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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

You're forgetting that this problem is already solved by contract law.

Tenants sign agreements not to rent out their units all the time. Home owner's associations often have rules against short-term rentals as well.

If you don't like the idea of short-term rentals in your neighborhood or building, choose one protected by one of these types of contracts. In fact, they're so common, you probably already have such protections, even if you don't know it.

The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for societal problems. I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful as to meet that threshold.

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What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel? Break the lease? Sue for moving costs and to recover the security deposite? What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"?

What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels?

I've used and appreciated Airbnb, but I think 'cletus is ultimately right and threads like this have a hard time of seeing the (valid) other side of this issue.

What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel?

One long-term solution that could emerge is for it to be common to have provisions in leases that forbid both tenants and landlords from doing such things. It might take a while for that to happen, but if what you describe becomes much of a problem, it's likely to happen.

What if you're rent-controlled and the landlord says "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!"?

Then your bargaining power is reduced in exchange for your below-market rent. Sounds fair to me.

What's the contract law remedy for unscrupulous businesspeople who buy entire buildings and convert them into Airbnb hostels?

That's a slightly different issue. I don't think this is necessarily unscrupulous to do this, but there's certainly a potential for externalities.

"Could emerge"? Have you ever read a residential lease? I've rented (counting real quick) 8 different places in 3 different cities and every single one of them gave the landlord control over sublessors. I could not have lawfully put any of those apartments on Airbnb.

This came up last Abnb thread, and a bunch of my fellow message board nerds insisted that it was a commonplace to have leases that didn't forbid Abnb, but I don't buy it. I think the right rule of thumb is "you can't do it without breaking the promise you made when you rented the apartment and exposing yourself not only to eviction but to civil liability".

Incidentally, the case law behind landlord oversight over sublessors is very solid; this issue is some substantial fraction of every tenant dispute ever, because people very commonly want to break their leases, and expect their landlord to accept the very first person the tenant finds to occupy the apartment.

> What's the contract law remedy for a tenant in a building whose unscrupulous landlord has decided to dump his spare inventory onto Airbnb as an ad hoc hostel?

Demand a no-hostel clause at signing. It's silly, but there's your answer.

And BTW, having lived in a truly rent-controlled (1/5th market rate) place before, "go ahead, break the lease! woohoo!" is all your landlord says anyways.

And so your remedy, when your landlord, who has promised you an apartment for a year at a specified price, is to move apartments, and then spend 2 years chasing them in court?

Incidentally: I sued a landlord once a few years ago over a very simple issue (they unlawfully withheld my security deposit) and did not pull "2 years" out of my butt.

Inadequate enforcement of contracts is a separate debate. But living somewhere with strong tenant laws helps. For instance, where I live, people can (and do) sue their landlord for damages when their quality of life is affected by the landlord breaching some part of the lease.

"The government making something illegal really should be the last resort for societal problems."

Except that the ease to which people can now rent out an apartment short term has created a situation that was not contemplated by existing laws (or if there were existing laws they were not violated to the extent to make enforcement necessary).

Let's take as an example, spam. The founding fathers of the Internet didn't anticipate that the scholarly people who first used the internet would violate the unwritten rules to not spam. The community was small enough and the members respectful enough that it wasn't even designed into the system (let's assume there could have been a technical way to prevent spam in the original design for a second).

But with the success of the internet and it being opened up to everyone the game changed.

"I'm not convinced short-term rentals are really so harmful"

If you've ever had bad neighbors you will understand why people often want a single family home with lots of land or want to live in an exclusive building.

I wonder if protecting people from bad neighbours is really the intent here.

It looks more like they are trying to shut the short-term rental business down, to please the large hotel business.

I don't think Hilton, Hyatt, Wyndham or Marriott give a shit about Airbnb; they do a full Airbnb valuation of real revenue every other quarter, and the market they service isn't "random places to stay", it's "hotel rooms".

The preponderance of evidence available to message board nerds like us suggests strongly to me that enforcement of these laws is being driven by real complaints.

If it is like you say, it sounds a bit overboard to shut down everything. Maybe with some effort they could come up with regulation to solve those complaints while keeping the good renters legal.

Here's another thing to think about: over the long run, regulation can help business; lack of regulation might harm it.

When we talk about regs on HN, we tend to be thinking of rules, codes, and controls restricting what businesses can do. That's obviously a major function of regulation.

But another function of regulation is removal of uncertainty.

The alternative to regulation is contract and tort law. Airbnb participants who violate leases and homeowners agreements will be sued for breach; participants who create noise, theft, crime, and increased costs for neighbors will be sued for tort claims.

Court cases take for- fucking- ever to resolve themselves. Every B2B case I've witnessed up close dragged until it settled --- I've never seen (firsthand) a company stick it out to trial. The one (trivial) case I was involved in directly --- a statutory claim for unlawfully withheld security deposits --- took years to resolve.

Perhaps partly in recognition of that, and partly because of the spectacular cost of representation, the damages awarded in these cases can be enormous.

Airbnb is a future threat to the hotel industry. I'm sure they recognize that. Most people are potential "hotels". This will keep rates low AND attract new entrants (because some money is better than no money).

Airbnb rooms are usually more pleasant than the lower quality hotels a lot of businesses book.

Once it becomes socially normal in larger corporations, a lot of employees will ask to be booked with airbnb.

Everything you say here is obvious; you are making the obvious case that the big bad hotel industry is conspiring to shut down Airbnb. Anyone on HN would, if asked to advocate the position that hotels were conspiring against Airbnb, make exactly the same case.

