Trump confirms what most on this board already suspected, but still manages to be worse than expected. He doesn't give a damn about people, it's the typical shitty wealthy dbag shit, where they want to just ship off everyone so that they don't have to be reminded poor people exist in their shitty world, by claiming that it some how hurts the prestige of the city. Then to make it worse, there is the implication that all of the homeless aren't citizens.
“In many cases, they came from other countries and they moved to Los Angeles or they moved to San Francisco because of the prestige of the city, and all of a sudden they have tents,” Trump said. “Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the entrance to their office building. And they want to leave.”
Trump confirms what most on this board already suspected, but still manages to be worse than expected. He doesn't give a damn about people, it's the typical shitty wealthy dbag shit, where they want to just ship off everyone so that they don't have to be reminded poor people exist in their shitty world, by claiming that it some how hurts the prestige of the city. Then to make it worse, there is the implication that all of the homeless aren't citizens.
“In many cases, they came from other countries and they moved to Los Angeles or they moved to San Francisco because of the prestige of the city, and all of a sudden they have tents,” Trump said. “Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the entrance to their office building. And they want to leave.”
Can't the idiot just stay in the damn white house and eat ice cream and look at golf on a big screen TV or something. He can bring donors to visit him and charge them a million bucks for a luxury hamburger with Trump. Everything he says just makes things worse for every issue he talks about.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
Second, third, etc homes of the rich are already taxed higher (no homestead, for example). I'm all for taxing the rich, but the really rich will be able to afford a 2nd home regardless of any reasonable tax applied.
Just to put it perspective, most homeless people don't migrate. Numbers vary between study methodology, but most studies find that around 60-80% of homeless people stay within their home county (defined as the place where they most recently had permanent housing). Of those who migrate, most migrate locally - between neighboring cities or between neighboring counties, like from rural central California to Oakland, for instance. (A West coast centric news article, but it pulls from multiple sources.)
About 5-15% of homeless people migrate between states. I expect, but I cannot prove, that east coast states are closer to the top end of that range only because they're geographically smaller. Yosemite is 150 miles east of Oakland, CA; go 150 miles east of Baltimore, Maryland or Washington, DC and you end up in West Virginia.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
Second, third, etc homes of the rich are already taxed higher (no homestead, for example). I'm all for taxing the rich, but the really rich will be able to afford a 2nd home regardless of any reasonable tax applied.
I think it's less about stopping them from owning second homes and more about recouping the losses in taxes and overall societal benefit from having that building sit empty.
If empty (or AirBnB) vacation homes is truly a cause of problems, we need to just stop it. Tell the rich that what they want is bad, they can't have it for any money, go pound the sand at their favorite golf course.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
AirBnB's have advantages over hotels besides price. You have a larger spread of available locations, so you can find a place in a quiet neighborhood or near a venue instead of a hotel in the city center or off a highway. You can also find places with kitchens, laundry facilities, and other amenities that are difficult or expensive to find in hotels.
Of the homeless people who do migrate, many of them are given one-way bus tickets by "homeless relocation" services - nonprofits whose MO is to just make sure that homeless people are somebody else's problem.
Homeless relocation is not always a bad thing. In a best-case scenario, a scrupulous relocation program might help reunite a homeless person with estranged family, or might network with another homeless aide organization in the destination city. Ideally, they'd make sure the person being bussed has a safe place to stay on the other end.
But as a Guardian expose reports, they often don't bother. Many aren't trying to help, they're just treating homeless people like human trash.
People are routinely sent thousands of miles away after only a cursory check by authorities to establish they have a suitable place to stay once they get there. Some said they feel pressured into taking tickets, and others described ending up on the streets within weeks of their arrival.
Jeff Weinberger, co-founder of the Florida Homelessness Action Coalition, a not-for-profit that operates in a state with four bus programs, said the schemes are a “smoke-and-mirrors ruse tantamount to shifting around the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than reducing homelessness”.
“Once they get you out of their city, they really don’t care what happens to you.”
...
Homeless people hear about bus schemes through word of mouth or are offered a free ticket by a caseworker. To qualify, they must provide a contact for a friend or relative who will receive them at their chosen destination. The shelter then calls that person to check the homeless traveler will have somewhere suitable to stay.
...
Among the cities that provided data to the Guardian, there was an almost total lack of long-term follow-up with the recipients of bus tickets to check whether their relocation had been a success.
The guardian also describes how most such relocation programs are moving homeless out of magnet cities. You're far more likely to be bussed out of San Francisco than to be bussed into it.
And many of these organizations aren't up-front about relocation. One organization profiled in this expose is the Southernmost Homeless Assistance League (SHAL) of Key West, FL, who has relocated 350 people out of Key West. They also run KOTS, a 150-person-occupancy shelter.
In addition to some of the misleading practices described in the Guardian article, their website only mentions relocation once, in a list of available services that you have to drill down to find. Otherwise, their website focuses on their shelter and outreach services, such as in their mission statement on the front page:
The mission of SHAL is to provide shelter, case management and associated services for homeless people in support of their efforts to become self-sufficient.
SHAL is committed to improving the quality of life for all members of our community.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
That survey is flawed because many homeless people transit between being housed and being homeless. So it will artificially increase the numbers of those who appear to have last lived in the local area. What you want to know is, what is the last city you lived in in which you were never homeless, the first city you became homeless in, and have you been homeless in any other place but the current county you live in.
