
One Year of Airbnb - hvo
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/realestate/our-year-of-living-airbnb.html?hpw&rref=realestate&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0
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pavel_lishin
> _We later came to recognize the cold, commercial experience offered by this
> host and others of his ilk, with multiple listings of impersonally furnished
> places and a willingness to let non-reviewed guests stay, was something we
> wished to avoid._

I'm not sure what would constitute a warm and personal experience. They want
to have the place all to themselves, but are put off by ... what exactly? A
lack family photos? Or more "morbid" art that they also ended up hating?

> _Our rear-facing prewar one-bedroom, where the couch sagged and the shower
> was in the kitchen, was as silent as a padded cell. Here, the heat blasted
> unbidden, from which we escaped by opening the windows to winter’s coldest
> month. That first night, on the way to the corner store to get some food, we
> dodged mice scurrying between bags of trash. Back in the kitchen, Elaine
> fired up the stove by the bath towels, but when the pasta from the corner
> store hit the boiling water, a few little worms floated to the top. I
> skipped dinner that night._

This adds color to their story, but doesn't say much about AirBNB - opening
the windows to deal with winter heat and seeing rodents in the street is
pretty standard for New York. What _isn 't_ standard is having an apartment
that's "silent as a padded cell" \- as far as I'm concerned, that should be
listed as an amenity.

~~~
tedmiston
> I'm not sure what would constitute a warm and personal experience. They want
> to have the place all to themselves, but are put off by ... what exactly? A
> lack family photos? Or more "morbid" art that they also ended up hating?

It's not about having the place all to themselves.

Having stayed in a handful of Airbnbs, I've found the distribution pretty
bimodal too.

There's a cold uncomfortableness to the commercial room run purely for
business. Pardon my mildly overdramatic digression, but they feel like prison
cells.

Especially in contrast to the familiarity and personal touch when staying with
a host that actually lives there, wants to have a conversation, and cares
about people. While they may appreciate the extra income, I really believe
these hosts share their rooms for the greater community experience.

~~~
AJ007
There are things that are built cheaply that look fine in photographs. Some
things aren't cheap but it is still clear they weren't purchased by someone
who intended to use them.

Airbnb photographs don't reflect noise, the hardness of a mattress, and they
often hide windows. Hotel reviewers are harsh, and these sorts of problems
show up quick. I would venture to guess that the person to person nature of
Airbnb, much like Linkedin, mean less honest reviews. Enough bad reviewers and
hosts will exclude you.

------
11thEarlOfMar
I'm glad to have read this, as I've had the same notion of living locally
during world tours.

I am curious about a couple of things...

All of these experiences were in New York. How would it have been different in
Athens, Tokyo, or Sydney, in terms of misrepresentation?

Also, using average apartment cost to gauge the amount to spend on the AirBnb
unit is probably not apples-to-apples (for similar reasons that a regular full
time salary is likely going to be significantly less than a contractor rates
for the same position). I would have used hotel rates instead, which would
have been much higher than $100/night in New York. It might be that had they
stayed in higher priced lodging, they'd have had a better experience.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'm not sure how much higher; when we first came here to visit, before moving,
we stayed at Hotel Marakkech on the UWS - a great place, and looking at their
booking page, their rates for all of January are under a hundred dollars (with
the exception of New Year Eve's weekend, of course.)

To be fair, the rooms are much smaller than a typical AirBNB, and it doesn't
come with a kitchen.

~~~
voltagex_
I wonder if you can even compare areas like that. There's enough of a
difference between Sydney CBD and North Ryde that comparing them is difficult
(even though hotel prices can be the same).

------
dotcoma
Is this what they call "native advertising"?

