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Comment by dadkins | Hacker News Reader

Honest question: how is Airbnb or any of their competitors different than vacation rentals?

You rent a house for a week when the owners aren't using it. Often the key's in a combo box or they mail it to you. The only real protection is a security deposit which you pay upfront. The concept has been around for ages.

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Vacation rentals (through Homeaway et al.) are typically set up just for that reason, and thus have combo boxes, carry some insurance, involve a cleaning fee.

AirBnb democratized the process by allowing anyone to rent out any portion of their property, contributing to supply and more competitive pricing, but with this set up you get into weird situations where owner's valuables and jewelry end up in the next room.

an investment property is and should be treated differently than your own living property. I think this is the main point of confusion for most people. Most of these other services that do vacation rentals are usually renting out investment properties or timeshares. Its a huge difference.

Even with this event, I don't think the mixing of these two things is going to stop.

The present "wave of disruption" sweeping the world is based on finding ways to use resources more efficiently by changing social divisions. Even if Airbnb in particular now crashes and burns, there's so much potential savings in the airbnb model that people will continue to sweep away the earlier divisions in some fashion.

The business isn't different, however if you have a vacation rental, as the owner, you don't "live" there so you don't have your valuables, the couch you inherited from a favorite aunt, the nice new tv etc etc.

Airbnb and others have you sharing your primary residence, which puts it at risk if you are not also there. (and perhaps even if you are).

In a vacation rental house, other people will spend far more time in your place then you will and you plan accordingly. You might have a locked closet with your own stuff, but it probably consists of towels, toiletries and clothes - not electronics, birth certificates, financial documents, and highly-personal information.

They aren't, it's just a "smaller" scale using the internet.

The business idea is proven, AirBnB is just leveraging technology to stake out a significant market share.

Nothing wrong with this at all.

No, it's quite different. Vacation properties are set up for that purpose, with insurance, limited on-site personal property, etc.

There have been online vacation property rental sites for years.

AirBNB, however, sells itself as a mechanism for making some extra cash on your own actual day-to-day residence.

It doesn't really matter whether the property you are letting is your primary residence or not, really. What matters is that you aren't using it.

AirBnB caters to shorter, less formal stays than a normal rental site. It also presents a much improved User experience. It also implies that you can get in on this game if you don't actually own the property, but whether or not you can legally do this is up to you to know, not AirBnb.

It doesn't really matter whether the property you are letting is your primary residence or not, really.

It matters in terms of security. If you're using the property, that either means that you have a considerable amount of personal information and valuables on-site, or that you'll have to take them off-site to secure them.

If the property is a dedicated vacation home, then this will generally not be the case, and coupled with deposits, property insurance, etc, the risk to the owner is significantly reduced.

Good luck getting property insurance on an apartment you sublet.

You don't keep your birth certificate and grandmas jewelry at your vacation house.

You're an idiot if you keep these things in your house and then invite strangers to stay there.

That has nothing to do with AirBnB, or anything particular about their business model.

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