I think this is an interesting and unintended consequence of AirBnB not investing nearly on filtering their users.
AirBnB obviously was interested in getting their product used by as many people as people (growth at all costs) - but this had the effect of getting a lot of young, cost conscious people to take holidays in area that were traditionally residential. While most AirBnB renters are polite and respectful, enough of them were loud, disruptive and ignoring the local rules (for example, tourists in Venice who use AirBnB but ignore the very strict garbage disposal laws) that local residents started dreading having AirBnBs around.
AirBnB is already very strict with landlords: it needs to start being a lot stricter with its users too. They rapidly need to educate their users about how to be good citizens, and that the motto of 'the customer is always right' is completely the wrong way to think about a stay in a residential area in a foreign city. Users should think of themselves as a respectful guest, not an entitled customer.
"AirBnB is already very strict with landlords: it needs to start being a lot stricter with its users too." It's not as strict with landlords as it should be.
And while it is strict with users it actually favors landlords and by a landslide. Have you ever rented long term with AirBnB? Hosts can literally cancel the reservation for any reason( Airbnb says they punish for doing so but rarely if ever because the Host can provide any reason) If you happen to be in a city that doesn't have as many Airbnbs and you get a really good deal, you're screwed if the host decides to cancel.
Costs for Airbnb's have also gone up significantly that it's often not even worth it to rent one if you happen to be less than a group of 4 people.
Does AirBnB ensure that the landlord/owner is properly licensed to offer the property for a short term rental before listing it? Or do they just take the landlord's word for it?
"While most AirBnB renters are polite and respectful, enough of them were loud, disruptive and ignoring the local rules (for example, tourists in Venice who use AirBnB but ignore the very strict garbage disposal laws) that local residents started dreading having AirBnBs around."
A short term renter in an unlicensed business operating next door to you in your residential apartment building is necessarily going to be louder, less safe, and cause more issues than a long term neighbor. I rent a residential apartment in a residential building on a residential street. I did not rent a hotel room for a year next to other hotel rooms.
No, sorry. AirBnB is creating immense problems in tourist destinations, to the point where people in major cities in Greece (and other countries) are having trouble finding affordable permanent housing.
Barcelona and Rome are overrun with tourists, and it's killing the cities. AirBnB should just go away, the market worked very well before it, even if things were a bit more expensive.
It's not at all strict with landlords. Requiring hotel/b&b zoning would be being strict with landlords, say, and that's what many countries and municipalities now do, but AirBnB seems to generally have little interest in helping to enforce that.
Not true in Canada, AirBnB breaks municipal and in some cases provincial laws for short term rentals. Thousands of houses are in no rent zones and AirBnB knows damn well. The tactic to combat these rentals is to use provincial & city inspectors who levy huge taxes and prohibit short-term rentals with the landlords, but they are very understaffed and generally ineffective.
AirbNB is getting away with very grey legal area here, they should he held legally accountable for facilitating illegal rentals. Right now my tax dollars are paying for the government to enforce what AirBnB sells without impunity.
On a personal note I'm thinking of pursuing this legally with AirBnB and/or my city, my street has 4 illegal AirBnB rentals on it and my city can't see to enforce their own laws. There's enough interest in my region to easily get about 30 people on board, and that's just one semi small town.
And we don't blame the users of AirBnB, they dont know the local laws, we blame the landlords and ultimately the platform.
I know in west coast tourism destinations you will practically get beat up if your renting out to airBnB illegally since it has such a negative effect on local housing prices.
Well, you've already answered my question before I made a random response.
I was going to ask "Why are there laws against people making money?", but it make sense. Residential areas are for residents, not commerce. There should be a place for folks to relax around their contemporaries without having to deal with knowing that their environment may change from day to day.
I would say, perhaps there should be a compromise. After-all, being able to rent out a room from time to time can help home owners stay in their homes longer (or even enjoy life more). Maybe there could be a 2-3 strike rule on tenants. Where, if things do go out of hand (for whatever that reason), then the homeowner cannot be part of the AirBnb renting experience.
That way, there is something to gain and something to loose. Educating tenants would be priority.
I agree with your point. I'd however like to add to this: "Users should think of themselves as a respectful guest, not an entitled customer".
Lots of landlords that rent places for a living started using AirBnB. I specially experienced this in Poland, where I often had to go to a company-owned building to pick up the keys. There they had an office, reception, etc.
It didn't feel any different from a hotel. One time we complained about an apartment, and they gave us another one that was empty.
