like the most within a city. Being sad when I leave Sweden because MAX burgers doesn't really exist outside the Nordic countries.
I am slowly learning another language, though that is a long term project. Ich spreche jetzt ein bisschen deutsch
This is important to note. AirBnB is not the "cause" of the problem, but seems to make it easier to cause the problem. Shouldn't they just increase the guest liability?
I'm a strong proponent of "living like the locals" so hope that spirit of AirBnB does not fade away.
You're looking for an aparthotel (generally purpose-built building with special planning designed for this use-case). Common in many European cities, at least.
The trap with AirBnb and urban STR's is the idea that you can live like a native, but the truth is you're not fooling anyone but yourself.
-DFW
The problem is that airbnb is not sustainable with just these "guests" (I mean is it sustainable at all?). So you are not paying the real price for this service, but are subsidized by they guests that are not wanted.
Assuming it was still possible, without AirBnB we would likely be paying private rental rates on Craigslist/Gumtree.
Both Christmas' and NYE so far we have not stayed in AirBnBs because we get priced out of the market (we have ended up house sitting instead)
Long story short, everyone within earshot of this house now hates AirBnB.
This whole town is tourism. I wonder what it must be like to live here? I felt vaguely uncomfortable the entire time, until I felt really uncomfortable, in ways that only an angsty 19 year old can manage.
I still have this vignette in my head of this moment in a convenience store. It was one of those counters where the register goes to the depth of the counter, so I'm standing basically face to face with the clerk while my parents are paying to my left. She's about my age, and I'm wondering, is this really what she wants to be doing? Or is this all there is, here? She could be teaching a class or training to be a gardener but she's selling M&Ms to a bunch of self-absorbed tourists who don't even see her, and are just here for the day and will be gone tomorrow. It must suck to date around here, too.
The ride on the Ducks through a bit of nature was by far the high point.
(That is also the only time I've ever witnessed a golden retriever be anything but adorable - threatened to bite me for an abortive attempt at a head pat. Man, fuck the Dells.)
This applies to probably 90% of the people in the world. The whole follow your passions thing is an upper middle class developed world thing.
I'm convinced it's worse advice if you can afford to follow it without tremendous sacrifice or time to save up for it. If you can't afford to do it without long-term planning and commitment, then it's maybe good advice.
Quality of guests have nothing to do with the noise/etc because that's the specific purpose that people rent airbnb's for - to host parties, do drugs, and basically trash the place.
You're totally right. For example, I can't live in Barcelona from my house in Washington State so I'll go rent one there if I want that amenity.
Your claim that people mostly rent Airbnbs to host parties, do drugs, and trash houses requires a citation. I would not be surprised if less than 1/100 of 1% of Airbnb stays are for folks who aim to do any of what you claim.
This is certainly a valuable thing, I can see why people want it and I support it being available to them. But why are these the only people who seem reasonable? This land use is just as disruptive to the enjoyment of others as "a vibrant city with street life and parties." Why is this preference so privileged over all the others?
Only way a status quo can change is if the newcomers amass enough power to change it.
Being drunk and loud late into the night and not letting others sleep is not as disruptive as using land to live life.
Nightlife districts and rowdy student/yuppie neighborhoods are as essential to the fabric of a city as its sleepy suburbs. If you want to go to one and live a quiet life, that’s fine, but trying to shut down your neighbors’ lives isn’t.
I think it's a NIMBY vs YIMBY thing.
Established players in any community have little desire for expansion.
Non-established players in any community have greater incentive to want to see expansion. For the most part, the non established are seeking to become established by filling the niches created by expansion.
Expansion will always have a cost, as well as a benefit. These two are un-evenly distributed and cause tension.
Overall, at least where I live, I know that removing vacation rentals would decrease tourism. As we have seen with COVID, less tourism in a tourist town and city budgets are restricted, services cut and business close. I like to see my little city vibrant and economically healthy, so I support YIMBY projects, even with their necessary negatives. That means I have to put up with unruly-annoying people.
We can't eat our pie and have it at the same time.
We can still talk about the pie, how good the pie is, that they don't make pie like this anymore - anything to distract from the fact that the pie has long been eaten.
IMO, the best approach to this is similar to what the city of Santa Monica has -- hosts can only rent a room in a property (i.e. no "entire house to yourself"), i.e. similar to the couchsurfing model. I've found this a pleasant experience when visiting a new city, as living with a local can make the stay more personal and enjoyable.
I find your solution unworkable personally. When I travel I like to have somewhere private I can come back to after a long day, the coach surfing model doesn't appeal to couples.
Re: couch-surfing -- probably a bad metaphor on my end. I meant the "rent a room in a house" model that Airbnb offers.
Cool city but some worrying experiences, might check out some islands next time.
why is this unfortunate? I thought investment is good for economy?
Searching around my area, they are all locally owned, or seem to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Banning AirBNB is like banning plastic bags in grocery stores while not do the real things to fight global warming. It's a distraction from the real causes of high rent in Paris.
* rising unemployment - overall employment is falling, but most digital nomad jobs haven't been impacted * remote work - this makes it easier to digital nomad (e.g. a NYC dweller that travels for the winter) * relocation to more livable places - Suppose you relocate from SF to a more "livable" place like Tucson, not sure that'll reduce demand to go to places like Brazil, Europe
I'm typing these words in the Medellin airport. Travelling sucks now. If travelling stays this crappy, then it's likely people will move around less.
Why does that leave me with a feeling that Airbnb now considers itself to be entrenched enough that they are welcoming government regulations which will prevent upstarts from competing with it?
It guess it's a bit hypocritical for me to say that as I've used airbnb to live in and visit various countries, but I also have seen how inconsiderate and downright rude short term renters can be.
It's good that airbnb wants to be regulated, but bigger businesses can easily deal with tight regulations, whereas it's much harder for small newcomers. -Obviously- Airbnb will prefer policies that gain it public favor while also making it harder for competitors.
In the US, there are chains like Embassy Suites that work well for families because they have two bedrooms separated by a living/cooking area. The fact that they're typically far outside downtown matters a lot less because we've rented a car.
In Europe, we usually didn't want to rent a car. Having 5 people was a problem with hotels because their typical limit was 4 people to a room. So being able to rent an apartment or house near downtown was wonderful.
If you don't have kids, there's nothing quite like watching your 3 kids refuse to eat the $15/each meal that you ordered. Repeatedly. And have to resort to crackers or chips from a convenience store.
It's going to be interesting to see what the outcome of the pandemic will be. We stayed on a house on a canal in Amsterdam and it was amazing. But you can see why the locals would want that house available to themselves.
Also, longer term rentals made more sense. We could get up and leave at 6 AM for a day long hike without also having to take care of checking out of a hotel and packing our car first.
I can't understand why anybody in their right mind would subject themselves to taking kids to a restaurant. Not only is the expensive food typically wasted, but it takes half of your waking hours getting them in and out of those accommodations.
Not only do short term rentals like airbnb drive up the prices for regular rent and ownership, but they negatively affect everyone who does manage to afford a spot. Living in an apartment block with one or several airbnbs is awful, destroys the fabric of neighborhoods, and especially introduces plenty of loud guests who don't care about the neighbors within the block.
Airbnb and similar platforms are exploitative of the environments that allow them. Your comfort to travel with a large family for cheap is not defendable against the negative impact on residents.
Rules like this are simply NIMBYism, which is the true cause of high housing costs, racial segregation, and other social ills.
Allow people who own the property the freedom to use it as they please and the ability to allow rent it to those who value it most.