Also, whether 20% of the homeless people in large west coast cities are from out of state or 50% of them are, its still an exported problem which needs to be dealt with at the national level.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
AirBnB's have advantages over hotels besides price. You have a larger spread of available locations, so you can find a place in a quiet neighborhood or near a venue instead of a hotel in the city center or off a highway. You can also find places with kitchens, laundry facilities, and other amenities that are difficult or expensive to find in hotels.
You can also find a place which makes sense for young children without paying $3000 a night for a one bedroom suite in a hotel.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
AirBnB's have advantages over hotels besides price. You have a larger spread of available locations, so you can find a place in a quiet neighborhood or near a venue instead of a hotel in the city center or off a highway. You can also find places with kitchens, laundry facilities, and other amenities that are difficult or expensive to find in hotels.
You can also find a place which makes sense for young children without paying $3000 a night for a one bedroom suite in a hotel.
That's why I use AirBnb. It makes family holidays easier.
When I was a kid, my parents used to get a "Holiday cottage" catalogue and pick out a place to rent from that. Now, I go on AirBnb and do the same for my family. Just an update of the same concept.
Hotels are better for business travel and single people or couples.
+5
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
It may be better for individual consumers, but it 100% is worse for society.
Air B&B directly contributes to rental market inflation in pretty much every tourism-adjacent community. It also skirts the taxes levied upon hotels for their disproportionate use of city facilities. Not to mention violating zoning codes and turning residential properties into commercial properties without the consent of either the community or the local government.
+13
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I say this as a person whose mom is making a decent living through AirB&B. Its a great thing for the homeowner and the renter, but the reason that process is historically complicated is due to the complicated nature of how rentals work with other homeowners, the community, and local resources.
I love staying in an AirB&B, I'll definitely do so until it gets outlawed. I will also vote for whatever law will lead to it being outlawed.
I would instead argue that AirBnB speaks to a deliberate and likely illegal collaboration between hotel chains to undersupply hotel rooms and facilities to popular holiday areas, and collaboration between them to minimize expected room area and facilities, in an effort to achieve 100% occupancy year round with minimum expenditure.
A hotel should be a strictly more efficient way of providing a desirable space for vacationers. It should be IMPOSSIBLE for any single home to compete on price, unless the rented week represents simply a period of time when the homeowner is just on their own holiday (a form of rental which should certainly NOT be illegal, because its simply putting an otherwise unusable resource to work). However, since it is possible for AirBnB's to compete with hotels even in the "Buy a property, and rent it out all the time, including keeping it in exceptional condition and paying someone to manage it for you" space, it seems highly unlikely to me that the issues in the market are AirBnB's fault.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
shryke on
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'm not saying that the hotel market is AirB&B's fault. I'm saying that AirB&B is generally speaking designed to crowdsource lawbreaking and flagrant ignoring of zoning laws. If I live in a residential neighborhood, and my city has laws, taxes, and restrictions on short-term rentals, AirB&B should be subject to such. But they aren't.
Or, in more common terms, everyone wants to stay at an AirB&B, no one wants to live in the next condo over from one when you bought in a long-term condominium community that doesn't allow rentals.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
Does it really? Or does deliberate under supply of hotel rooms drive capital into AirBnB homes?
I think Airbnb has some limited utility, mainly in cases where people are renting out their vacation properties that would otherwise be sitting unused.
But when a place is Airbnb 24/7 that's no bueno. Cities need to be far more aggressive with taxing, licencing, and zoning those like the hotels they are
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
Does it really? Or does deliberate under supply of hotel rooms drive capital into AirBnB homes?
No, what happens is that the internet allows you to organize renters and landlords efficiently enough that it becomes possible to rent out properties on a regular basis for very short terms. This opened up a new market and people jumped into it to make money. It's actually one of those examples of new technology creating new markets.
Anyway, to support one of Lanz's points, our national mythos that housing is an investment is really a major driver behind this crisis.
Housing can either be:
A) Affordable to the middle class over the long term. A safe investment for the middle class over the long term.
Choose one.
Why?
If the median cost of housing grows faster than inflation, you have B, but eventually housing becomes less and less affordable to people of finite means.
If real wages keep pace with the cost of housing, then you have A, but that means that housing values aren't appreciating fast enough to be a good long-term investment.
And that says nothing of the small decisions we make along the way - city planning departments catering to NIMBYs who argue that undesirable developments (like homeless shelters) reduce their property values, or homeowners associations issuing restrictions that ultimately keep housing prices higher.
Phasing out the mortgage interest deduction would be an excellent start.
Or C. A good investment in that it retains its relative value while costing less than rental in the long term.
I also don't think real estate being an investment is some kind of modern American invention. It certainly predates the United States and has roots all the way back in agrarian societies.
I think Airbnb has some limited utility, mainly in cases where people are renting out their vacation properties that would otherwise be sitting unused.
But when a place is Airbnb 24/7 that's no bueno. Cities need to be far more aggressive with taxing, licencing, and zoning those like the hotels they are
I think Airbnb has some limited utility, mainly in cases where people are renting out their vacation properties that would otherwise be sitting unused.
