
Portland Does Little when AirBnB Hosts Rent Multiple Apartments - cratermoon
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-23993-hotel_california.html
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noer
couldn't AirBnB just restrict rentals to 90 nights/year in portland? or
couldn't the city just look for rentals that are available for more than 90
nights/year?

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toomuchtodo
Yes, but AirBNB would prefer to skirt regulations as long as possible in order
to grow revenue and market share.

See: Uber.

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JonFish85
To expand upon your point, AirBNB, much like Uber, can sit back a bit and
pretend that this is just the fault of a couple of careless users as opposed
to a systemic problem. This is the "brilliance" of their business models -- at
least for now, they can claim that these people aren't their employees, that
they're independent contractors or some such, so it's not the company's fault.
They get all of the upside with limited legal liabilities (for now). The long
play is to have an exit before the legal side of things catches up with them--
the legal systems are slow, but AirBNB/Uber's growth rates are pretty fast.
The current stockholders can cash in their billions with the exit, and it'll
be the CEO's/shareholders' problem in the future if/when the legal system
catches up to them.

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philip1209
> “It’s theoretically unenforceable unless you have someone sitting outside
> the door and checking the box that ‘Yes, they stay here 270 days out of the
> year,’"

What about taxes? It has to be illegal to claim one place as your primary
residence for tax purposes then another as your primary residence for AirBNB
purposes.

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toomuchtodo
It is. If you're claiming a homestead exemption, and then renting the place
out, that's illegal. If Portland's property tax agency is online, and you had
the AirBNB address, you could easily confirm this (as the exemption would be
listed on the property index page).

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sejje
I will never understand the desire to control one's neighbors' property.

I don't care who owns it and it's none of my business how they use it.

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city41
Your neighbor's actions have an affect on your home, including day to day
comfort and how much your home is worth. HOAs exist for a reason.

I'm not sure I'd want to live next to an apartment that constantly has new
guests, any of which could do who knows what to the building.

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MadManE
So you are against other people having freedoms because they might do
something bad? Isn't that the definition of FUD?

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ghaff
Societies (of ten through their governments) restrict all sorts of behaviors
that affect others in various ways. My neighbor (in a residentially zoned
area) can't decide to open a gas station on their property. You can argue
about various laws and rules at the margin but it takes a pretty anarchist
perspective to argue that no such rules should exist.

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MadManE
It's pretty extremist to say that I'm making a case for anarchy. Nobody's
saying that we should change zoning or open illegal drug rings. People are
wanting to rent out apartments to short-term tenants. How is that remotely
close to being a dangerous cartel that needs to be defended against?

People are upset that other people are better off than they are, and using the
extra financial leverage to treat an apartment as a temporary vacation home.
Jealousy, plain and simple.

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untog
_Jealousy, plain and simple._

Not even slightly. People are upset because homes surrounding theirs are being
rented out to short term tenants that do not care about the long or even
medium term future of the home and it's surroundings.

If you lived in an apartment building filled with tourists drunkenly stumbling
around the stairwells, breaking fixtures and otherwise ruining the shared
facilities, you might appreciate the concept.

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MadManE
I _do_ live in an apartment building. It's pretty telling that you assume that
I can't possibly relate to the common man, and _if only I was in their
position, I would be more sympathetic_.

I am in their position. And I am anything but sympathetic for that very
reason.

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MadManE
Reply to untog:

Of course I'm not ok with people destroying things. But I don't think that
having a law making subleasing illegal prevents that. You're acting as if the
ability to do what I want with my property makes it a foregone conclusion that
evil things will happen.

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untog
_You 're acting as if the ability to do what I want with my property makes it
a foregone conclusion that evil things will happen._

No, I'm acting as if the ability for an unlimited and unknown number of
complete strangers to enter my apartment building makes it a foregone
conclusion that evil things will happen, which is pretty much true. Even if
the vast majority of AirBnB customers behave, the odds are that there will
always be an outlier that will ruin it.