So, my point is that the host often sets the mood. If it's a hotel-like structure that even has self check-in, with a company that uses its own website, Booking, AirBnb and whatever else is around to rent rooms, you feel like an entitled customer. If an old woman opens the door to the guest house, you feel like a guest in her house.
I guess AirBnB departed from their original vision of having people sleep in your living room on an air mattress, and it's now used by hospitality companies as another channel to get customers. When that is the case, you definitely feel like acting as a guest at a hotel, since that's what it is although booked via AirBnB.
Airbnb wouldn't want to do this though. A lot of cities are made almost entirely of condos and apartments that specifically rule out short term rentals (and have had since before Airbnb was even a thing). If people respected laws, rules, etc, they'd have nearly no product in the hottest areas. Airbnb as you know it would be a mere shadow of what it is now.
It is funny but you know there is an invention to the problem you just mentioned: It is called a "Hotel". For cost conscious people it is called a "Hostel" or a "Guest House".
The reason Airbnb is cheaper is because users are running afoul of the laws and possibly taxes.
Have you checked the Airbnb listings? Very little people are sharing their places. Most of the people are running this as a business. Many of them are not either there and delegate the key to another third-party.
It is a mess. And I'm not against it (I'm not a legal citizen of every country). But it is not fair to have registered hotel who comply with rules and pay taxes. And have Airbnb. You'll have to pick.
AirBnb creates "bad neighbours" by putting lots of tourists, some of whom behave badly, in formerly residential locations. It creates a whole new set of absentee landlords. If it were restricted to renting out places where the owner was still living it wouldn't be nearly so much of a problem.
This is the approach taken in London: Anyone can AirBnB their property, but only for 90 days a year, unless you have special permission. This prevents people buying up/renting flats just to let them out on AirBnB and putting pressure on the already cripplingly bad housing situation.
I live in London and a couple of years ago several of my neighbours had their flats on Airbnb, then my upstairs neighbour got married, moved out and had his flat on Airbnb, that was a massive burden on us as we suddenly went from one quiet neighbour from never knowing who was going to be living there to lots and lots of noise and weekend afterparties, luckily our council took action but only after my next door neighbour also complained. Then I was priced out of where I had been living for 6 years, and it drove me mental seeing all those flats near me advertised as whole flats on Airbnb and realising I’d have to move further out.
I have pledged to never stay in an Airbnb, ever and tell my friends they shouldn’t rent a whole place either.
This Redditor offers one plausible cause/reason [0]:
> This may not be a popular opinion here but I totally understand the concern. There had been a huge increase in transient international visitors being introduced to residential areas that previously did not have to deal with that. Having a constant stream of strangers coming and going in your building is not something many residents feel comfortable with.
Also: > Also I just want to be sure to note to people: THESE LAWS APPLY TO ALL SHORT TERM RENTALS AND ARE NOT JUST FOR AIRBNB.
That's a valid concern. But seems to be something better handled by local ordinances and not the sort of thing a national government shoulf need to drop the hammer down on... In my opinion.
There's a lot of emphasis on bad behavior from Airbnb guests, but I think that's only part of it. Another big issue is that formerly residential communities often resist the conversion of housing that used to host neighbors (and especially kids) into short term tourist rentals. The pressure, and controversy, is especially intense in areas that are largely residential but immensely popular with tourists. The French quarter of New Orleans, the left bank of Paris, many neighborhoods in San Francisco and New York, places like that.
The problem is that "spare" bedrooms (as Airbnb likes to call them) are far more lucrative used as short term tourist rentals than as a living space for kids, who cost a bundle and don't generally pay much in rent. The pitch Airbnb makes is that people have a spare bedroom lying' around and why not rent it out? But the thing is, people start to acquire properties with spare bedrooms for the purpose of having one to rent out - or entire housing units. When this proceeds apace, former communities - which in places like the French quarter are already primed to protect themselves from too much conversion into tourism stock - come to see Airbnb as an existential threat.
Even if the Airbnb guests are well behaved, this fundamental difference won't go away. Think of it this way: some people would like to trade their right to run a hotel out of their house in exchange for a legally enforced expectation that their neighbors won't either. That means severely restricting Airbnb.