But when a place is Airbnb 24/7 that's no bueno. Cities need to be far more aggressive with taxing, licencing, and zoning those like the hotels they are
There is no separating the two, though.
I mean, I think you could theoretically pull it off by forcing AirBnB propreties to register and then doing your best to enforce some kind of minimum residency regulations on the property. Basically "you have to live in the property for x% of the year or it's a hotel and now these other regulations and taxes apply."
I know there are rules vaguely similar to this in some cities. At our old place, our old downstairs neighbours got pushed out of their apartment by the landlords and the only way they were allowed to do it was by establishing to the city rental authority that they would be using the property for a large enough percentage of the year.
It should be IMPOSSIBLE for any single home to compete on price
I'm pretty sure that the holiday cottages my parents rented back in the '80s competed fine on price with hotels, because my mum is thrifty and would have got a hotel room or 2 if it was cheaper. Hotels have stuff that's useful to business travelers (like daily cleaning, 24-hour check-in, and room service) that's not relevant to a family on holiday.
I think Airbnb has some limited utility, mainly in cases where people are renting out their vacation properties that would otherwise be sitting unused.
But when a place is Airbnb 24/7 that's no bueno. Cities need to be far more aggressive with taxing, licencing, and zoning those like the hotels they are
There is no separating the two, though.
I mean, you probably could if AirBnB was interested in playing by the rules, or the cities were willing to play hardball, and there was data sharing between Airbnb and the regulators but... lol never happening.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I think Airbnb has some limited utility, mainly in cases where people are renting out their vacation properties that would otherwise be sitting unused.
But when a place is Airbnb 24/7 that's no bueno. Cities need to be far more aggressive with taxing, licencing, and zoning those like the hotels they are
There is no separating the two, though.
I mean, I think you could theoretically pull it off by forcing AirBnB propreties to register and then doing your best to enforce some kind of minimum residency regulations on the property. Basically "you have to live in the property for x% of the year or it's a hotel and now these other regulations and taxes apply."
I know there are rules vaguely similar to this in some cities. At our old place, our old downstairs neighbours got pushed out of their apartment by the landlords and the only way they were allowed to do it was by establishing to the city rental authority that they would be using the property for a large enough percentage of the year.
In MA a law went into effect last year
Short-term rental hosts in Massachusetts will face new rules and requirements July 1, when a law passed last year goes into effect. It applies to properties that are not hotels, motels, lodging houses, or bed-and-breakfasts in which at least one room is rented for 31 days or less in a year.
The new law requires Massachusetts short-term rental hosts to:
Register with the Department of Revenue (DOR)
Collect state room occupancy tax from guests
File lodging tax returns monthly and pay all taxes due
Maintain $1 million in liability insurance (unless going through a platform such as Airbnb or VRBO that has equal or greater coverage)
Inform their insurance provider that they will be operating a vacation rental
Short-term rental operators may also be required to collect local lodging taxes, depending on the location of the rental. The new law also allows municipal governments to impose additional local lodging taxes of 6 percent on short-term rentals. Boston has already passed an additional local lodging tax of 6.5 percent. Cities and towns that are part of the Cape Cod and Islands Water Protection Fund may levy an additional tax of 2.75 percent. Municipalities also have the option of imposing a 3 percent community impact fee on operators who own multiple properties.
There are probably places that would benefit from similar or more strict regulations on those kinds of AirBnB type houses.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
Does it really? Or does deliberate under supply of hotel rooms drive capital into AirBnB homes?
No, what happens is that the internet allows you to organize renters and landlords efficiently enough that it becomes possible to rent out properties on a regular basis for very short terms. This opened up a new market and people jumped into it to make money. It's actually one of those examples of new technology creating new markets.
Then its not a bad thing, because its taking an underutilized resource (weeks that my house is occupied) and raising it to full use. If it offers a real advantage, then what is the cost to society of me renting out my house for the 5 weeks I'm out of town in the autumn or something?
I find myself unconvinced that the 'bad' side of AirBnB (where people take houses that they would otherwise have rented and instead AirBnB them) can be blamed on anything but artificial scarcity in hotel prices. A hotel fundamentally should be a more efficient way to provide properly sized rooms where you don't need storage than individual houses or condos can be. Economies of scale alone should make cleaning and services cheaper. How can a repurposed private home compete on economic fundamentals unless hotels are conspiring to increase prices.
I suppose maybe we could blame the old taxi medallion model problem? Pointless gatekeeper fees and regulations via local governments are preventing companies from entering a desirable market?
My fiancee and I go down to the beach a few times a year and an AirBnB is just in every conceivable way better for us than a hotel would be
And it costs less.
It really probably shouldn't. I suppose the consequence of that is that the community I'm visiting is missing out on some tax revenue. I would absolutely support them changing the laws or whatever is needed to equalize that cost/benefit equation, but until they do I'm gonna AirBnB every time.
I'm not saying that the hotel market is AirB&B's fault. I'm saying that AirB&B is generally speaking designed to crowdsource lawbreaking and flagrant ignoring of zoning laws. If I live in a residential neighborhood, and my city has laws, taxes, and restrictions on short-term rentals, AirB&B should be subject to such. But they aren't.