~~~
taternuts
It raises similar thoughts with me... mostly I guess because I don't think
I've read such a positive AirBnB write-up before, especially around them
responsibly handling landlord screw ups

~~~
skrebe
same here. too good to be true. airbnb crisis?

------
gozo
As someone who has lived a similar lifestyle for a while I have strong
indications that Airbnb has made this much harder. People have become
reluctant to rent out for one to three, or even six, months and prices have
gone up significantly. Especially in international or dynamic cities, which
are generally the ones you want to stay a bit longer in.

~~~
sokoloff
Consumers are willing to pay way more to rent a room (or a car) for a day than
1/365th of what they are willing/able to pay for a full year.

Airbnb makes that matchmaking easier (on both parties), and in exchange takes
a 9-15% cut.

Property owners who used to be forced to choose between offering 1-year lease
or trying to piece together some mid-term rentals (and suffer vacancies in-
between) now have an additional choice: take ~85% of the much higher daily
rate people are willing to pay.

I agree it's perhaps made that specific pattern of consumption more expensive,
but IMO, it's done that by making the overall market more efficient.

~~~
a-dub
It's nice to have efficient markets that effectively price things... however I
think that perhaps it's not the worst thing in the world to accept market
inefficiencies in trade for the opportunity to not live in a shitty society.

My general sense is that merging the vacation/short term rental market with
the long term home rental market puts serious upward pressure on the latter,
thereby increasing scarcity of opportunity for middle income people in urban
locales.

IMO, anything that puts downward pressure on the derivative of social mobility
over time is ultimately putting upward pressure on the shittiness of society
as a whole and really makes life pretty unpleasant regardless of socioeconomic
class.

I'll take an inefficient housing market any day over that.

~~~
woah
The root of the problem is a lack of city housing stock caused by suburban
sprawl in the last century, and NIMBYism in this one. Blaming a rental service
for that is silly.

~~~
a-dub
Sure, cities are fashionable again. There's a generational shift and demand is
high. Construction is slow. Growth in some places is opposed, by both people
and governments. All of this results in limited supply.

So I guess we agree that supply is limited.

But I ask you this: If supply is critically limited, then how on earth is it
silly to complain about a "rental service" that mainstreams alternative uses
of housing stock where the net effect is even more reduction of supply.

Alternate means of doing business are interesting, and new structures in
society are also interesting. People can and should experiment. But if they're
experimenting in areas that are already problematic and are doing so in ways
that obviously make the problems worse... I'm going to heap blame on them
whether you think it's silly or not.

~~~
sokoloff
I would think that a system that more efficiently allocates a scarce resource
is good.

That some people were previously benefiting from the existing inefficiency is
a bug, not a feature, IMO.

~~~
makomk
It's only more efficient if you tautologically define efficent allocation to
be whatever the market decides. Remember, we're talking about an effect that
pushes occupancy down, meaning the same amount of scarce resources are being
used to satisfy _fewer_ people's needs.

------
tedmiston
> Frustrated with the stock of apartments in our price range, I started
> contacting hosts of more expensive places, up to triple our budget.

I really admire the "hacking" of leveraging what you have (some money + a
great story) to get what you want when you can't afford it in dollars.

------
msoad
Is this a sponsored content? It's too nice to Airbnb!

~~~
tedmiston
I found it realistic. There are a few critiques of the experience as well.

> We later came to recognize the cold, commercial experience offered by this
> host and others of his ilk, with multiple listings of impersonally furnished
> places and a willingness to let non-reviewed guests stay, was something we
> wished to avoid.

> The central heating had apparently been broken for years and the weather
> forecast predicted a blizzard.

> Our rear-facing prewar one-bedroom, where the couch sagged and the shower
> was in the kitchen, was as silent as a padded cell.

~~~
pavel_lishin
The silence is a critique? A New York apartment where you can't hear neighbors
or street noise is something to be cherished.

~~~
tedmiston
I mean in Manhattan, sure -- but there are plenty of quiet neighborhoods in
Brooklyn. The eerily silent room was in Gowanus.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Nope; that was the UES/East Harlem location that they found the day after
leaving the Gowanus one.

