
Airbnb raises $1B to weather the coronavirus crisis - JumpCrisscross
https://www.axios.com/airbnb-raises-billion-coronavirus-43745550-2f4b-46ab-8eb0-2d677682751e.html
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xiaolingxiao
Could someone who is working at Airbnb right now comment (anonymously) on the
_sentiment_ within Airbnb right now? It is one of the hardest hit companies in
tech from a demand standpoint, so your experience will go a long way to help
us understand what is going on. Again, not details of the term, just the
general _feeling_ .

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shaunxcode
And there I thought the silver lining of corona was air bnb would finally be
seen as a large part of our current housing crisis.

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jjeaff
Airbnb didn't invent the vacation rental. People have rented their place to
vacationers since forever. There were and are multiple companies and websites
that did that long before Airbnb existed.

Airbnb just made it easier and thus more popular to rent your home or room to
travellers.

Airbnb didn't innovate anything in the space as far as I am aware of, except
for a great user experience.

The only people to blame in regards to vacation rentals raising housing prices
are the governments that set and enforce the rules. As long as regulating
authorities allow private residences to be occupied by renters on a short term
basis, then investors are going to buy property and rent it that way.

Airbnb's intended usage from the beginning was to rent out the unused value of
your home. Which would actually lower housing prices since it allows you to
use the housing more efficiently. But now bigger players are buying property
for the sole purpose of short term rentals which decreases housing supply.

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CryptoBanker
Why would unlocking unused value lower prices? Doesn't make much sense to me

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akamaozu
If half the houses on a given street have at least one room available to rent
at all times, renting a room on that street should be cheaper due to plentiful
supply.

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bshipp
Although everyone wants to scapegoat AirBnB, interest rates have been
historically low for almost 12 years. Reduced interest rates result in
increased asset values, especially real estate when long term debt becomes
cheaper.

I'm not supporting everything AirBnB does, but blaming them for housing/rental
prices seems pretty ludicrous to me. We've experienced real estate bubbles
since we started urbanizing.

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wyre
In my eyes AirBnb is being blamed for taking houses off the market that would
have generally be rented out to long-term tenants. This lowers the supply of
rentals increasing prices. Lower interest rates just make the situation worse.

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paxys
With interest rates what they are right now, I expect a lot more tech
companies will look to raise money via debt to build a cushion.

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greendave
They lost $276 million last quarter and still had >$2 billion in the bank.
Will be interesting to see if after this additional raise, they have enough to
survive the epidemic.

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robbyt
I know from personal finance that having a buffer in the bank is good... But
this seems to be a rather large buffer.

Can someone please explain what's going on with these numbers?

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TheCoelacanth
Maybe they're getting ready to acquire some less well-funded competitors who
are in financial trouble at bargain rates.

