http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/airbnb-rental...
Of course, it's a pretty controversial and complex topic, but I feel like the ban was a step in the right direction. I use Airbnb myself as a guest in other cities and I like that it exists, but I also don't believe that historical city centers should simply be sold to the highest bidder.
...though it's also entirely possible I'm just a hypocrite.
Au contraire, Airbnb is primarily used by the young and (comparatively poor), students and young adults. The kind of person who comes to Berlin, Praha and Barcelona by Ryanair and Easyjet.
It is precisely the low-cost nature of Airbnb that has made it so popular: in order to save money you can fit multiple people into a small Airbnb if you really want, you cannot easily do that with a hotel. The wealthy (usually older) stay in posh hotels.
Airbnb, like low-cost airlines, has made travelling to major cities more affordable to the masses.
* * *
As for who is rich. Young, healthy, students who can afford to take time off and travel ARE RICH! You can say what you want about Ryan air being cheep and only €50 a flight. But the minimum wage in the Czech Republic is 11 000CZK or just €400 a month! Poor people have trouble paying for rent, and there is no chance they will be taking time off to take that ryan air flight to Brussels to spend the weekend in an AirBNB.
And those people don't benefit from AirBNB at all, given that they have no assets to invest in real estate.
this part of the city is going
to be too expensive for normal
people to live there, is nothing
short of theft.
Anyway, let me remind you that I don't believe your claim that Airbnb has a substantial influence on property prices. As far as I can see, the dominant factor in property prices is distance from center, and proximity to amenities, in particular public transport -- all that regardless of Airbnb.
because they live on the outskirts
students who can afford to take
time off and travel ARE RICH!
Of course you can compare the average student in Denmark with the average worker in Malawi, and find that the former is wealthy vis-a-vis the latter, but this is not an interesting comparison.
Czech Republic is 11 000CZK
Poor people have trouble paying for rent
And those people don't benefit
from AirBNB
>Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund prod in this plan is to issue.
http://rationalrevolution0.tripod.com/articles/capital_distr...
Though I agree with both authors in general, my claim of theft was not the same as theirs at all.
> The main purpose of public transport is to enable those living in the outskirts to get to the center in the morning, and go back in the evening. The drive to separate out work from living quarters goes back to the industrial revolution when work suddenly became noisy, dangerous and polluting, so the old model (working and living in the same place) had to go. This required mass transport, be it cars or public transport Anyway, there is nothing wrong with living in the outskirts. Many prefer it, especially those with children.
In Prague, most people don't work in the center, so the commuting to the center argument is a mute point. The center is literally only for tourists.
> Yes, and why is this interesting? The minimum wage in Malawi is ... what $1 per year? The cost of accomodation always correlates strongly with the average income
The reason why it is interesting, is that a €50 flight to Brussels, and a €8O AirBnB stay for two nights, would be a third of a months salary at Czech minimum wage. So it is totally unrealistic for people on the east who make that kind of money to travel west. However, westerners have no trouble traveling east. (Some eastern students are able to travel west, but they are among the wealthy).
> economies of scale
Economies of scale do not exist in the urban housing market, because supply is pretty much fixed. The more demand, the higher the price.
I'm not %100 against AirBnB. But I feel that the use of AirBnB to rent out whole apartments is unfair in cities where taxpayers heavily subsidize infrastructure and common spaces. Especially when the investor is a foreign one. Then the money from the west flows east and then flows right back out again.
Economies of scale do not exist in
the urban housing market, because
supply is pretty much fixed. The
more demand, the higher the price.
There is no technical reason that prevent increase of supply. You could flatten the old town and build Dubai-style 100 floor skyscrapers, creating >20k new flats. The only reason why this doesn't happen is legislation, zoning laws, building codes etc, which in turn reflect the will of the majority of the population who don't want radical change of cities.
Edit: My point being, that buldozing the center and building high rises would solve the problem, not due to incresed supply, but due to decreased demand. There's a reason why Frankfurt and London are the only cities in Europe with high rise centers and its not the price of steel. There are pleanty of sky scrapers in Europe, but they always end up being some dead part of town that nobody visits for any reason other than work or sleep. I guess that just returns to my point about "real infrustructure". I think that in the US, you can't even really talk about the "center of the city" because people don't "go to the center" as a thing to do. People stay at home, or drive to the gym, or go to the movies. They don't "go to the center, stop to watch a movie, get out, walk around a bit, have dinner in the center." While all the time thinking of their activity as "spending time in the center" rather than "going somewhere".
Or, to put in other terms: your historic city centre is a gem, a rarity and such things are understandingly more valuable (in monetary terms) than ordinary locations. Want to live there? Make enough money to afford it.
Fair enough but are you willing to compensate the investors/landlords for the lost income from foregoing these opportunities or asking the govt to have the tax payers foot the bill to help tenants stay in their properties at artificially lower than market rates?
I say let supply and demand sort this out and just focus our efforts on exposing anti-competitive violations like price collusion among landlords etc etc.
Usually landlords/investors who are attracted to this "trade" are lured by the prospects of short-term profits and if that doesn't materialize for any reason, they'd seek more stable income by entering into long-term arrangements at more economic rates with permanent tenants.
Because investors' profits don't come from nowhere. You're prioritising the residents' wishes over the tourists' wishes, despite the fact that the tourists are willing to pay more to use the property. That's not fair.
What ? You would have said Paris I would totally agree but Berlin, really ? It's definetly not expensive to live here compared to other european capitals (buying a flat costs 3,036€[1] per square metter, compared to the 8000 you need in Paris) and even compared to other german big cities (München, Hamburg).
[1] http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Germany/Price-Hist...
Maybe in an old not renovated building, or concrete communist blocks. Anything refurbished or newly constructed starts at 4-5k euro/m^2.
This does not have to happen, but it does rely on relative draw of the area and therefore its relative "dullness" to visitors. In effect they can't be too externally interesting to survive.
Are you postulating that there is an infinite demand for interesting areas to visit, and an infinite supply of tourists who will completely displace locals everywhere?
However I do not think this process necessarily leads to the creation of an awesome area. Just one catered to particular type(s) of people which may or may not include people previously living there. "Awesomeness" depends on a personal point of view. I think most of us can think of an otherwise popular spot that we personally find repelling.
I also doubt it leads to increased supply of housing useful to locals in the same way as building hotels generally doesn't. It may increase capacity of a city to hold more people at any time, but without some redistribution (e.g. from taxes of such properties) may not have any (positive) effect on availability of long-term housing apart from moving some of it elsewhere.
I don't think there is infinite demand of areas or supply of tourists and certainly don't think locals will be displaced from everywhere. Their quality of life however may be reduced and it should be no surprise that they are not fond of this. If my daily commute becomes 15 minutes longer in each direction, than there are 2.5 hours fewer weekly or almost a week yearly over which I lost agency.
And I am only scratching the surface here of the problem(s) or my position which is unhelpfully that it depends. Sometimes such developments are positive, but not always or not forever. It may be a balancing act and what I am certain of is that there is no answer that would always be correct.
If that's the case, then building nice residential areas outside the touristic core which are useful to locals will not result in a horde of tourists AirBnBing those areas.
I think at this point it's important to note that the core issue here is that in most areas locals pass dumb protectionist laws against new construction, making it impossible for supply to increase.
I agree with you that when demand for a good increases the price of that good, the people who were previously enjoying lower prices might be unhappy. That doesn't mean the original purchasers of that good have some right to prevent new people from purchasing it.