Sublets Just Got Easier
blog.airbnb.com
blog.airbnb.com
In the UK these are usually let to business people, the flats are much smarter than long lets, and the prices are 2-4x higher (and I assume the occupancy rates are correspondingly lower).
Here's a private room for rent in LA for $1749. That is a private room in a 2-bed apt. I guarantee you that 2-bed is about $1749 total/month. In essence, you're paying double what you should. http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/169459
I've lived in that area recently, so I can speak from experience. And it looks like most other LA sublets on there are expensive as well.
Is it worth saving the hassle of craigslist to pay double on airbnb?
But if you click nearby properties, they're still mostly around $1700 for private rooms.
In contrast, on craigslist, I can easily find private rooms for $750 in the same area. Same quality of room. http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/roo/2560093770.html
A great room in a shared apt Williamsburg/Greenpoint on Craigslist could be had for anywhere between 1000-1500 and the ones I see listed on Airbnb are like 1600 and above for either the same amenities or even less.
Add to that the fact that rents are aggressively moving upwards, and I think it's pretty reasonable that a high-end rental service would have $1200 rooms in Sunnyvale. I mean, many of us would prefer a low-end studio to a high end room, and you can get a low-end studio for $1200; but if I were to rent out a room in my 2/2 apartment for half the cost? it would be well over a grand.
I had a place in Sunnyvale from summer 2009 to late 2010 and was doing ~$400 for a small room. The highest rent a roommate was paying was just under $600 for the master bedroom w/ bathroom included. And this was a pretty average place overall.
It's funny, I've been calling around trying to find places for my employee to live, 'cause he's kinda shy and I'm, you know, the guy who sells stuff. One of the places that was being rented by an owner said they actually lowered the price because the economy was so bad. Which is funny, 'cause all the professionally managed places are jacking up rent a lot. (this place, actually, was a lot like you describe. Big, private room, private bathroom, about $600/month. I mean, these places exist, but that is decidedly below market.)
So yeah, you can find below-market deals. Your place last year was one, unless it was exceptionally tiny.
in 2006-2007 I was writing the book of xen; I rented a 2/1 in santa clara (Right on the border of sunnyvale) for the two of us right next to the Lawrence caltrain. By Sunnyvale standards, that's a bad negborhood. And the apartment was pretty shitty. $1250 for the whole thing, and we actually had the cops come by our place looking for the previous tenants. We saw the cops going after several neighbors, too. I mean, I didn't feel unsafe or anything; it's not an area where the cops automatically assume everyone is poor or criminal, but it was definitely not a good area.
It's possible that I've gotten exceptionally shitty deals, but from what I've seen, $400/month was way below market (though, not unobtainable; just way below the average price) for a room in Sunnyvale anytime in the last five years.
Everyone on AirBNB currently has their places setup for a nightly rate which is competitive against hotels, then potentially offering a slight discount if they stay for a week; and then AirBNB has always has this 'monthly' price field. I've never had anyone stay a month.
That monthly field is what they're basing these prices off, and they've added a new checkbox just below the monthly price field asking if you'd like to be on the sublet search.
I have no incentive to sublet, or lower my monthly price, because at $99/night, I pay my ENTIRE mortgage every month having 85% occupancy of our second bedroom on a per-night basis. So I have no incentive to sublet for the more reasonable half my mortgage every month.
So what do I believe this means? They're launching the feature with an impressive number of properties, but as everyone is noting, they're expensive. Once people whose primary aim is to sublet join for that purpose, and NOT to host by the night (in competition with hotels) then they will have sublet listings competitively priced with those on craigslist, and in-line with monthly rental prices in an area.
Although the recent dramatic increases in rent prices might put some pressure on sublet demand (at least in the bay area).
Although the prices are high right now, I'm sure they will come down as the market balances out.
I'll probably book a room for a month and report back with my experiences.
However, the prices are obviously too high. It might have been a good idea to launch this as a pilot (maybe this is the pilot?) for specific sellers and make sure their monthly rents are somewhere in the market range. It will probably stabilize, but right now it's a turn-off to see a shared rooms going for what should be private studio pricing.