No worries, it happens.
Part of the reason AirBnB and VRBO exist is because hotels are often pretty shitty. There has to be a happy medium here, because I’ve had some really great stays with AirBnB that could never have happened at a hotel.
I recognize their harm, but I 100% prefer AirBnB. Especially with kids, but even without.
I love having a cool property to spread out, cook meals and just relax. Hard to do that in a hotel.
There can be a happy medium with rules and regulations. Maybe not as harsh as NYC, but you can both limit the number of short-term rentals in a given city, or limit the number of nights each unit can be rented per year so that it discourages people from having units that are strictly used for short-term rental.
Reykjavik was having the same problem, and they made it so you had to register to have a short-term rental and could only rent your place for a max of 90 nights a year. And they put a max amount for how much you could make per year on rentals.
I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve stayed in AirBNBs and there is certainly something to it that a hotel won’t give you. However, they had their chance to self-regulate with moderate conditions and didn’t even make an attempt. So now they get what the government that’s dealing with a lot of angry constituents is offering.
Here are some other cities that have passed rules.
The only Uber I’ve ever used was at a conference where the area chair took us all out to the Indy 500 race track. We went in a couple of large SUVs. These were nominally Ubers, but the drivers were I don’t know, “affiliates” of a company that for all intents and purposes was an unregulated, unlicensed cab company, only with no actual accountability and no obligation to its not-under-the-law employees.
Exactly. You want to rent out your home? Run a bed and breakfast like people have forever. I’m sorry these douchebags can’t use an app to ignore local regulations.
Listen to this podcast where they interview a college kid who had 9 leased apartments he was renting on Airbnb: Spotify
If this kid had nine, imagine what actual adults with more time, motivation, and lack of moral fiber were doing?
This is a big win for NYC residents, and it slightly softens my cold dead heart to see the government actually helping the common people for once.
Do Uber and Doordash next! Those fuckers have ruined Boston.
Or at least have to follow the same regulations for doing so. Usually this sort of thing requires planning permission etc. Avoiding that via Airbnb isn’t how this is supposed to work.
Yes, it’s easy to get out-competed when your competition isn’t playing by the same rules.
There’s really (…at least?) three different kinds of AirBnB:
- hotel units in cities and other dense places where people live year-round, using AirBnB to avoid regulation/zoning and make more money than you’d get from traditional monthly or annual rentals
- renting of rooms where the primary owner/occupant is there most of the time (either a spare room, or renting it out for a couple of nights when I’m gone on my monthly business trip)
- renting of vacation homes in traditional vacation home markets
The second one was the original promise of AirBnB, and is mostly fine, but not that common a use of the platform, despite what AirBnB would like you to think. (Their current national TV spots are mostly promoting this kind of stay.) The third one was always done through classifieds and brokers historically, and is also mostly fine, though the ease of doing it on AirBnB has caused additional housing shortages in some of those traditional vacation markets (e.g. the Cape), so it should probably be addressed to some degree. The first one is pure regulatory arbitrage, should have been banned from the beginning, is just as bad as Uber, and I’m glad that some cities are finally catching up.
I suspect the third one has never really been viable at scale until now, which is why it hasn’t been regulated.
Disagree, it’s because they’re cheaper. Same reason Uber took off, they were cheaper than cabs.
Uber and Airbnb are not cheaper than cabs and hotels anymore.
Cheaper and more convenient. Never underestimate the power of convenience.
In my experience with AirBnB, they were both cheaper AND better.
Negative. It’s because you get a fixed, pre-disclosed price for your ride and pay through the app. Taxis STILL don’t offer this service, at least not in San Diego. Likewise AirBnb. You almost always get a better quality, more comfortable stay than a hotel. VRBO has been around far longer than AirBnb offering essentially the same service.
You guys must be staying at some pretty shitty hotels.
The only thing more convenient about Airbnb (and Uber) is their app. There are nice units and their are shitty units in shitty neighborhoods, just like hotels.
Are you checking for bedbugs? I always check for bedbugs.
What hotel room isn’t 200 square feet with a bed, a sink, and a luggage tray? They’re all the same. Every AirBnb I’ve ever stayed at (dozens) is an apartment-style (or home-style) stay with a stocked kitchen and separate bedrooms in a convenient location. You must be staying at some pretty shitty AirBnb’s.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t think I have been to a crappy hotel unless I specifically chose to go on the cheap. I’ll stick to chain hotels as they have a pretty standard quality.
As for prices/costs, most times I look up AirBNB the prices aren’t much better than hotels in the area, often they are higher. I mean, when I travel, it is just the 2 of us, and the hotel is just where you sleep, don’t need much fancier than that. This is why most AirBNB are more expensive, they have a bunch of amenities, which we don’t need.
We rented a cabin for a bachelor party, that was a good reason to use an AirBNB (though this cabin was through a seperate company)
Right, it’s all purpose dependent. If I’m by myself and/or just need a bed a cheap hotel is fine. If I’m using a place as a base of operations for vacationing or having a large gathering with friends or family, it’s really nice to have someplace you can spread out and/or host.
And at least part of that reason is because they’ve been slowly forced to work within, not outside, existing regulation (e.g. Uber has been fighting a long battle in the UK regarding if their drivers are employees or not, what sort of tax they have to pay, etc.).