Or, in more common terms, everyone wants to stay at an AirB&B, no one wants to live in the next condo over from one when you bought in a long-term condominium community that doesn't allow rentals.
This sounds a lot like the NIMBY zoning issues that are causing a housing crisis in the first place.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
Does it really? Or does deliberate under supply of hotel rooms drive capital into AirBnB homes?
No, what happens is that the internet allows you to organize renters and landlords efficiently enough that it becomes possible to rent out properties on a regular basis for very short terms. This opened up a new market and people jumped into it to make money. It's actually one of those examples of new technology creating new markets.
Then its not a bad thing, because its taking an underutilized resource (weeks that my house is occupied) and raising it to full use. If it offers a real advantage, then what is the cost to society of me renting out my house for the 5 weeks I'm out of town in the autumn or something?
I find myself unconvinced that the 'bad' side of AirBnB (where people take houses that they would otherwise have rented and instead AirBnB them) can be blamed on anything but artificial scarcity in hotel prices. A hotel fundamentally should be a more efficient way to provide properly sized rooms where you don't need storage than individual houses or condos can be. Economies of scale alone should make cleaning and services cheaper. How can a repurposed private home compete on economic fundamentals unless hotels are conspiring to increase prices.
I suppose maybe we could blame the old taxi medallion model problem? Pointless gatekeeper fees and regulations via local governments are preventing companies from entering a desirable market?
Hotels have to pay staff whether the room is being rented out or not.
Hotels also have to pay taxes as hotels and businesses where private residences generally don't. Hotels also have to be ADA (and similar) compliant where AirBnb homes don't.
It may be better for individual consumers, but it 100% is worse for society.
Air B&B directly contributes to rental market inflation in pretty much every tourism-adjacent community. It also skirts the taxes levied upon hotels for their disproportionate use of city facilities. Not to mention violating zoning codes and turning residential properties into commercial properties without the consent of either the community or the local government.
Also somebody mentioned induced demand, and it seems to me like Abnb would contribute greatly to this. Lodging is a huge portion of the expense for a vacation...often much more so than airfare...so when I can rent an apartment in a city for half the price of a hotel, it definitely increases my ability to vacation in that area. That would be an increased demand.
And while renting out properties as vacation rentals has always been a thing...especially in specific tourist areas like beach communities...the idea that entire neighborhoods in major cities now force residents to compete with tourists on the housing market is a real problem. It was theoretically possible to sublet out multiple apartments as a de facto hotel in the past, but it was difficult enough that it wasn’t an issue. Abnb makes this easy.
It’s like comparing the privacy implications of the police following somebody 24/7, and simply planting a GPS tracker. Technology can make something so much easier that it’s transformative.
I say this as a person whose mom is making a decent living through AirB&B. Its a great thing for the homeowner and the renter, but the reason that process is historically complicated is due to the complicated nature of how rentals work with other homeowners, the community, and local resources.
I love staying in an AirB&B, I'll definitely do so until it gets outlawed. I will also vote for whatever law will lead to it being outlawed.
For my guild AirB&B and similar services are a godsend we can rent basically a beach front mansion with 20-25 people and it winds up costing us like 350 bucks per person for the week. We have tried it in hotels and it just dosn't work no real room to really have fun gaming and hanging out in when everybody is in a series of tiny rooms. With a big rental property we have our own pool/hot tub/gaming areas large table spaces for board games and plenty of places to just kick back and chat. I can see the downside though with big rental properties shooting up in residential areas though that are not zoned for it but a lot of that is local municipalities need to be more strict and hands on with the zoning. Areas like the outerbanks seem like a good place for rental property given big swaths of it are basically just for vacation rental stuff where the owners only stay in the places during the winter.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'm not saying that the hotel market is AirB&B's fault. I'm saying that AirB&B is generally speaking designed to crowdsource lawbreaking and flagrant ignoring of zoning laws. If I live in a residential neighborhood, and my city has laws, taxes, and restrictions on short-term rentals, AirB&B should be subject to such. But they aren't.
Or, in more common terms, everyone wants to stay at an AirB&B, no one wants to live in the next condo over from one when you bought in a long-term condominium community that doesn't allow rentals.
This sounds a lot like the NIMBY zoning issues that are causing a housing crisis in the first place.
There is a difference between NIMBY and taxing hotels. Hotels place a disproportionate strain on water, sewer, electrical, traffic, and roadway use due to high occupancy without having a significant a footprint to extract taxes upon them. They also create a significant amount of noise, which is why they are typically zoned in commercial areas. Those taxes exist to compensate the community for their use.
For example, most of Florida has state and county (and often city) hotel taxes placed upon them. The same way that we have similar taxes upon our taxi and shuttle services, and our rental vehicles. Tourists use our roadways as much as locals but, without these taxes, do not pay into the costs to maintain them. Same with our other public services. Because of that, rather than placing regressive taxes that would hit only our poorest via state sales taxes, or just place it on property taxes (which could certainly be higher, but do already include these costs), we put the taxes out in a way that tries to tie usage to cost.
Now, zoning commissions separate residential from hotels for fairly obvious reasons. Even medium and high density residential units are usually not adjacent to hotel uses unless the community is right on the edge of the zoning plat. This isn't NIMBY, but coding things for what they are supposed to be. A hotel is a commercial enterprise. It should be placed as such.