For what it's worth, as an airbnb host in a residential neighborhood in a small tourist town that attracts a lot of young people in the summer I have never had poorly behaved guests. I've had a couple that could have cleaned up after themselves a little more or ruined our towels but otherwise have not had any issues, even with noise. Airbnbs in the area absorb the extra demand for space that hotels cannot supply, and having strangers around during tourist season is far preferable to having new hotels built and dealing with the invasion of the sprawl that comes with them. We do not (yet) have the problem of investors buying real estate to rent out on Airbnb because there is not yet enough demand to support it.
I realize you're talking about large cities, but it seems everyone else in this thread is as well and forgets that Airbnb operates well outside of large cities.
> some people would like to trade their right to run a hotel out of their house in exchange for a legally enforced expectation that their neighbors won't either.
This! And: most of us thought we already had laws to that effect.
Also, even for the best-behaved guests I would not want to have regular AirBNB-ing in my building. There are young children and old people living here, and they deserve some presumption of safety, not just quiet.
(I do stay in AirBNBs myself sometimes, and I'm a very low-impact guest, but I recognize my opinion is a bit contradictory because of that.)
> The problem is that "spare" bedrooms (as Airbnb likes to call them) are far more lucrative used as short term tourist rentals than as a living space for kids, who cost a bundle and don't generally pay much in rent. The pitch Airbnb makes is that people have a spare bedroom lying' around and why not rent it out? But the thing is, people start to acquire properties with spare bedrooms for the purpose of having one to rent out - or entire housing units. When this proceeds apace, former communities - which in places like the French quarter are already primed to protect themselves from too much conversion into tourism stock - come to see Airbnb as an existential threat.
This doesn't seem like a plausible scenario. I highly doubt that Airbnb revenue from a spare bedroom is enough to offset the cost of the spare bedroom itself. Here in SF an extra bedroom easily adds 1K or more to the cost of an apartment. Between getting a 2 bedroom apartment and spending the time and effort to run a Airbnb in it, vs. having a 1 bedroom apartment and saving a lot of money without any extra effort it's hard to see people electing the former.
Most of the Airbnbs I've stayed in were vacation homes that the owners didn't live in most of the year, or families whose kids moved out.
Good riddance. I live in rented accommodation in Japan. A couple of years ago an Airbnb was set up next door and it was a nightmare. People coming and going at all hours, large groups of drunk holiday-makers having loud parties into the night, drinking and smoking on the balcony. After multiple calls to the owner of the apartment and the police the situation was finally resolved.
I definitely think Airbnb should have the limitation that you can only rent out a place you actively live in.
It's really sad that AirBnB is used by most people as a cheap resort, and expect to have a resort-like experience at the expense of the local neighborhood who has no desire to live next to one.
Can we just have home-share for people that understand how to be good neighbors, pretty please?
Part of hotels' professionalism is knowing how to deal with "hillbillies". Hillbillies are naturally attracted to cheap things and have no idea how to conduct themselves when they aren't in their own hometown, so they are a special problem with respect to Airbnb.
One might assume from my place of birth that I am a hillbilly, but decades of travel and living in various places domestically and abroad have mostly civilized me. I do occasionally have to correct myself however.
What's frustrating with AirBnB in Japan is AirBnB lets them lie about how many bedrooms they actually have. The excuse usually given is that Japanese count rooms differently but that is 100% provably false. As someone that's lived here 12 of the last 20 years you can see it's provably false by visiting any Japanese realtor or apartment listing site where there is zero ambiguity about the difference between 1 bedroom, 1 bedroom with a living room, dining room or both, and a 2 bedroom, or a 2 bedroom with living room and/or dining room.
This is important because of privacy. If it says 2 bedrooms it should actually have 2 bedrooms. Not a one bedroom and a living room with a sofa.
The fact that AirBnb endorses this really speaks to the integrity at AirBnb which AFAICT is fairly low (have documented lots of other similar issues with them)
In Amsterdam they already set the limit of allowed rental days per year to 30. Just last month the new city council announced they will completely forbid AirBnB in certain neighbourhoods. As someone who studied and worked most of his life in Amsterdam I welcome these measures a lot.
I used several Airbnbs in Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima last year. The first one we arrived in, in Tokyo had signs in the lift saying that Airbnb was not allowed to operate in the building, which was a bit of a stressful start. Nothing came from it though. The places in Kyoto and Hiroshima were fine, but it's made me weary of using Airbnb again.
They'll probably be back after registering. The new law is pretty reasonable and AirBnB is actually following it. This is how this is supposed to work.
