
Airbnb purged 1,000 "entire home" listings days before preparing data snapshot - w1ntermute
http://insideairbnb.com/how-airbnb-hid-the-facts-in-nyc
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zzleeper
Devils advocate: Suppose your stats are biased by a % of bad listings (fake,
bad, etc.) that violate some rule. Would you want to include them in your
numbers?

If having the correct statistics (i.e. excluding these bad listings) was
important for regulatory or marketing purposes, then fixing this before the
report is part of the fiduciary duty of the firm with its shareholders, so no
surprise here.

~~~
meowface
My thoughts, too.

Though the question is why haven't they removed these earlier? Were they
waiting to do it? Or was this just a result of incompetence followed by a
panicked response?

~~~
ars
Could be it never mattered before, because no one was looking, and now someone
is looking.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> Could be it never mattered before

If people could rent these properties before they were removed, how could it
not matter?

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tazjin
It's interesting that the word "photoshopped" is being used for this kind of
manipulation as well.

~~~
thefrostytruth
It's just bad writing.

It muddies their actual meaning, and an unfortunate metaphor that gets in the
way--does more to confuse than illuminate. These guys are onto something big,
but they're not great at presenting it.

~~~
sosborn
And before you know it the word is redefined in Merriam Webster. Literally.

~~~
thefrostytruth
For every "literally" there's a "really."

[http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html)
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002611.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002611.html)

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timClicks
As an outsider to the USA housing market (that seems to be very heavily
regulated), could someone explain the significance of what is alleged here?
More to the point, why are multi-listings of whole houses a bad thing?

~~~
pmikesell
I think it's because it suggests that professional landlords / developers are
using the platform to sidestep rent control laws, as opposed to regular people
just renting out their homes while they are away on vacation.

~~~
brcs77
And so what if they are? Have them pay the proper taxes then. Win-win for the
property owner and the city.

~~~
calbear81
Zoning laws are not simply about taxes. What if your neighbor decided to open
a nightclub out of his garage one day, would it be okay as long as they paid
taxes? The externalities imposed have to be accounted for.

~~~
dalke
Nor is it only about zoning laws. A nightclub, or under-the-table hotel, will
likely be subject to laws like the ADA, additional fire codes, health
inspections, and more. These are tangential to paying taxes.

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owlmonkey
The implication is that people are illegally listing multiple properties that
they own or rent, but this analysis doesn't rule out the cases where someone
hires a professional property manager to list their place on AirBnB while
they're on vacation or away. That property manager will have multiple "whole
home" listings but there's nothing illegal about it.

But we shouldn't expect an unbiased analysis from a site like
insideairbnb.com, which is a partisan anti-airbnb advocacy project.

~~~
jzwinck
A huge number of rental tenants in NYC are not legally able to sublet. Hiring
someone else to do it does not absolve them.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Even if your lease allowed you to sublet, the short term whole apartment
rentals when the owner is not present that Airbnb does are illegal in NY
anyway. The only way to do that legally is to have a bed and breakfast license
from the state. Next time you look for an Airbnb in NYC, see if that's
mentioned in the listing.

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erdojo
This report would seem more damning if the authors had at least attempted to
keep their bias out of it. I found it significantly less credible because of
it. I kept wondering what info they weren't sharing in their rush to paint
Airbnb as liars and cheats. Or if their own data, which has no external
validation either, is true.

Someone also made a good point here regarding Airbnb's motives. It is entirely
feasible that Airbnb did a cleanup of bad/illegal listings before submitting
data for government scrutiny.

~~~
uxp
I mostly agree. A site called insideairbnb.com that is clearly not affiliated
with the company looks to be simply a muckraker blog about AirBnB.

But, the data does not lie. If they purged somewhere around half of all Full
Home listings to make their export look like there were very few landlords
that listed multiple properties, then they are manipulating data. One does not
"clean up" data to be submitted to the government without providing an
explanation for that purge.

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andrewclunn
To be fair, the fact that this was a New York City only thing could relate to
NYC's particular subletting issues and housing laws.

~~~
rubidium
To be fair, any company intentionally changing it's database before a public
"snapshot" in order to gain public favor (and avoid possible litigation) is
worth calling out as dishonest. So it's not really about NYC, it's about
Airbnb.

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dang
That title puts a pretty heavy spin on the story, so we changed it to a
factual, representative sentence from the article. If someone suggests a
better title, we can change it again.

~~~
huhtenberg
Erm... so what happened to the much-touted policy of always keeping the
original title?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572466)

~~~
tptacek
That's not the policy.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20misleading%20or%...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20misleading%20or%20linkbait&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false)

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joering2
hmm, the company who break thru by deceptive practice of craiglist's
advertising of apartments to rent that never existed in the first place (but
redirected to their website), with the owner who has been on top most wanted
FBI list for being a top spammer in the USA... gee this news is really
shocking!

I mean.. how could they??