Air B&B, Uber, and all these other services exist specifically to get around those restrictions, and they can be great for the consumers. But, again, they are terrible for the communities. Again, you don't buy into a residential zoned neighborhood or tower only to have your neighbors choose to turn their place into an AirB&B pad. That not only is against everything that went into the development and zoning of the community, but its frankly irresponsible and disrespectful to the other people who bought into that community.
The problem when NIMBYs are restricting the housing supply.
Being NIMBY about Airbnb is good for housing.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
That survey is flawed because many homeless people transit between being housed and being homeless. So it will artificially increase the numbers of those who appear to have last lived in the local area. What you want to know is, what is the last city you lived in in which you were never homeless, the first city you became homeless in, and have you been homeless in any other place but the current county you live in.
Also, whether 20% of the homeless people in large west coast cities are from out of state or 50% of them are, its still an exported problem which needs to be dealt with at the national level.
I think one issue is that many or most of the homeless are almost invisible. The idea that most homeless are local or semi-local makes more sense when you consider the portion of the homeless who have been homeless less than a year and who are car camping, couch surfing, or in and out of hotels. There are gradients of homelessness.
In Seattle, almost invariably when we have a mentally unstable homeless person attack somebody downtown it doesn’t take long to find out they’re from three states or more away and have been in the area for the last couple years tops. But these are simply the most visible people, you never hear anything about the locals who found themselves priced out of their previous home (due to income or rent increases) and slowly slid into an unstable housing situation. They usually aren’t in a tent downtown, and are very rarely the ones making headlines through violence. It’s just invisible suffering.
mcdermott on
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I say this as a person whose mom is making a decent living through AirB&B. Its a great thing for the homeowner and the renter, but the reason that process is historically complicated is due to the complicated nature of how rentals work with other homeowners, the community, and local resources.
I love staying in an AirB&B, I'll definitely do so until it gets outlawed. I will also vote for whatever law will lead to it being outlawed.
For my guild AirB&B and similar services are a godsend we can rent basically a beach front mansion with 20-25 people and it winds up costing us like 350 bucks per person for the week. We have tried it in hotels and it just dosn't work no real room to really have fun gaming and hanging out in when everybody is in a series of tiny rooms. With a big rental property we have our own pool/hot tub/gaming areas large table spaces for board games and plenty of places to just kick back and chat. I can see the downside though with big rental properties shooting up in residential areas though that are not zoned for it but a lot of that is local municipalities need to be more strict and hands on with the zoning. Areas like the outerbanks seem like a good place for rental property given big swaths of it are basically just for vacation rental stuff where the owners only stay in the places during the winter.
You can rent a house through traditional means and do the same thing. People did this and followed the laws and acceptable regulations for insurance, taxes, etc. long before AirB&B.
Also, yeah. It's great. I use it also. It shouldn't exits though.
I'm not saying that the hotel market is AirB&B's fault. I'm saying that AirB&B is generally speaking designed to crowdsource lawbreaking and flagrant ignoring of zoning laws. If I live in a residential neighborhood, and my city has laws, taxes, and restrictions on short-term rentals, AirB&B should be subject to such. But they aren't.
Or, in more common terms, everyone wants to stay at an AirB&B, no one wants to live in the next condo over from one when you bought in a long-term condominium community that doesn't allow rentals.
This sounds a lot like the NIMBY zoning issues that are causing a housing crisis in the first place.
There is a difference between NIMBY and taxing hotels. Hotels place a disproportionate strain on water, sewer, electrical, traffic, and roadway use due to high occupancy without having a significant a footprint to extract taxes upon them. They also create a significant amount of noise, which is why they are typically zoned in commercial areas. Those taxes exist to compensate the community for their use.
For example, most of Florida has state and county (and often city) hotel taxes placed upon them. The same way that we have similar taxes upon our taxi and shuttle services, and our rental vehicles. Tourists use our roadways as much as locals but, without these taxes, do not pay into the costs to maintain them. Same with our other public services. Because of that, rather than placing regressive taxes that would hit only our poorest via state sales taxes, or just place it on property taxes (which could certainly be higher, but do already include these costs), we put the taxes out in a way that tries to tie usage to cost.
Now, zoning commissions separate residential from hotels for fairly obvious reasons. Even medium and high density residential units are usually not adjacent to hotel uses unless the community is right on the edge of the zoning plat. This isn't NIMBY, but coding things for what they are supposed to be. A hotel is a commercial enterprise. It should be placed as such.
Air B&B, Uber, and all these other services exist specifically to get around those restrictions, and they can be great for the consumers. But, again, they are terrible for the communities. Again, you don't buy into a residential zoned neighborhood or tower only to have your neighbors choose to turn their place into an AirB&B pad. That not only is against everything that went into the development and zoning of the community, but its frankly irresponsible and disrespectful to the other people who bought into that community.
A residential property under short term rental is not going to be significantly higher density than it otherwise would be. The only difference in taxation vis a vis someone just loving there is I guess income tax? Applying appropriate taxes is fine but the rest of this is ridiculous.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
If you made AirBnb illegal it’d result in more hotels being built.
Second, third etc homes of rich people are a problem in some cities. Probably best to just tax them higher.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
Does it really? Or does deliberate under supply of hotel rooms drive capital into AirBnB homes?
