Comment by leelin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by leelin | Hacker News Reader

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The comments from Senator Liz Krueger buried in the third section are very interesting and I almost missed it!

Unlike most articles blindly debating the pros and cons of the sharing economy, Krueger claims many hosts are professionals who arbitrage by leasing or buying long-term apartments and filling them nightly as a distributed hotel. It seems the money earned hosting -- (cost_of_operation * nightly_rate * occupancy_rate) -- is greater than signing a one year lease.

I used to offer my home on weekends when I was out of town for travel. Eventually, a guest offered to pay for the full month for significantly higher than my mortgage payment (and I contemplated various ways to spend a month away)! Sadly, our co-op board discussed and decided paid nightly guests violate our policies, ending my short hosting stint.

I'm torn. I love Airbnb and have used both sides (host and guest), and I like the idea that some people can use a space more efficiently than others. I'm less worried about taking a rental unit off the market and more worried about the intangible and hard-to-quantify side effects (safety, insurance, tax enforcement, neighbors' rights, etc).

This is not correct, and Liz Krueger knows it since we showed her the specific demographics of who uses our site in NY. Greater than 90% of hosts are renting the home they live in when they are not there (primary dwelling). Simply type NYC in search and see for yourself who is renting. You wil notice most people with just one property. The few property groups we have switched to 30 day rentals long ago. Liz Krueger is the author of the 2010 bill that has been the cause of much of this controversy, so she is trying to protect her legislative legacy.

Most of the city officials we have spoken to are actually supportive of Airbnb, but there are a few that matter like Liz that do not.

I wrote the article, so I'll add some questions for you here.

From all the time I've spent running searches on the site that 90% number seems very high, but since I don't have access to the database like you I can only ask follow up questions rather than refute it.

Does this number represent unique users or simply accounts?

For those that are renting the home they live in, what's the average number of nights they make available per year?

What would you say is the percentage of the available rooms on the site that come from people who have more than one listing in a market? 40%? 50%?

For people who have more than one listing, what's the average number of nights available per year for each unit?

Will Airbnb introduce a system for removing hosts who are in obvious violation of local laws? For instance, the hosts listed in my story, where they shared 19 units between three accounts.

Are 90% of rentals by hosts renting their primary dwelling?

Toshi ruined it for everyone.

He was certainly an impetus for stronger action from what I can tell, but that's an overstatement. The 2010 bill was originally drafted to target property groups that predate Airbnb or him.

I've seen options like those at more than one occasion. Flats rented out by room or bed, with the owner? (operator?) seemingly running it as a business.

Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily consider that wrong. After all it's likely a little more like a youth hostel and gives you the option to maybe meet with a pre-screened[1] set of occupants? Making an option to meet people with similar interests, whether that's something you'd want to go for or not.

For me Airbnb always seemed covered that middle ground between Couchsurfing and Ho(s)tels.

[1]: what ever screening the host would really do is a completely different question. But having to be approved by the host gives the host a little option to screen those who come and go.

The difference is that in a youth hostel everyone in the hostel signed up to be staying there. In an Airbnb hostel, all the neighbors signed up to be living in a condo/co-op/residential rental building and one guy decided on his own to turn his unit into a hostel.

This++. The 30-day rules are set up to protect the tenant across the hall.

Protect them from what?

Good point but what's the differences between a short term rental an a longer term one? I mean, imagine that someone rents an apartment in a condo for 1yr, and they party all day, we are in a similar situation but with more rotation?

You'd have to be very rich and have an extraordinarily resilient body to party all day all year round. Whereas an ever changing cast of vacationers can each party while on vacation and then return to quiet lives in their home town.

Be young, drink cheap booze. You will pay for it later in life but you underestimate the capacity others have for a "party" life.

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