I'm saying: I doubt that's what's happening. I've heard too many anecdotal stories about complaints, and am too capable of looking at (a) revenue numbers for hotels and (b) stats on how people book hotel rooms to think that anyone at Marriott is really being kept up at night about this.

At some point, Airbnb will be too big and disruptive for the major chains to ignore. But now? I doubt it. I think cities are reacting to complaints.

I didn't say the hotel industry is behind the laws. I have no idea what's begin them.

I said, I'm sure some people in the hotel industry recognize airbnbs potential threat. I was responding to your first paragraph. I should have been clearer.

> Airbnb rooms are usually more pleasant than the lower quality hotels a lot of businesses book.

I suggest you browse areas with high AirBNB usage. In NYC, a nice AirBNB will cost roughly the same as the equivalent hotel room.

> Once it becomes socially normal in larger corporations, a lot of employees will ask to be booked with airbnb.

This is unlikely. The only reason to choose AirBNB is price, and the low price options in popular destinations are rarely particularly nice.

As a corporation, we're willing to spend the money necessary to be guaranteed determinism. Nobody in the travel department would want to deal with rebooking an employee if their AirBNB experience turned out to be poor.

I can book an employee a room at The Intercontinental and I know that there will be no issues, and we can worry about things that actually matter, like getting work done.

What you say about Airbnb vs. hotel costs in NYC is wildly not my experience. At the high end, the rooms available on Airbnb simply aren't available in hotels at all; I'd wager, if you did your best at apples-apples, Airbnb is roughly half as expensive as a hotel room.

The nondeterminism thing with Abnb is a good point. I've always figured that if something fell through, I'd just book a same-night hotel, but it was a concern.

I'm not sure what you qualify as high-end, but our different experiences may be a factor of differing price points.

Two NYC-area Abnb rentals, off the top of my head:

* A 4-bedroom 2-storey attached (townhouse-style) house in W'burg, less than a block from the Bedford stop; full kitchen, back yard(!). Cost less than any 3-star pair of adjoining bedrooms we could find --- and we booked 2 months in advance.

* A full-kitchen king bed studio in Chelsea, for ~150/night.

The last one is from a few months ago, the other from last year.

By the way: both of these feel like textbook cases of the kind of situation where Abnb is a win for everyone involved. The owner of the house was picky about us, checked in on us while we were there, and was renting a whole building to one party. The Chelsea apartment was its occupant's primary residence; they were renting it out while themselves traveling.

I think it's the situations where people are literally running full-time businesses on top of Abnb where we start to run into trouble.

My argument isn't based on price. Some people will always prefer hotels. You know exactly what you're getting.

Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building.

Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins.

NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories.

In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.

My argument isn't based on price. Some people will always prefer hotels. You know exactly what you're getting.

Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins.

NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories.

In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.

If you own a single-family detached home, this is not likely to be the case (if there is no HOA).

Once you have children (or nieces/nephews), there is a 100% chance that you will feel differently about short-term rentals.

Long-term rentals indicate tenants that are stable enough to at least afford the lease. They are subject to at least some vetting (including background checks) prior to moving in. Short term tenants can be anyone. No background checks are conducted.

There's a 100% chance that I won't.

Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything.

This is why, when I need sitting for my middle-school aged kids, I drop them off in the middle of Union Station instead of bringing them to their grandparents.

At least they won't get fat! Those grandparents...

So if you were looking for a babysitter, would you prefer someone randomly selected on airbnb by your downstairs neighbor to someone you've vetted yourself?

The real key here is to look at who does the selecting.

The danger comes from the self selected, if you have a crowd of random people and you choose one at random, then the chances that they have malicious intent are related to the incidence of that in the population; OTOH if you ask for volunteers, or worse, if someone spontaneously volunteers then the chance is way higher...

Lol. Most harm to anyone, regardless of age, is caused by friends and family, but that is primarily because friends and family have the most opporunities.

If strangers were afforded equal access to your children, the numbers would not be so favorable. Having strangers around does not make your kids safer. At best, your kinds would be just as safe around strangers. At worst, they would be exposed to far more risk.

Where is the data to support your claim? It's possible that strangers are more dangerous on a per opportunity basis, but I suspect it's untrue. For example, children spend about the same time at school as at home (at least on weekdays). Yet abuse is much more frequent at home.

> Strangers, even unvetted ones, almost never pose a danger to children. The vast majority of harm done to children is done by friends and family. Having more strangers around makes your kids safer, if anything.

I hear this a lot and my guess is this is simply a function of how much time family and friends spend with a child (in relative privacy) compared to complete strangers. The surface area of attack is way smaller for random people; they don't have the "reasonable" opportunity.

While we might infer it, you will notice that the parent poster did not indicate his feelings about short term rentals one way or another.

While I wouldn't try to tell someone how they'll feel after they have children (especially with 100% accuracy), I can say that as a parent of two small children, I wouldn't like to see a constant stream of new people constantly coming and going from the apartment across the hall. I've lived in a flat with a shared back yard, and my kids knew the people who lived below us. I knew them well and became friends with them, and I do find the notion that my kids would have been safer around a steady stream of strangers kind of absurd. I wouldn't have wanted a new group of people I don't know hanging out in the backyard where my kids play every weekend.

I personally feel that short term rentals work very well in some places, but they can be very disruptive to neighborhoods as well. I guess it comes down to whether you feel that the preservation of the residential nature of a neighborhood is a legitimate reason to regulate. As you can probably tell from the way I set this up, I do.

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