People who rent out Airbnbs which aren’t their primary residence, especially if they took out a bunch of debt for it, are squeezing the housing supply and driving up costs, so I’m not gonna shed too many tears if they get screwed by the algorithm. Let them eat a huge loss as a warning to others so they’re wary to try it again.
Agree. There are stories of people kinking out tenants to let on Airbnb. If these people get fucked by the loss in income, that'll be a simple on my face.
Airbnb as a whole, is a good idea- but some people are doing horrible things to the housing market and at worst AirBNB is complicit.
I can't speak for every city, but where I live, a lot of Airbnber's are hurting for the sudden drop in revenue. Hotels might get bailouts or credits from the government but short term rental companies will get nothing and be hard pressed to find the resources to continue paying their mortgages. We're already seeing condos that were rented out as Airbnb's pop up on the real estate market.
This seems counter-productive. Housing costs are up because of AirBnB. I’m not thrilled, but that’s the market. The market needs to reprice. Folks who bet on the market would get rich if the bet paid off. Let them sell their places, and someone else can rent them out in the future.
Call me callous but I don’t feel the need to bail out someone who charged me $500/night on a place with a $3000 monthly payment. I entered the transaction freely, and the transaction is over.
I don't necessarily see the average user of AirBnB losing out in this situation (happy to be corrected) - but more houses and options seem like a good thing.
I think the big losers here, outside of hotels, are renters. As someone who is trying to rent/buy in popular areas of the country (Cambridge, UK), I can see how houses will no longer come up for rent - which sucks, as the article points out.
I guess there could (hopefully) be a point where there are so many professionally rented homes that it no longer represents such an attractive proposition and the first movers enjoying these fat years of high revenues eventually lose out.
Either that, or Airbnb will become the new way to rent, who knows...
No, you've misread the thread. People who want to rent their places out on Airbnb clearly gain. I said, upthread, that this was a loss for those peoples neighbors, and it remains unclear to me how it could be otherwise.
Totally. It screws the landlord and drives up the overall cost of housing.
That said, this AirBnB host was supporting her (very frugal) lifestyle on the profits from this rental. It hurts to know that I may have played a part in undoing that.
Any change in the housing market it bad for someone. Rents going down can cause owners to lose their homes. Rents going up upsets people who want the security of living in the same place but are't willing to pay for that luxury by buying their own house.
More interesting is what the long term picture would look like if the AirBnB is left to carry on unimpeded. Whatever it is will surely be better for people in general. It might hurt some people who feel entitled and got caught by surprise, but that's how progress works. There are usually losers along with people overall being winners.
It is, in my opinion, a massive and near total loss for all the renters, first-time homebuyers, existing families, and the sense of community in areas affected by AirBnB's cancerous growth.
It was no doubt a good thing for Airbnb users. It is much less likely a good thing for the building and other people who live there. I actually live a block away from the building in the article that was described as the #1 moneymaker and opted not to move to that building partially because it was obvious many apartments were being rented on Airbnb.
In other words not only was the neighborhood losing access to housing inventory, but other landlords were losing access to qualified tenants who didn’t want to live in a building with a bunch of Airbnb rentals in it.
And they've also helped completely destroy housing for locals in plenty of locations in the process as owners over-leverage themselves to buy up more and more property since they can rent it on AirBnB for more than they can rent it to locals.
In my eyes AirBnb is being blamed for taking houses off the market that would have generally be rented out to long-term tenants. This lowers the supply of rentals increasing prices. Lower interest rates just make the situation worse.
Airbnb would be “going up” if rentals cratered, losing it doesn’t have that many second-order effects. Vacation properties are going to get slaughtered for the next 2 years because no one wants to vacation.
Until Airbnb works out a better way to handle their negative externalities (living in a neighborhood with lots of Airbnbs can be miserable), this seems like it'll be good for people who actually live in their homes. When their business impacts my ability to sleep at night or park in my own driveway, I lose a lot of sympathy for the speculators who own these properties.
Folks, let's be honest. This is mostly about ornery landlords who are bitter that they are missing out on perceived higher rates for their properties. Add in a few nosy neighbors who have nothing else to do to make them feel important other than file complaints with their local HOA/city/whatever.
AirBNB should seriously hire a full time team of economists to publish studies defending their company. The efficiency gains are tremendous.
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