No, what happens is that the internet allows you to organize renters and landlords efficiently enough that it becomes possible to rent out properties on a regular basis for very short terms. This opened up a new market and people jumped into it to make money. It's actually one of those examples of new technology creating new markets.
Then its not a bad thing, because its taking an underutilized resource (weeks that my house is occupied) and raising it to full use. If it offers a real advantage, then what is the cost to society of me renting out my house for the 5 weeks I'm out of town in the autumn or something?
I find myself unconvinced that the 'bad' side of AirBnB (where people take houses that they would otherwise have rented and instead AirBnB them) can be blamed on anything but artificial scarcity in hotel prices. A hotel fundamentally should be a more efficient way to provide properly sized rooms where you don't need storage than individual houses or condos can be. Economies of scale alone should make cleaning and services cheaper. How can a repurposed private home compete on economic fundamentals unless hotels are conspiring to increase prices.
I suppose maybe we could blame the old taxi medallion model problem? Pointless gatekeeper fees and regulations via local governments are preventing companies from entering a desirable market?
Hotels have to pay staff whether the room is being rented out or not.
Hotels also have to pay taxes as hotels and businesses where private residences generally don't. Hotels also have to be ADA (and similar) compliant where AirBnb homes don't.
Your thinking about hotel staffing in a very antiquated way. Yeah, sure, maybe the manager is full time, but 99% of the staff in those buildings are contractors who only come in when there is work.
Also, if your concept is that say, Hilton International is paying a higher effective rate of tax on profits than Johnny Briggs who rents out his mums old house in Florida then your highly confused. Hotel occupancy taxes are levied on the people renting the rooms as an additional line item, and adding them to the cost of an AirBnB doesn't even come close to lining things up.
ADA compliance has some merit to consider, but, hotels only have a fraction of their rooms ADA compliant. I cannot imagine that the additional space required for facilities in those few rooms comes close to the fact that say, a single family home almost certainly has a garage, and a garden, and 300 square feet of closets in efficiency.
Maybe theres inefficiencies to be found in the zoning? Where as others have said hotels are forced into dense commercial areas (certainly not true everywhere, and again, AirBnB beats hotels EVERYWHERE) But, the logic which says, "Hotels are noisy and must be in commercial zones" doesn't apply to someone renting a single house.
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battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Can't the idiot just stay in the damn white house and eat ice cream and look at golf on a big screen TV or something. He can bring donors to visit him and charge them a million bucks for a luxury hamburger with Trump. Everything he says just makes things worse for every issue he talks about.
Any company that exists solely to avoid regulations (and profit by that avoidance) for it's core money-making business needs to go. This can be anything from AirBnB or Uber to tax shelters and shell companies.
Second, third, etc homes of the rich are already taxed higher (no homestead, for example). I'm all for taxing the rich, but the really rich will be able to afford a 2nd home regardless of any reasonable tax applied.
About 5-15% of homeless people migrate between states. I expect, but I cannot prove, that east coast states are closer to the top end of that range only because they're geographically smaller. Yosemite is 150 miles east of Oakland, CA; go 150 miles east of Baltimore, Maryland or Washington, DC and you end up in West Virginia.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think both AirBnB and Uber have viable business models without the tax and regulation cheating. After all, we used to phone for cabs and somehow that managed to exist as a business. Uber is at base just an update of that to make it easier to phone for cabs.
In the same way, you used to find houses for holiday rentals through catalogues of houses available to rent. AirBnB is an interface update to that which makes it easier.
People would still use them if they weren't unnaturally cheap.
I think it's less about stopping them from owning second homes and more about recouping the losses in taxes and overall societal benefit from having that building sit empty.
If empty (or AirBnB) vacation homes is truly a cause of problems, we need to just stop it. Tell the rich that what they want is bad, they can't have it for any money, go pound the sand at their favorite golf course.
AirBnB's have advantages over hotels besides price. You have a larger spread of available locations, so you can find a place in a quiet neighborhood or near a venue instead of a hotel in the city center or off a highway. You can also find places with kitchens, laundry facilities, and other amenities that are difficult or expensive to find in hotels.
Homeless relocation is not always a bad thing. In a best-case scenario, a scrupulous relocation program might help reunite a homeless person with estranged family, or might network with another homeless aide organization in the destination city. Ideally, they'd make sure the person being bussed has a safe place to stay on the other end.
But as a Guardian expose reports, they often don't bother. Many aren't trying to help, they're just treating homeless people like human trash.
The guardian also describes how most such relocation programs are moving homeless out of magnet cities. You're far more likely to be bussed out of San Francisco than to be bussed into it.
And many of these organizations aren't up-front about relocation. One organization profiled in this expose is the Southernmost Homeless Assistance League (SHAL) of Key West, FL, who has relocated 350 people out of Key West. They also run KOTS, a 150-person-occupancy shelter.
In addition to some of the misleading practices described in the Guardian article, their website only mentions relocation once, in a list of available services that you have to drill down to find. Otherwise, their website focuses on their shelter and outreach services, such as in their mission statement on the front page:
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Also, whether 20% of the homeless people in large west coast cities are from out of state or 50% of them are, its still an exported problem which needs to be dealt with at the national level.