AirBnB never had many listings in Japan in the first place; when I was visiting there I always went with the agencies that specialized in short-term apartment rentals; those were best for price/quality ratio if you spent at least month there. And you could even get typical traditional Japanese apartments that way near important cultural landmarks. And observing typical Japanese customs like trash collection of certain types on certain days at precisely designated spots made you feel quite integrated to their modern way of life.
As someone who grew up in a tourist area I support governments and communities that fight tooth and nail to not have a proliferation of tourism friendly housing (at the expense of the rental market no less) or allow other things that increase the market share of tourism relative to other local industries. When tourism is a large local industry it has tons of negative effects on the community that generally result in local government that doesn't have much reason to do a good job doing what it should do and plenty of reason to do things it shouldn't. It's bad in the short term that get made worse over generations.
edit: Yes I know I didn't provide any specific examples and that this viewpoint will be foreign to those of you who go somewhere for vacation and think it seems nice (yes, that's the point, to seem nice enough to get you to spend your money here, that doesn't mean it's actually nice or nice for the people that live there).
That's a bit of a shame. I get where they are coming from, but the place in Ueno my girlfriend and I rented out was cute and we didn't hold any wild parties, even if I did get the evil eye from some old guy in a convenience store.
How did it go for the trash ? recycling rules ? balcony usage ? Did you check/pass the kanranban ?
Genuinely, resident building are so different from hotels I wonder how smooth it is for the residents to have random oversea people passing by even only 180 days a year, even if they are polite, well educated and well intended.
That's a great example that clearly demonstrates that local law can be enforced, even on companies like AirBnb. I hear lots of arguments on "You can't enforce the ban", but it's simpler than ever to just do that.
Airbnb’s statement is disingenuous. They state the rule clearly then claim surprise it’s being enforced:
> hosts are required to register their listing and display a license number on their listing page by June 15th in order to stay active on our platform...
> Unfortunately, the Japanese government issued a sudden announcement on June 1st instructing any host without a license number to cancel upcoming reservations that were booked before June 15th–even though many of these hosts are actively engaged in the registration process or awaiting their license.
In Japan, citizens will punish you if you don't respect their law (e.g.: by not using your service). One of the reasons of why Uber had a hard time in there initially.
We're seeing municipalities push back in cities as big as Barcelona and Vancouver, to places remote and small as Haida Gwaii.
Cities are going to regulate out the concept of people buying apartments purely to wholly rent them out 100% of the time on Airbnb. This is a very significant portion of Airbnb revenue.
I have trouble seeing how Airbnb's valuation isn't going to have to be scaled back when big parts of their business are regulated out of existence.
To me it seems that AirBnB is cannibalizing its own business.
They are not interested in strong control over either users or landlords, for they need more and more users - but the laxer the rules are and the more people are using their service, the harder cities and residential areas will fight against it.
Probably an equilibrium could've been found not for the new and lawless startup culture fueled by their own hubris.
So how many of us now have a better idea on how to spend 48 hours in Chicago as a result of the article promo? And who else thinks the deep dish pizza from Malnati's looks more like a quiche? Either way, I now have Adventures in Babysitting on my watchlist.
[+] [-] Fede_V|7 years ago|reply
AirBnB obviously was interested in getting their product used by as many people as people (growth at all costs) - but this had the effect of getting a lot of young, cost conscious people to take holidays in area that were traditionally residential. While most AirBnB renters are polite and respectful, enough of them were loud, disruptive and ignoring the local rules (for example, tourists in Venice who use AirBnB but ignore the very strict garbage disposal laws) that local residents started dreading having AirBnBs around.
AirBnB is already very strict with landlords: it needs to start being a lot stricter with its users too. They rapidly need to educate their users about how to be good citizens, and that the motto of 'the customer is always right' is completely the wrong way to think about a stay in a residential area in a foreign city. Users should think of themselves as a respectful guest, not an entitled customer.
[+] [-] lechiffre10|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|7 years ago|reply
Does AirBnB ensure that the landlord/owner is properly licensed to offer the property for a short term rental before listing it? Or do they just take the landlord's word for it?
"While most AirBnB renters are polite and respectful, enough of them were loud, disruptive and ignoring the local rules (for example, tourists in Venice who use AirBnB but ignore the very strict garbage disposal laws) that local residents started dreading having AirBnBs around."
A short term renter in an unlicensed business operating next door to you in your residential apartment building is necessarily going to be louder, less safe, and cause more issues than a long term neighbor. I rent a residential apartment in a residential building on a residential street. I did not rent a hotel room for a year next to other hotel rooms.
