Comment by simplotek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simplotek | Hacker News Reader

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> The problem is when housing prices are at an all time high and it's almost impossible to find somewhere to rent, even with money in your pocket (...)

I have to call bullshit on this one. A few years ago I moved to a different country and I had an awful time trying to find an apartment to rent. Between awfully expensive flats and squalors, I was forced to extend my stay at an hotel for an additional month. This all ended when I managed to land a flat in a airbnb-like service. It was cheaper than half the apartments I visited at the time, and right in the city center. I spent over a month in that apartment and eventually landed a decent long-term rental, but if it wasn't for the airbnb-like service either I would be forced to burn through cash to stay at hotels or settle with being exploited by abusive landlords. Midway through I even considered just sticking with the airbnb-like service even though I'd risk being out-booked.

Perhaps people like you could spend a minute thinking things through and consider why there is demand for offers somewhere between hotels and long-term rentals, which frequently are completely out of reach of those who have to move to a new city in a short notice.

There would be a lot more long-term rentals available if there was no airbnb (because airbnb is the reason that you were unable to find a long-er term rental in the first place).

Limit the rentals to 1 month (or 2) minimum and you have all the bases covered.

How come in so many markets suppliers seek the demand and glad to have it, but in real estate market instead of cheerfully increasing the supply there are complaints, proposal to limit and in general offers to do something unusual where the goal could seemingly be achieved by more housing...

Because one of the greatest cons of the last ~50 years has been convincing the middle class that housing is an asset, so now the price level in most Western cities has been bid up to insane levels, and asset owners will do whatever they can to maintain the value of their "asset".

Also because real estate may resemble a market but it's very far from a free market, with lobby groups, regulations and intervention everywhere you look.

Because the "investors" buy up property and then lobby their (local or national) governments not to allow more housing to be built to artificially inflate the prices.

> airbnb is the reason that you were unable to find a long-er term rental in the first place).

No, the reason for that is that demand exceeds supply. The reason demand exceeds supply is that voters don’t want more people living there. Democracy gives the people what they want, good and hard.

> Perhaps people like you could spend a minute thinking things through and consider why there is demand for offers somewhere between hotels and long-term rentals, which frequently are completely out of reach of those who have to move to a new city in a short notice.

Like a lot of HN, many people have lots of opinions on things they have neither done or have experienced first hand but seem to be most vocal on such matters.

Agreed, I don't blame Airbnb or it's counterparts in other countries, they are just capitalizing on the larger (systemic but ultimately manufactured) housing crisis because the greater issue is with making real estate holdings the only way to accrue or retain any wealth as more and more of the real economy gets hallowed out.

I personally leveraged my first Airbnb stay as an early adopter and did what they say 'you should never do' and ultimately cut them out as a needless middle man and made return trips for several years without them in the off-season and got an even better rate!

Alternatively, I've paid rental agencies who did nothing but list their property on their website and provided a day to see the place and not much else as I met with the owner's myself had to find translation solutions and ultimately saw how they added just as much if not less value than Airbnb in the over all process of finding a rental home/apartment and saw that it's a symptom not the cause of the malaise we see since 2008 crisis and perhaps even before in the dotcom bubble in 2000 that made 2008 inevitable.

People want an easy scapegoat, and while I agree real-estate and landlords are predatory by design I still don't think Airbnb is to blame here and I don't even think they are a 'good' business, in fact I stopped using them entirely despite being an early adopter, but they've used their platform to house more people in certain crisis' than even some nation-states have.

> Why there is demand for offers somewhere between hotels and long-term rentals, which frequently are completely out of reach of those who have to move to a new city in a short notice.

You see that's the problem, I'm not in the US or Europe, long-term rentals are traded in local currency, in a price reasonable to the local economy, whereas AirBnbs are traded in USD at a more global price reasonable for tourists (which is crazy expensive for us, considering our minimum wage is pennies in USD).

Moreover, long-term rentals have certain regulations that favor tenants, like, you can't raise the prices a massive amount compared to inflation while the contract is valid, etc. AirBnbs are not regulated.

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