You can also find a place which makes sense for young children without paying $3000 a night for a one bedroom suite in a hotel.
That's why I use AirBnb. It makes family holidays easier.
When I was a kid, my parents used to get a "Holiday cottage" catalogue and pick out a place to rent from that. Now, I go on AirBnb and do the same for my family. Just an update of the same concept.
Hotels are better for business travel and single people or couples.
Air B&B directly contributes to rental market inflation in pretty much every tourism-adjacent community. It also skirts the taxes levied upon hotels for their disproportionate use of city facilities. Not to mention violating zoning codes and turning residential properties into commercial properties without the consent of either the community or the local government.
I love staying in an AirB&B, I'll definitely do so until it gets outlawed. I will also vote for whatever law will lead to it being outlawed.
A hotel should be a strictly more efficient way of providing a desirable space for vacationers. It should be IMPOSSIBLE for any single home to compete on price, unless the rented week represents simply a period of time when the homeowner is just on their own holiday (a form of rental which should certainly NOT be illegal, because its simply putting an otherwise unusable resource to work). However, since it is possible for AirBnB's to compete with hotels even in the "Buy a property, and rent it out all the time, including keeping it in exceptional condition and paying someone to manage it for you" space, it seems highly unlikely to me that the issues in the market are AirBnB's fault.
Uber's business model is pretty obviously non-viable. They don't actually do anything different to cut costs in the taxi market, they just charge less because they can burn investor cash by the barrel.
AirBnB at least has something to offer in that it provides a much larger suite of options when it comes to short-term accommodations. Super useful if you are a family, for example.
But as it relates to the thread, AirBnB has a lot of bad effects on housing as it encourages people to turn housing into hotels, decreasing the supply and putting a strain on shared resources. This is especially bad in places likes condo buildings. It's also why, in my experience, you find a lot of real estate agents running it as a side-business. First shot at the best properties.
Or, in more common terms, everyone wants to stay at an AirB&B, no one wants to live in the next condo over from one when you bought in a long-term condominium community that doesn't allow rentals.
Does it really? Or does deliberate under supply of hotel rooms drive capital into AirBnB homes?
But when a place is Airbnb 24/7 that's no bueno. Cities need to be far more aggressive with taxing, licencing, and zoning those like the hotels they are
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
No, what happens is that the internet allows you to organize renters and landlords efficiently enough that it becomes possible to rent out properties on a regular basis for very short terms. This opened up a new market and people jumped into it to make money. It's actually one of those examples of new technology creating new markets.
Or C. A good investment in that it retains its relative value while costing less than rental in the long term.
I also don't think real estate being an investment is some kind of modern American invention. It certainly predates the United States and has roots all the way back in agrarian societies.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
There is no separating the two, though.
I mean, I think you could theoretically pull it off by forcing AirBnB propreties to register and then doing your best to enforce some kind of minimum residency regulations on the property. Basically "you have to live in the property for x% of the year or it's a hotel and now these other regulations and taxes apply."
I know there are rules vaguely similar to this in some cities. At our old place, our old downstairs neighbours got pushed out of their apartment by the landlords and the only way they were allowed to do it was by establishing to the city rental authority that they would be using the property for a large enough percentage of the year.
I'm pretty sure that the holiday cottages my parents rented back in the '80s competed fine on price with hotels, because my mum is thrifty and would have got a hotel room or 2 if it was cheaper. Hotels have stuff that's useful to business travelers (like daily cleaning, 24-hour check-in, and room service) that's not relevant to a family on holiday.
I mean, you probably could if AirBnB was interested in playing by the rules, or the cities were willing to play hardball, and there was data sharing between Airbnb and the regulators but... lol never happening.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
In MA a law went into effect last year
There are probably places that would benefit from similar or more strict regulations on those kinds of AirBnB type houses.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Then its not a bad thing, because its taking an underutilized resource (weeks that my house is occupied) and raising it to full use. If it offers a real advantage, then what is the cost to society of me renting out my house for the 5 weeks I'm out of town in the autumn or something?
I find myself unconvinced that the 'bad' side of AirBnB (where people take houses that they would otherwise have rented and instead AirBnB them) can be blamed on anything but artificial scarcity in hotel prices. A hotel fundamentally should be a more efficient way to provide properly sized rooms where you don't need storage than individual houses or condos can be. Economies of scale alone should make cleaning and services cheaper. How can a repurposed private home compete on economic fundamentals unless hotels are conspiring to increase prices.
I suppose maybe we could blame the old taxi medallion model problem? Pointless gatekeeper fees and regulations via local governments are preventing companies from entering a desirable market?
And it costs less.
It really probably shouldn't. I suppose the consequence of that is that the community I'm visiting is missing out on some tax revenue. I would absolutely support them changing the laws or whatever is needed to equalize that cost/benefit equation, but until they do I'm gonna AirBnB every time.
This sounds a lot like the NIMBY zoning issues that are causing a housing crisis in the first place.
Hotels have to pay staff whether the room is being rented out or not.
Hotels also have to pay taxes as hotels and businesses where private residences generally don't. Hotels also have to be ADA (and similar) compliant where AirBnb homes don't.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Also somebody mentioned induced demand, and it seems to me like Abnb would contribute greatly to this. Lodging is a huge portion of the expense for a vacation...often much more so than airfare...so when I can rent an apartment in a city for half the price of a hotel, it definitely increases my ability to vacation in that area. That would be an increased demand.