[+] [-] StavrosK|7 years ago|reply
Barcelona and Rome are overrun with tourists, and it's killing the cities. AirBnB should just go away, the market worked very well before it, even if things were a bit more expensive.
[+] [-] rsynnott|7 years ago|reply
It's not at all strict with landlords. Requiring hotel/b&b zoning would be being strict with landlords, say, and that's what many countries and municipalities now do, but AirBnB seems to generally have little interest in helping to enforce that.
[+] [-] wyck|7 years ago|reply
AirbNB is getting away with very grey legal area here, they should he held legally accountable for facilitating illegal rentals. Right now my tax dollars are paying for the government to enforce what AirBnB sells without impunity.
On a personal note I'm thinking of pursuing this legally with AirBnB and/or my city, my street has 4 illegal AirBnB rentals on it and my city can't see to enforce their own laws. There's enough interest in my region to easily get about 30 people on board, and that's just one semi small town.
And we don't blame the users of AirBnB, they dont know the local laws, we blame the landlords and ultimately the platform.
I know in west coast tourism destinations you will practically get beat up if your renting out to airBnB illegally since it has such a negative effect on local housing prices.
[+] [-] sreyaNotfilc|7 years ago|reply
I was going to ask "Why are there laws against people making money?", but it make sense. Residential areas are for residents, not commerce. There should be a place for folks to relax around their contemporaries without having to deal with knowing that their environment may change from day to day.
I would say, perhaps there should be a compromise. After-all, being able to rent out a room from time to time can help home owners stay in their homes longer (or even enjoy life more). Maybe there could be a 2-3 strike rule on tenants. Where, if things do go out of hand (for whatever that reason), then the homeowner cannot be part of the AirBnb renting experience.
That way, there is something to gain and something to loose. Educating tenants would be priority.
[+] [-] nkkollaw|7 years ago|reply
Lots of landlords that rent places for a living started using AirBnB. I specially experienced this in Poland, where I often had to go to a company-owned building to pick up the keys. There they had an office, reception, etc.
It didn't feel any different from a hotel. One time we complained about an apartment, and they gave us another one that was empty.
So, my point is that the host often sets the mood. If it's a hotel-like structure that even has self check-in, with a company that uses its own website, Booking, AirBnb and whatever else is around to rent rooms, you feel like an entitled customer. If an old woman opens the door to the guest house, you feel like a guest in her house.
I guess AirBnB departed from their original vision of having people sleep in your living room on an air mattress, and it's now used by hospitality companies as another channel to get customers. When that is the case, you definitely feel like acting as a guest at a hotel, since that's what it is although booked via AirBnB.
[+] [-] shados|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|7 years ago|reply
The reason Airbnb is cheaper is because users are running afoul of the laws and possibly taxes.
Have you checked the Airbnb listings? Very little people are sharing their places. Most of the people are running this as a business. Many of them are not either there and delegate the key to another third-party.
It is a mess. And I'm not against it (I'm not a legal citizen of every country). But it is not fair to have registered hotel who comply with rules and pay taxes. And have Airbnb. You'll have to pick.
[+] [-] debt|7 years ago|reply
The effects are just now being understood which why legislation is just now being enacted to taper it a bit.
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
AirBnb creates "bad neighbours" by putting lots of tourists, some of whom behave badly, in formerly residential locations. It creates a whole new set of absentee landlords. If it were restricted to renting out places where the owner was still living it wouldn't be nearly so much of a problem.
[+] [-] fredley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 9387367|7 years ago|reply
I have pledged to never stay in an Airbnb, ever and tell my friends they shouldn’t rent a whole place either.
[+] [-] Razengan|7 years ago|reply
> This may not be a popular opinion here but I totally understand the concern. There had been a huge increase in transient international visitors being introduced to residential areas that previously did not have to deal with that. Having a constant stream of strangers coming and going in your building is not something many residents feel comfortable with.
Also: > Also I just want to be sure to note to people: THESE LAWS APPLY TO ALL SHORT TERM RENTALS AND ARE NOT JUST FOR AIRBNB.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravel/comments/8os3mv/minpaku...
[+] [-] wallace_f|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geebee|7 years ago|reply
The problem is that "spare" bedrooms (as Airbnb likes to call them) are far more lucrative used as short term tourist rentals than as a living space for kids, who cost a bundle and don't generally pay much in rent. The pitch Airbnb makes is that people have a spare bedroom lying' around and why not rent it out? But the thing is, people start to acquire properties with spare bedrooms for the purpose of having one to rent out - or entire housing units. When this proceeds apace, former communities - which in places like the French quarter are already primed to protect themselves from too much conversion into tourism stock - come to see Airbnb as an existential threat.
