
Airbnb Pits Neighbor Against Neighbor in Tourist-Friendly New Orleans - geebee
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/business/airbnb-pits-neighbor-against-neighbor-in-tourist-friendly-new-orleans.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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reustle
I just checked out of an airbnb this morning in Bangkok that had signs posted
all over the lobby and elevator that this was NOT a hotel and that if you are
caught and not a resident you will be taken to the police. It was pretty
uncomfortable watching over your shoulder every time you entered as the
security guards eye you up and down. Obviously, the listing didn't mention
anything about this.

Edit: here is the sign
[http://i.imgur.com/dAczEnt.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/dAczEnt.jpg)

~~~
jonlucc
I wonder what happens if you report to the "juristic person office"? Do they
get you a different accommodation and go after the AirBnB host?

~~~
smelendez
Unlikely--sounds like "juristic person" is basically a type of
corporation([http://www.thailandlawonline.com/civil-and-commercial-
code/6...](http://www.thailandlawonline.com/civil-and-commercial-
code/65-136-juristic-persons-association-and-foundation)), so it's probably
the building manager's office.

They'd probably tell you to get off the premises ASAP and move to evict your
host.

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dclowd9901
One of the most memorable aspects of my recent Airbnb interview: most of the
interviewers I talked to lamented that Airbnb wasn't "legal" everywhere.

I don't think that's their biggest problem.

Let's pretend for a moment Airbnb wanted to really bring value to travelers,
hosts AND communities. What would they do to ensure the community at large
benefitted?

I have some ideas, mainly around ensuring users aren't listing more than one
property and that neighbors of a listing have a way to veto a listing. But I'm
getting the impression they don't really have a concern for the community.
Which is ironic because their next play seems to be bringing a more cultural
experience to Airbnb travel. It would be pretty hard to give someone a good
cultural experience if they arrived at their Airbnb space and everyone in the
neighborhood was ready to give the visitor the stink eye.

Given most people are not Airbnb hosts, I have to imagine unless the company
does some major community outreach in the next few years, they're gonna run
afoul of some grassroots headwind.

~~~
slyall
> and that neighbors of a listing have a way to veto a listing.

Seriously? Do you know what a NIMBY is?

If you asked a dozen neighbors to all approve anything (even a differently
coloured doorbell) then 100% chance that at least one would veto it.

~~~
staunch
My mother lives next to a busy Airbnb. The Airbnb guests regularly wake her up
at 2AM by drunkenly pounding on her door. She complained to Airbnb. They don't
care.

My previous apartment building (in a tourist area) was full of Airbnb guests
partying on the weekends. They caused damage, got into fights with residents,
and generally made it feel like living in a hotel.

Airbnb's investors all live in large houses with security and would never
tolerate this kind of problem in their own lives.

~~~
aikah
> My mother lives next to a busy Airbnb. The Airbnb guests regularly wake her
> up at 2AM by drunkenly pounding on her door. She complained to Airbnb. They
> don't care.

Were the airbnb rentals legal ? If your mom owns her condo , she'd know that
therefore be able to denounce the fraudster to the organisation that manages
the building. There is plenty of things your mom can do to force an illegal
airbnb rental to shut down.

And why would she complain to airbnb ? it's a well known fact that they don't
get involved because it's their business model, all the risk is passed to the
landlord and the renter.

~~~
wpietri
She probably mistook them for people with some sense of integrity or
responsibility toward the society that they operate in. A natural error.

~~~
hkmurakami
Interestingly, that actually tends to happen after the first financial
windfall.

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wpietri
This is absurd:

> Officials of Airbnb and VRBO (Vacation Rentals by Owner, a HomeAway brand
> that is popular in New Orleans) point out that they operate in so many
> places they cannot possibly get into the specifics of local policy; they are
> merely private businesses offering services to consumers.

Operating in so many places has never stopped chain restaurants or chain
stores from getting into the specifics of local policy.

I have no idea how they square this with the standard Silicon Valley notion
that we can solve any problem with some technology and a little elbow grease.
Every time an AirBnB spokesperson opens their mouth, I become more reluctant
to use them despite previously being a happy early adopter.

~~~
Fomite
> Operating in so many places has never stopped chain restaurants or chain
> stores from getting into the specifics of local policy.

This. "cannot possibly" should be read as "can't be bothered"

~~~
wpietri
Definitely. If their CEO would get up there, say, "Honestly, we just don't
give a fuck about local regulations," and make dismissive wanking motions, I'd
have more respect for them.

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superuser2
I always find it strange that rentals of several weeks to several months are
banned (or people try to ban them) in so many places.

What do you do with interns? You're obviously not going to pay them enough to
live in a hotel. They're obviously not going to sign 12-month leases.

It seems like there are people who legitimately need to live somewhere for
several months at a reasonable price, and are neither tourists nor residents.
Did the Prop F people just want all the tech companies to stop hiring interns,
and all the universities to stop having visiting scholars, etc?

~~~
devit
The real issue is: why do hotels cost so much?

It's just a normal room, so renting an hotel room for 30 days should cost as
much as the rent of an N room apartment shared with N people, but somehow
costs can be 3-10 times more.

For instance, typical prices can be 300$ for renting a cheap shared apartment
room for a month while the cheapest hotel rooms costs 50$, while they should
instead cost 300/30 = 10$.

