There are whole 30 story apartment buildings which are managed and run like a hotel but with units purchased by owners for STRs. Crowd-sourced hotels. So might be that company managing a whole building.
Hotels were a nightmare, cabs were a nightmare. These companies indisputably changed the game in the favour of the consumer all around the world.
Where we are now having an issue is large swaths of housing taken over by companies and investors wanting a return. As long as housing and renting are attractive for investment over and about housing and transitory renting, it will attract lots of money.
Supply must be improved to improve the housing market. This should be a continuous government function at least at the low and middle income level not just a private endeavour.
Density and public transport is the answer - not killing something that absolutely changed the game and took the hotel and cab market back to their customers begging for a chance.
Sure, but AirBnB and Uber didn't improve the hotel and taxi markets, they just joined them. They each took advantage of a tech debt and then lowered the barriers for entry to the market. In doing so, they made a shit ton of money by carving out market share from the fucked up systems you described.
Also by doing and end run around regulations by pretending to be people just renting their house when they are away or giving rides to people going in the same directions. That is why they have names like 'ride share' instead of 'contracted cabbies who drive their own cars'.
Seriously? Not sure about airbnb since I use booking, but Uber was so much better than cabs it wasn't even close. They didn't even make that much money. They lost money last quarter
What wasn’t a nightmare was bed and breakfasts. They also weren’t an excuse to keep property off the housing rental market at scale.
These companies aren’t saviours, they’re businesses who rode public tech optimism and common frustration at established industries in the same fields to stay ahead of regulation and have the public demand it. Surprise, they’re the same businesses.
The ones I've been to are comparable to a hotel and include a good breakfast. So yeah, a bit more than an Airbnb, but not that far off from Airbnb + good breakfast restaurant.
Yeah, I think the main issue is supply. Airbnb works because of a mix of supply and costs. There just aren't many nice places to stay in resort areas, and the few that exist are extremely expensive (e.g. fancy hotels). Likewise, hotels are often more expensive and less convenient if you have a large group (e.g. my family likes to vacation together, and there's like 20 of us).
The problem seems to be long term residents feeling the pain of increased housing costs. If you legislate against that, those tourists will still need to go somewhere, which means more hotels or more strain on transportation from the outlying areas to the tourist area. If mass transit is effective, that's not a big issue, but far too often that's not the case, so you'll just end up with tons of traffic.
My proposal is to not ban it, but instead limit it to residents, so in order to do short-term rentals, you need to be physically present a majority of the year. Otherwise, you need to apply as a regular rental, which can be limited to certain areas near transit hubs to keep traffic under control. Then improve transit into the area so tourists who don't fit in the city can easily get there.
Theyd part out a hous into multiple rooms. I stayed at one airbnb that were 3 stories and each one was another airbnb, with a kitchen on the main level that had to be shared. No one used it for the 3 days i was there, but still.
Through the tax code. If you have a short term rental property that's not a primary residence: shazam busted. You'd need some kind of policing for it but you could force airbnb to make a filing on it as well which would make it possible to automate.
I agree. It wasn't meant to be against regulations. Problem is in my city we have plenty of regulations to avoid repurposing flats for tourist rentals without a permit, we have regulations against systematically letting flats empty to be able to sell the house or flat at a premium etc. But we only have like three dozen government employees, who are supposed to oversee a city with more than 1.5 million flats and individual homes. So even if every one of them manages to check on 2 flats every day, they manage like 15.000 flats a year, which is already a rather optimistic estimate.
It is crucial to not only demand regulation, but also that enough resources are assigned to enforce them.
