What happened to Airbnb?::Financially, the Airbnb is thriving, but guests, hosts, and cities have had enough.

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I can’t afford a house in my hometown in part because cunts buy houses to be airbnbs. Fuck them. I will always book a hotel unless there’s literally no other option. I don’t want to give my money to grifters who are ruining the housing market. I also ratted my mom’s neighbor out to the city for running one out of his house. He timed the market and bought after '08 when he was working for a small social network startup. Now he doesn’t even live in that house anymore and instead of selling, uses it as an airbnb. He is an exec at what is now a very large social media company. He absolutely does not need the money, but keeps the house as an asset and rents it on airbnb. I didn’t win the birth year lottery and get a chance to buy the dip. Instead I came of age with an all time high housing market that has only gone up. Then rates went up because fuck u specifically Raiderkev. Fuck air BNB. Report every last one to the city. They are likely in violation of some ordinance. People need to vote with their wallets and drive these grifters to sell and not let it be profitable for them.

    • grayman@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      So there’s this company that’s been buying up about 30% of houses in many cities to turn them into rentals. They outbid everyone. That’s a bigger issue than the few air bnb.

    • curiousPJ@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I lived in one of ‘those homes’ once… All 5 bedrooms and the garage which I stayed in was at least 1000 a month. And it was bare minimum amenities. One refrigerator shared with everyone, stove top was broken the entire time, one restroom and shower, and half of the folks had no idea how to clean dishes.

    • wahming@monyet.cc
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      11 months ago

      This is a myth. Airbnb has too few properties listed to actually have any impact on property prices. The shortage is real, but it’s not of their making.

      Want lower prices? Build more houses. Somehow, this simple solution is being rejected in favour of blaming scapegoats.

      Edit: The best cherrypicked statistic somebody could show was that Airbnb drives prices up by $1800 / year. Setting aside the accuracy of it, if that’s breaking the bank, you probably shouldn’t be buying a house anyway.

        • wahming@monyet.cc
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          11 months ago

          Based on the median growth in Airbnb listings nationally, the short-term rentals contributed to an annual increase of $9 in monthly rent and $1,800 in home prices for median zip code, the study’s authors found.

          Does that really seem like a lot in context of buying a house? It certainly doesn’t look like it to me. Also, lay off the ad hominem attacks

      • shartedchocolate@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        This type of rhetoric seems to always point at “oh but it’s something else that’s the problem, leave my airbnbs alone there are too few of them”

        https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/ph/bgrd/backgroundfile-166717.pdf read some actual studies and see how much of the real estate stock is held by short term rentals and tell us about how those few properties have low impact on property prices. I’d love to see what kind of impact Toronto would have if those 9100 dwellings would be available to Torontonians. That’s about 56 dense,mid rise apartment buildings of housing.

        Sorry, but the financialization of housing is a real issue that needs to get addressed.

        • wahming@monyet.cc
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          11 months ago

          I’m pointing at ‘Build more fucking housing so I can afford to buy some’, I’m not sure why that appears to be so controversial.

          • shartedchocolate@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Because you’re saying “don’t worry about the already built housing people sit on for short term rentals, those don’t count” they do count, there are a lot of them. How long would it take to build 9100 units in Toronto vs immediately dumpstering the airbnbs and forcing sale or long term rentals. There’s a part of the issue that you just might not be aware of, it’s the fucking vacant homes that sit there empty, making loads of cash during busy season.

            You’re right, building more is good, but without bans on short term rentals and proper regulations around multi home ownership we’re just gonna build more units for landlords.

            • ANGRY_MAPLE@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              Not to mention, new buildings are excluded from rent control in Ontario.

              Fuck that, in every sense. Why should the people already struggling for housing have to worry about landlords suddenly deciding to jack up rent by thousands, just so investors can have an easier go with AirBnB? That kind of expectation worsens a community, and absolutely contributes to the homelessness situation.

              Nothing will make me support things like AirBnB at this point. People having homes should be more important.

            • wahming@monyet.cc
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              11 months ago

              without bans on short term rentals and proper regulations around multi home ownership we’re just gonna build more units for landlords.

              I disagree. The main issue is lack of supply. Freeing up a few units here and there is merely providing a little short term relieve without doing anything to address the main issue. Get sufficient housing built, and the short term rental market wouldn’t be an issue.

              • ThatsMrCharlieToYou@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                You seem to completely disregard the fact that freeing up “a few units here and there” will have a material impact that lessens the need for immediate building of more houses in already overpopulated areas. I’m not saying, by any stretch, that we shouldn’t build but obfuscating the issue with another does not help. The short term rental market is an issue for a lot of people.

      • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        My dude. Go take econ 101. Supply and demand. If there are houses being sold to people that intend to use it for air BNB, then it is both reducing available supply, and increasing demand. When that happens , it drives up price. Families now have to bid against these investment chucklefucks. It’s not a scapegoat at all. The housing market has gotten to where it is for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to investors buying them for Airbnb. You can add in firms like Blackstone backed invitation homes also buying housing to be corporate landlords, the Fed keeping rates too low for too long allowing the people with the most assets to gain equity, and leverage themselves beyond what they’d normally do because money was essentially free for them. Add foreign buyers into the mix, and baby you’ve got a housing clusterfuck going. Our solution to everyone losing their houses in '08 was to let big firms buy houses and rent them out. No one can buy a house now, but man is the economy purring. If all these leeches lost their asses, and were forced to sell, we might return to affordability. Until then, you will own nothing and be happy.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    They were never going to be big without breaking hotel regulations. It makes no sense why they’re big anyway. They don’t own any real estate. They should take 5% at most, like a payment processor.

  • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    When I’m on vacation, I don’t want to make time for chores. Airbnb wants to charge me a fee for cleaning and have me clean up.

    And the horror stories of cameras, and stupid rules. No thanks. I’ll pay less at a motel and have breakfast included.

  • Colour_me_triggered@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Air BnB has destroyed the property market in my town. I’d rather not travel than contribute to the problem.

  • AcornCarnage@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I do still look for Airbnbs every time we travel because we’re a family of 5. Not a lot of hotels will accommodate 5 to a room and separate rooms means twice the price. Airbnb offers a lot more options for a family with the added benefits of a full kitchen and having a place that can actually be a short term home rather than a room with a bed.

    Here’s the last one we rented: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/794199620391731129

    I get that Airbnbs take some homes off the market and in some areas (like mine), that sucks because demand is high and supply is low. But they aren’t going to be the reason for a housing crunch. Here in Portland, Maine, we’re a small city on the ocean, thrive on tourists, have great restaurants, and are an easy drive to Boston or to ski resorts or Acadia. The housing market has been bonkers for YEARS and it isn’t going to change if we ban short term rentals.

      • grayman@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Fire regulations for almost every hotel limits the room to 4. They’ll give you a crib but not another bed.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Ahhh, that sucks. I never realized just how tailored everything is to the ‘nuclear family’

      • AcornCarnage@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        There are places where we can all squeeze into a room, and we do. It all depends on the trip and what we’re looking to get out of it. We don’t mind sharing beds and putting someone on a sofa, but it’s harder as the kids are all getting into teen years.

    • witheyeandclaw@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      “AirBNB is good because I had a bunch of kids but I don’t like paying a bunch of kid prices.”

      • Cheesus@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        OP was saying Airbnb still works for some people today despite the many complaints outlined in the article for users.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Maybe ‘a family of 5’ is two grandparents, two parents and one child. Or another combination. Why are you assuming it’s three or more children?

        • witheyeandclaw@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Maybe a big family vacation being a little cheaper for this poster is still a lesser priority to people having homes to own? We can just focus on the part where they want things cheaper for just them and not the makeup of the family.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That’s not relevant to what I was saying, which was there’s no reason to assume someone has a bunch of kids just because they’re traveling with five family members.

  • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Buy a new condo and suddenly a bunch of weirdos turn up on weekends. It’s worse, because only managed properties can afford he units these days.

  • KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    I’d rather stay at a motel with full cleaning and amenities than some bozo’s house anyday. At a motel I can just focus on why I’m staying instead of how.

  • pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    A lot of this anti air bnb stuff feels like astroturfing by hotels. Sure there are plenty of annoyances, but everyone I know still likes them even if they like to complain about them.

    The society harm is a real thing though. companies buying up homes to rent them is a real problem. But these articles that treat airbnb like it’s so obvious that no one like them feel very artificial.

    • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      My circle has all turned on Airbnb. It’s a gamble. It used to be the gamble was worth it because it was cheaper than hotels, but now that they’re the same price, it’s not worth it.

      Last time went great, the time before was not properly cleaned to guest standards, and they restained the wood walls in the kitchen so the whole place was permeated with an awful chemical smell that kept me from sleeping. At a hotel, you can just switch rooms if anything is suboptimal. At an air BNB, you’re stuck. Everyone in my circle has had half good half bad experiences and it’s just not worth risking your trip over.

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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      11 months ago

      Annoyances? The last time I used AirBNB, there was literally no HEAT in the unit we were staying in. Just because it was San Diego in February doesn’t make that legal. We left and got a hotel the next day and I had to fight with them to get a refund.

      That’s the last time I ever used the service, and I used to be a regular.