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Cities Struggling To Crack Down On Airbnb Renters (latimes.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
A California man has been charged with eight misdemeanors for renting several apartments under his own name, and then subletting them all. "Apartments in Santa Monica that might fetch $3500 a month as ordinary rentals, are worth three or four times that on a daily or weekly basis," reports one newsweekly, and the subletter notes that he only received two years of probation plus a $3,500 fine, "what one of my properties makes in a month."
On Wednesday three prominent U.S. Senators "called for a regulatory probe into whether short-term rental websites such as Airbnb are taking housing away from long-term renters and pushing up prices," but the number of Americans planning to use Airbnb this summer has apparently already doubled since last year.
The Hotel and Lodging Association of Alaska is complaining that the state's renters "are not required to follow the same state and federal safety mandates that are required for other hotels and lodges creating an unsafe and unfair market for consumers as well as hoteliers." But it seems like currently the only pushback is coming from local and city officials, like the short-term rental rules that Airbnb is currently fighting in their home city of San Francisco. For example, in Maine, the owner of one of Portland's 425 rentals units is now fighting a city order "demanding that he stop renting out part of his home through Airbnb. "Portland has a limited staff to enforce zoning rules, so it comes down on the most egregious cases, said City Hall spokeswoman Jessica Grondin."
I laughed at the quote from the City Hall spokeswoman. "It's kind of like speeding on the highway. You know it is illegal, you do it anyway, and you get caught."
The Hotel and Lodging Association of Alaska is complaining that the state's renters "are not required to follow the same state and federal safety mandates that are required for other hotels and lodges creating an unsafe and unfair market for consumers as well as hoteliers." But it seems like currently the only pushback is coming from local and city officials, like the short-term rental rules that Airbnb is currently fighting in their home city of San Francisco. For example, in Maine, the owner of one of Portland's 425 rentals units is now fighting a city order "demanding that he stop renting out part of his home through Airbnb. "Portland has a limited staff to enforce zoning rules, so it comes down on the most egregious cases, said City Hall spokeswoman Jessica Grondin."
I laughed at the quote from the City Hall spokeswoman. "It's kind of like speeding on the highway. You know it is illegal, you do it anyway, and you get caught."
When I speed, I'm not forcing people with smaller cars off of the expressway and onto dirt roads, far far away.
These people are driving up the rents and prices of homes in communities, while not being restricted by the laws that hotels/motels/holidayinns have to follow. So for those who want decent housing at decent pricing, they have to live far away, or in worse areas.. driving the next people to live farther and worse-er.
If by "little people", you mean folks that can buy 425 properties, you and I have very different definitions... The article is all about the abusing that people with plenty of money are doing to a system would have worked if it was only done on a small scale.
Well, it sure is pushing down prices for hotels. Which is probably why crony capitalists get all pushed out of shape about this. As for housing prices and the housing shortage, AirBnB isn't responsible for that, it's zoning laws, rent control, and the interference of the federal government in the mortgage markets. But, hey, leave it to the usual suspects (Warren, Feinstein) to first wreck people's lives and then blame "big evil corporations" for the mess they created.
If "fairness" is a concern, the hotels should be left alone — and unregulated — too.
I'm not normally one to drink the "regulation is bad" coolaid, but in this case, the regulation serves a function that has been deprecated by the new instant availability of information. This is definitely one of those cases where technology has rendered moot the underlying reality that forced the need for regulation in the first place. The only problem is that regulation in the hotel industry lines the pockets of the already established players as well as the town and cities doing the regulating. Just like the cab industry, its time for an overhaul of these regulations and a thorough re-examination of the underlying realities. I find it overwhelmingly likely that its time to give that regulation the axe, and free up hotels and motels to be more cost competitive with airbnb. There will still be a market for hotels, just not nearly such a big one, which seems only fair, as all of the hotels near where I live sit mostly empty most of the time. They can afford that business model because most of their costs come from actually renting the room (aka taxes contingent upon occupancy). This kind of a change will start a culling in the hotel industry that, frankly, its about time we actually got around to. Free up some of that prime real estate in and around hotels, train stations, and major venues for things that provide more social value to the local residents.
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It is materially less safe than the existing hotel market. A simple example is hotels are held to a much higher standard for fire safety. Being held to those higher standards imposes a cost on a business. If you can operate in the grey areas without those costs you have a significant commercial advantage at the risk that a fire may kill / injure people that wouldn't have been killed or hurt if your building had been compliant.
How would an immediately available customer rating know if the carpets were fire retardant or not? That all the electrical items were tagged and tested regularly? That food handling procedures were up to standard, that kitchens were clean?
uber is a fake taxi, avoids taxes, and avoids regulations and requirements designed to protect the public.
airbnb is a fake hotel, avoids taxes, and avoids regulations and requirements designed to protect the public
Horseshit.
Horseshit. A real hotel controls it's keys so that only I and the hotel staff have access to my room. Such control is virtually impossible in an AirBNB situation. In addition, a real hotel has a front desk staff and usually some form of security staff keeping an eye on the premises. A random rental from AirBNB does not. And that's on top of the fire safety and other issues raised by other commenters.
Presuming the ratings are honest - which I do not trust them to be. Customers have no interest in honest ratings, and can be penalized for them if they cast aspersions on the service. The rental agency itself has no incentive to be scrupulously honest because they don't want to piss off too many providers. Etc... etc... Not to mention, few customers will rate (or even have the technical know how to rate) such things as the fire protection system.
The cities and towns who want to regulate this and Uber and the like are doing so not because there is some sort of crisis or need for regulation. By their own admission, they do not have control over it now and yet there are very few reports of problems, which strongly suggests there aren't many issues.
No, they don't want to solve anything. They're just mad that somebody is doing something without asking permission and paying for licenses and other crap. An awful lot of government is devoted to making people ask for permission to do things and making them pay fees to get that permission.
If people realize they can do things just fine without permits, then all hell will break loose of people doing stuff on their own for free! How can bloated bureaucratic governments survive and justify their own existence if people just DO stuff?
You're right. There's absolutely no need for permits to do things like electrical wiring. And no reason whatsoever to mandate that property owners have smoke alarms and fire extinguishers on their properties. Nothing has ever gone wrong in the past, all of these rules and regulations just came to be out of thin air because some bureaucrat thought it would be a great way to make money.
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