And while renting out properties as vacation rentals has always been a thing...especially in specific tourist areas like beach communities...the idea that entire neighborhoods in major cities now force residents to compete with tourists on the housing market is a real problem. It was theoretically possible to sublet out multiple apartments as a de facto hotel in the past, but it was difficult enough that it wasn’t an issue. Abnb makes this easy.
It’s like comparing the privacy implications of the police following somebody 24/7, and simply planting a GPS tracker. Technology can make something so much easier that it’s transformative.
For my guild AirB&B and similar services are a godsend we can rent basically a beach front mansion with 20-25 people and it winds up costing us like 350 bucks per person for the week. We have tried it in hotels and it just dosn't work no real room to really have fun gaming and hanging out in when everybody is in a series of tiny rooms. With a big rental property we have our own pool/hot tub/gaming areas large table spaces for board games and plenty of places to just kick back and chat. I can see the downside though with big rental properties shooting up in residential areas though that are not zoned for it but a lot of that is local municipalities need to be more strict and hands on with the zoning. Areas like the outerbanks seem like a good place for rental property given big swaths of it are basically just for vacation rental stuff where the owners only stay in the places during the winter.
There is a difference between NIMBY and taxing hotels. Hotels place a disproportionate strain on water, sewer, electrical, traffic, and roadway use due to high occupancy without having a significant a footprint to extract taxes upon them. They also create a significant amount of noise, which is why they are typically zoned in commercial areas. Those taxes exist to compensate the community for their use.
For example, most of Florida has state and county (and often city) hotel taxes placed upon them. The same way that we have similar taxes upon our taxi and shuttle services, and our rental vehicles. Tourists use our roadways as much as locals but, without these taxes, do not pay into the costs to maintain them. Same with our other public services. Because of that, rather than placing regressive taxes that would hit only our poorest via state sales taxes, or just place it on property taxes (which could certainly be higher, but do already include these costs), we put the taxes out in a way that tries to tie usage to cost.
Now, zoning commissions separate residential from hotels for fairly obvious reasons. Even medium and high density residential units are usually not adjacent to hotel uses unless the community is right on the edge of the zoning plat. This isn't NIMBY, but coding things for what they are supposed to be. A hotel is a commercial enterprise. It should be placed as such.
Air B&B, Uber, and all these other services exist specifically to get around those restrictions, and they can be great for the consumers. But, again, they are terrible for the communities. Again, you don't buy into a residential zoned neighborhood or tower only to have your neighbors choose to turn their place into an AirB&B pad. That not only is against everything that went into the development and zoning of the community, but its frankly irresponsible and disrespectful to the other people who bought into that community.
The problem when NIMBYs are restricting the housing supply.
Being NIMBY about Airbnb is good for housing.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I think one issue is that many or most of the homeless are almost invisible. The idea that most homeless are local or semi-local makes more sense when you consider the portion of the homeless who have been homeless less than a year and who are car camping, couch surfing, or in and out of hotels. There are gradients of homelessness.
In Seattle, almost invariably when we have a mentally unstable homeless person attack somebody downtown it doesn’t take long to find out they’re from three states or more away and have been in the area for the last couple years tops. But these are simply the most visible people, you never hear anything about the locals who found themselves priced out of their previous home (due to income or rent increases) and slowly slid into an unstable housing situation. They usually aren’t in a tent downtown, and are very rarely the ones making headlines through violence. It’s just invisible suffering.
You can rent a house through traditional means and do the same thing. People did this and followed the laws and acceptable regulations for insurance, taxes, etc. long before AirB&B.
Also, yeah. It's great. I use it also. It shouldn't exits though.
...it would just be renting a house like you did, and still can do, circa forever ago-today.
A residential property under short term rental is not going to be significantly higher density than it otherwise would be. The only difference in taxation vis a vis someone just loving there is I guess income tax? Applying appropriate taxes is fine but the rest of this is ridiculous.
Your thinking about hotel staffing in a very antiquated way. Yeah, sure, maybe the manager is full time, but 99% of the staff in those buildings are contractors who only come in when there is work.
Also, if your concept is that say, Hilton International is paying a higher effective rate of tax on profits than Johnny Briggs who rents out his mums old house in Florida then your highly confused. Hotel occupancy taxes are levied on the people renting the rooms as an additional line item, and adding them to the cost of an AirBnB doesn't even come close to lining things up.
ADA compliance has some merit to consider, but, hotels only have a fraction of their rooms ADA compliant. I cannot imagine that the additional space required for facilities in those few rooms comes close to the fact that say, a single family home almost certainly has a garage, and a garden, and 300 square feet of closets in efficiency.
Maybe theres inefficiencies to be found in the zoning? Where as others have said hotels are forced into dense commercial areas (certainly not true everywhere, and again, AirBnB beats hotels EVERYWHERE) But, the logic which says, "Hotels are noisy and must be in commercial zones" doesn't apply to someone renting a single house.
Renting a house for a week though.
I know it's possible, because as I said, my family did this in the '80s. Holiday cottages weren't invented by techbro's in SF 10 years ago.