Even if the Airbnb guests are well behaved, this fundamental difference won't go away. Think of it this way: some people would like to trade their right to run a hotel out of their house in exchange for a legally enforced expectation that their neighbors won't either. That means severely restricting Airbnb.
[+] [-] heurist|7 years ago|reply
I realize you're talking about large cities, but it seems everyone else in this thread is as well and forgets that Airbnb operates well outside of large cities.
[+] [-] biztos|7 years ago|reply
This! And: most of us thought we already had laws to that effect.
Also, even for the best-behaved guests I would not want to have regular AirBNB-ing in my building. There are young children and old people living here, and they deserve some presumption of safety, not just quiet.
(I do stay in AirBNBs myself sometimes, and I'm a very low-impact guest, but I recognize my opinion is a bit contradictory because of that.)
[+] [-] manfredo|7 years ago|reply
This doesn't seem like a plausible scenario. I highly doubt that Airbnb revenue from a spare bedroom is enough to offset the cost of the spare bedroom itself. Here in SF an extra bedroom easily adds 1K or more to the cost of an apartment. Between getting a 2 bedroom apartment and spending the time and effort to run a Airbnb in it, vs. having a 1 bedroom apartment and saving a lot of money without any extra effort it's hard to see people electing the former.
Most of the Airbnbs I've stayed in were vacation homes that the owners didn't live in most of the year, or families whose kids moved out.
[+] [-] laurieg|7 years ago|reply
I definitely think Airbnb should have the limitation that you can only rent out a place you actively live in.
[+] [-] vinceguidry|7 years ago|reply
Can we just have home-share for people that understand how to be good neighbors, pretty please?
[+] [-] _Codemonkeyism|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessaustin|7 years ago|reply
One might assume from my place of birth that I am a hillbilly, but decades of travel and living in various places domestically and abroad have mostly civilized me. I do occasionally have to correct myself however.
[+] [-] greggman|7 years ago|reply
This is important because of privacy. If it says 2 bedrooms it should actually have 2 bedrooms. Not a one bedroom and a living room with a sofa.
The fact that AirBnb endorses this really speaks to the integrity at AirBnb which AFAICT is fairly low (have documented lots of other similar issues with them)
[+] [-] fjsolwmv|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tnolet|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iandanforth|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] mike-cardwell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ko27|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kevin_b_er|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|7 years ago|reply
edit: Yes I know I didn't provide any specific examples and that this viewpoint will be foreign to those of you who go somewhere for vacation and think it seems nice (yes, that's the point, to seem nice enough to get you to spend your money here, that doesn't mean it's actually nice or nice for the people that live there).
[+] [-] a_t48|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hrktb|7 years ago|reply
Genuinely, resident building are so different from hotels I wonder how smooth it is for the residents to have random oversea people passing by even only 180 days a year, even if they are polite, well educated and well intended.
[+] [-] pteredactyl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] John_KZ|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lovemenot|7 years ago|reply
People just respect regulations and they generally do work very well.
[+] [-] 3pt14159|7 years ago|reply
Uber tried their shit with Quebec, then two drivers had their cars impounded and that was the end of that.
[+] [-] paulsutter|7 years ago|reply
> hosts are required to register their listing and display a license number on their listing page by June 15th in order to stay active on our platform...
> Unfortunately, the Japanese government issued a sudden announcement on June 1st instructing any host without a license number to cancel upcoming reservations that were booked before June 15th–even though many of these hosts are actively engaged in the registration process or awaiting their license.
From: https://press.atairbnb.com/supporting-travelers-in-japan-aus...
[+] [-] bradleyjg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] partycoder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|7 years ago|reply
Cities are going to regulate out the concept of people buying apartments purely to wholly rent them out 100% of the time on Airbnb. This is a very significant portion of Airbnb revenue.
I have trouble seeing how Airbnb's valuation isn't going to have to be scaled back when big parts of their business are regulated out of existence.
[+] [-] xab9|7 years ago|reply
They are not interested in strong control over either users or landlords, for they need more and more users - but the laxer the rules are and the more people are using their service, the harder cities and residential areas will fight against it.
Probably an equilibrium could've been found not for the new and lawless startup culture fueled by their own hubris.
[+] [-] bb101|7 years ago|reply