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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

Also pretty annoying when you can't find a place to rent, because the apartments start getting taken over by "enterpreneurs" such as your friend.

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That, and the price inflation sucks. I am going to look at a former AB&B property to rent today. The ludicrous price will be discussed, if they are unwilling to negotiate, the place will likely stay empty for the summer months(AZ, in a tourist oriented corner of the valley).

Isn't that just always the case with a common tourist destination?

If I can rent out 12 months at $1,000 (= $12k), vs 150 / 200 days at $150 (= $22.5-30k) then as a property owner you have a decision to make. Short term lets are more work, but more profitable.

They'll likely not care it stays empty, because it's to be expected that on some dates and months it will not be rented out.

It is true. The beauty offer I have is I only want/need a place for June-Sept. Could be a win-win... if off-season rate can be agreed upon. Otherwise, when the boss doesn't have me staying in Hyatts & Hiltons, I am rambling when it's <100°F.

You say "entrepreneur", but I don't see anything wrong with the approach -- as long as you follow the laws.

Often the solution the the problem is that you start buying the properties rather than renting them, which means profits per unit will be (much) higher (but you will also need additional capital to support that). Or you buy an entire block with 5 or 10 apartments; then there should be no complaints.

Because it's literally rent-seeking and leeches wealth from the economy, jacking up prices while contributing nothing?

Of course they do - they manage a place that visitors can stay in. Which is why people pay them. And you're clearly not a landlord if you think it involves no effort.

Sure, if a society thinks they cause more harm than good, by all means, ban them, but that's a different argument.

And a short term let business requires even more effort to run. It's a lot of work, and part of the reason why (even though I think it's a great business to be in), it's not one I really want to run.

>>> a person would rent out 10 apartments at $2k/mo and rent them on at $300 a night.

> And you're clearly not a landlord if you think it involves no effort.

The person described in the original post isn't a landlord.

Tomato, tomato. They still have to manage renters, take care of regular maintenance (cleaning), etc. If anything they have more work than the actual landlord.

There's no way to not make this sound insulting, but do you know the actual work that a landlord has to do?

I should hope so, since I'm one. We own two apartments which we rent out, one of them on AirBnB, and handling the reservations, receiving the guests, giving them tips on how to navigate the city, constantly cleaning and replacing linen, etc, is way more time consuming than the occasional maintenance we do on the other apt, which is rented long-term.

Why? What am I missing?

Hm, I guess your AirBNB is pretty nice, and our building is pretty shitty - we've had to have our building's super come in at least once a month to fix this or that - pipe making awful racket, door doesn't close or latch, lock needs to be replaced, neighbors making too much noise (although sadly, that problem wasn't fixed by the super with a wrench.)

No, our building isn't that great, it's pretty old and rickety. But most AirBNB reservations are just for a few days, so during the high season we might have to come in 4-5 times a month to do all that crap I mentioned before.

But they're not a landlord. They sublease an apartment to others. They clean up after guests and put out fresh towels; they don't do the sorts of repairs and upkeep that must be done between long-term tenants.

I commend your Lawful Neutral alignment.

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