It's confusing and poorly written, because they compare both to Hamsterdam :/

------
bm1362
I'm currently doing this in NYC with my brothers; it's been rather stressful
living week to week. I've just started phone interviews with a few companies
and it's quite irritating to schedule something only to arrive at an room with
poor internet; or to move across town the night before.

------
Xyik
I didn't learn much about AirB&B, but the insight into living in New York was
interesting.

------
edward
Posted 9 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10634015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10634015)

~~~
detaro
From the FAQ:

> _Are reposts ok?_

> _If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill
> reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
iokevins
TL; DR: For one year, a late-30's academic and his artist spouse document the
use of Airbnb, as a tool to facilitate law-abiding, temporary living, in
varied New York City neighborhoods.

Airbnb comes out looking responsive, to lack of care from certain hosts.
Impressions of neighborhoods vary, as you would expect, sometimes from simply
finding contaminated pasta. After gaining a few positive reviews on Airbnb,
they successfully negotiate their way into spaces above their price range,
while avoiding "red flags", like unmentioned fifth-floor walk-ups.

Great article, lots of tie-ins to various cultural history of the
neighborhoods.

~~~
greggman
I've been using AirBnb to live all over for the last 2.5 years. Not 100% has
been AirBnB but enough that I mostly think AirBnB as a company could use a lot
of improvement (edited from something more derogatory)

Of the 16+ places I've stayed at 5 of them have lied about their facilities
where as of the 20 or so hotels I've stayed at only 1 lied about their
facilities and they fixed the issue.

But, on AirBnB there's no way to really deal with the issue. Most landlords
don't have some other place so you show up, suitcase in tow, what can you do
except deal with lies? It's not like you can easily find another place in a
few minutes. At best you have to sit there with your cellphone and try to find
a nearby hotel and stay there several days until you find a new place. As far
as I'm concerned the AirBnB refund guarantee is mostly useless.

I don't feel free to leave a bad review because the next landlord might not
rent to me if they see I've left other bad reviews. Why should they take the
risk of renting to someone that leaves bad reviews?

AirBnB provides almost no way to deal with these issues. There are zero
repercussions for lies on the facilities and unless you actually rent the
place there is no way to contact AirBnB. So for example, once I got used to
the lies I started asking the landlords for specifics before I rented.
Example: Two places claimed they had "free parking on premises" but when
questioned, one said I could park in the street but they didn't actually have
any parking on premises. Another said unless I had neighborhood sticker I'd
have to park 3-5 blocks away.

There was nothing I could. I can't report them to AirBnB unless I actually
rent

As far as other lies. One claimed they had Wifi. Turned out they were stealing
it from a neighbor and it was only accessible from small area in the corner of
the living room. Another said the apartment was a 1bedroom but it turned out
to be studio. The difference? A 1bedroom has a door so I can shut out the
refrigerator sounds, a studio does not so I had filtered out studios. One
claimed they had free parking on premises. When got there I was told it was
often blocked and I'd have to park on the street. Car was broken into there
BTW. Another claimed free parking on premises. Turned out he was on vacation
and left is car in the space so no parking. Another no lies I suppose but it
wasn't ready to rent. No curtains on the windows and buildings all looking
directly into it. Also it claimed air conditioning which was true but in a hot
august in LA with it running on high it took til 4am to cool the place down.

~~~
ajb
"I don't feel free to leave a bad review because the next landlord might not
rent to me if they see I've left other bad reviews".

A hack to deal with this: leave praise in the review, but end it with 'and
I'll be sure to tell all my friends'.

That used to be code in hotel guestbooks that all the preceding praise should
be inverted. (I think that's the codephrase - someone correct me if it's wrong
please!) Not sure if it's used in AirBnb, but hey, why not start the tradition
now...

~~~
pavel_lishin
I've never heard of this before; I don't know how many hosts would pick up on
it.

Also, I think I've left that comment before in various places, and I certainly
didn't intend it to mean that I hated it.

