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Hotel CEO Openly Celebrates Higher Prices After Anti-Airbnb Law Passes (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post: A hotel executive said a recently-passed New York law cracking down on Airbnb hosts will enable the company to raise prices for New York City hotel rooms, according to the transcript of the executive's words on a call with shareholders last week. The law, signed by New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday, slaps anyone who lists their apartment on a short-term rental site with a fine up to $7,500. It "should be a big boost in the arm for the business," Mike Barnello, chief executive of the hotel chain LaSalle Hotel Properties, said of the law last Thursday, "certainly in terms of the pricing." Barnello's comment adds fuel the argument, made repeatedly by Airbnb and its proponents, that a law that was passed in the name of affordable housing also allows established hotels to raises prices for consumers. It was included in a memo written by Airbnb's head of global policy, Chris Lehane, to the Internet Association, a tech trade group, reviewed by the Washington Post. LaSalle, a Bethesda, MD-based chain, owns hotels around the country, including New York City. The memo is the latest volley in a bitter fight that has pit the hotel industry, unions, and affordable housing advocates against Airbnb and its supporters. At the heart of the fight is a debate over the societal value of the Airbnb platform and its role in the economy of cities throughout the world. The question is whether Airbnb has been a net benefit, by enabling middle class city-dwellers to make extra money by renting out their homes, or whether it has had the unintended consequence of exacerbating affordable housing crises in expensive cities such as New York and Los Angeles.
The law is there because the city is missing out on the tourist taxes hotels collect. Higher prices means more tax for the city, a win for everyone except the tourist. If Airbnb finds a way to pay the taxes these laws won't spread.
Consistently lost in the discussion of protecting hotel trade or preserving housing stock is the negative affect Airbnb has on neighborhoods. People buy houses in residential neighborhoods to enjoy the benefits of... residential neighborhoods. Introducing an unknown, transient stream of tourists and other visitors into stable neighborhoods is generally a net-negative for the neighbors. Airbnb allows individuals to unilaterally monetize the peace and safety of their neighbors. That is the problem with Airbnb.
Yet again, the old truth manifests itself. When you meddle with the free market, you only make things worse... The cental planning of command-and-control economies — such as that of New York City — is not only less fair, but also less efficient, than free market capitalism.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It is newsworthy/noteworthy that reduced competition leads to higher prices?
From what I understand, cities like NYC have very carefully-crafted laws regarding hotels designed to protect the rights and safety of both the hotelier and the guest. AirBnB wants to be exempt from all those regulations and hospitality taxes because, well, it allows them to offer a lower-cost option without any significant investment. In effect, AirBnB wants to be a hotelier that owns no hotel rooms, pays no hospitality taxes, and has no legal responsibility for anything that happens in a space they rented.
That AirBnB can't pick and choose the tax, safety, and other regulations that apply to their 'service' isn't discriminatory against AirBnB, it is treating everyone equally.
Ken
While it means you'd have to pay tax on the money you make from rentals... that's what you were supposed to be doing all along, right?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Whereas my agreements with temporary tenants are mutually consensual
and there are no complaints from my neighbors
and justification for this law is to control housing prices
now therefore I do not recognize the legislature's authority to make this regulation.
I will continue to rent out my room in short terms. But I will now call it a long-term lease with early cancellation provisions. Or I will call it a house sale with temporary back-out period. Or I'll call it housesitting.
This generation is finally getting involved in local politics in the best way. They are circumventing the letter of unjust laws and following the spirit of the correct constitution. This demonstrates knowledge of law, civil disobedience and allegiance to the constitution, what could be better?
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
This is just it. My parents run an airbnb in Australia for the most part they see their customers for an hour or two in the evening, and then briefly in the morning for breakfast. The rest of the time they are passed out from their busy travel days.
Not sure about these other regions, but the housing situation in NYC — and that's the topic — surely is a failure. The rent-control was introduced to the city in 1943 as a temporary measure to protect families of servicemen from "greedy landlords" jacking up the prices, while the men were at war. Housing remains very expensive. Landlords wary of difficulties evicting bad tenants are very particular about who they rent to — insisting on credit-reports, income tax return-copies, and background checks.
Meanwhile, well-connected politicians — especially the "fighters for affordable housing" get such subsidized apartments for themselves — and not just one, but up to four sometimes.
Unfair, inefficient, corruption-prone — what's not to like about Statism?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.