That's why people use AirBnB and share apartments with roommates for more long
term stays, otherwise everyone would just live in hotel rooms, which would be
far more efficient and reasonable.

I suspect the problem might be government regulation.

~~~
crdoconnor
>The real issue is: why do hotels cost so much?

Do you see AirBnb lobbying to eliminate hotel taxes?

~~~
justincormack
Hotel taxes are not the reason rates are so high. One reason is low average
occupancy, another is a lot of people dont pay the list price, and get
discounted rates, while others pay more, for additional services, so there is
a fair amount of price discrimination going on.

~~~
ceejayoz
There's also stuff like having to carry insurance.

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dangoldin
What stuck out is how much emphasis there is on the difficulty of building out
support for local policies at a product/service level and pushing the onus
onto the host.

On the flip side you have Uber which is succeeding by working through the
local policies. The apps themselves have functionality that's location
specific (think Eats in NYC but not in NJ).

I do think Airbnb is using the local policies as an excuse and can do more to
make themselves more acceptable to cities.

~~~
dominotw
>I do think Airbnb is using the local policies as an excuse and can do more to
make themselves more acceptable to cities.

What about the fact the I just would never feel comfortable with strangers
walking in and out of my condo building. And I'd imagine this would be case
for communities with childeren, people wouldn't want random people from the
internet walking around their houses. Thats why there are specific laws and
regulations around where hotels can operate.

Would the proposition to the cities that could offer their citizens more more
money ( is this proven?) by sacrificing quality of life?

~~~
superuser2
Perhaps there is an argument that you're entitled to a relatively stable set
of neighbors, so that you can get to know them and learn which ones to avoid.

But you certainly don't get to _choose_ your neighbors. The US went down that
path in the 50s: _massive_ and hugely oppressive racial segregation whose
echoes are still being felt.

You are not entitled to decide who does and doesn't walk near your property,
only _on_ your property.

I don't feel comfortable sharing a country with Trump supporters, but that
doesn't mean I get to prevent them from finding housing.

~~~
hkmurakami
Isn't that how NYC co-ops work?

~~~
superuser2
The tenants do not get the right to pick their neighbors simply by living in a
building, but by being joint members of a corporation which owns the building.

If you live in a plain old apartment building, your landlord can rent
neighboring units to whomever he wants.

~~~
mooreds
> your landlord can rent neighboring units to whomever he wants

... As long as he complies with existing federal, state and local laws, as
well as existing HOA regulations, you as a neighbor don't have any property
rights preventing a rental.

Apartments seems to be a great way for AirBnB and hosts to make buckets of
money but then they are creating de facto hotels.

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danepowell
It seems like a lot of these problems could be solved by better enforcement of
existing laws, rather than creation of new ones.

For instance, the article has a picture of trash piled up on the sidewalk in
front of an AirBnB. Surely there are existing laws or regulations against
this. People often mention noise from short-term rentals, there are
regulations against this too. The benefits of better enforcement would extend
beyond short-term rentals as well, and improve quality of life for all
residents.

Other issues, like the "vomit covered floors", seem like strictly private
issues to be handled between the host, guest, and possibly the mediation of
the rental site.

I'm not saying that better enforcement should be the only solution (it can't
deal with larger issues like elevated property prices), but it should
certainly be a large part of it.

~~~
nradov
Better enforcement costs money. Who is going to pay for it? These
neighborhoods didn't have such serious problems before so it seems
unreasonable that they have to pay for more enforcement just to maintain their
quality of life.

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abannin
The greatest irony is that the founders love to preach "Do things that don't
scale". Nothing scales worse then working through legislation with cities
around the world, so this should be top priority for them, right?

~~~
leereeves
That's advice for helping newborn startups grow, not for designing late-stage
business models.

~~~
abannin
Not sure if this statement is sarcastic or not, I could read it either way. So
I'm going to respond as if it's not a joke.

The heart of the advice is to start solving problems that are hard to solve,
and worry about scalability and efficiency after you've proven there is a
demand. Often you will find creative ways to gain efficiency, build the
infrastructure, and then have a wonderful competitive moat for the business.
The big exception is customer service, there is no replacing being able to
talk to a helpful person within 60 seconds of encountering a problem, but it's
much more expensive to parallelize people then software.

In the case of legislation, getting on offense and working with a few cities
will go a long way for establishing a precedent that other cities will follow.
Uber was rather effective in this area.

~~~
leereeves
I meant it seriously, based on PG's essay.

[http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html)

 _Startups take off because the founders make them take off. There may be a
handful that just grew by themselves, but usually it takes some sort of push
to get them going._

 _The most common unscalable thing founders have to do at the start is to
recruit users manually._

 _For as long as they could (which turned out to be surprisingly long), Wufoo
sent each new user a hand-written thank you note._

 _[Meraki] got started by doing something that really doesn 't scale:
assembling their routers themselves._

 _When you only have a small number of users, you can sometimes get away with
doing by hand things that you plan to automate later._

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jacquesm
And in Amsterdam as well.

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kdkooo
How is it that "city officials acknowledge that New Orleans simply does not
have the resources to enforce this rule — given the 2,400 to 4,000 short-term
rental listings on various services", but they had the resources to find those
numbers?

~~~
themartorana
Search "New Orleans" on a series of short-term rental sites, add numbers
together, grab a cup of coffee, it's still 8:59 am?

