1) build a ton of housing to catch up with demand
2) shrink your local economy to decrease demand
If a lawmaker isn’t working on one of these two options, they do not actually support a platform of low housing prices.
Airbnb is only a small slice of housing demand. It’s an ugly slice, which makes the company a convenient punching bag for politicians who want to act like they are trying to make housing affordable. But the economy in high-demand cities will keep growing regardless of whether you kill Airbnb.
I used to be very active on a forum for urban planners. They made a very strong case that a few decades back and in living memory of some older members, small coastal towns in the US were affordable and pleasant and similar to other small towns. Then the practice of owning vacation homes drove up prices out of reach of locals and tourism brought other problems.
And this was before Airbnb was a thing and magnified such issues.
You need to build more housing and all that. But you also need to say "Housing is primarily for the people who actually live here and the wants and desires of wealthy tourists absolutely doesn't trump that." or basically the entire world lives in a shithole so a tiny fraction of the population can do whatever the fuck and indulge their every whim cuz money.
This is not a good thing. Not even for the rich people getting away with it while people say "Eat the rich." There is a long history of the lower classes violently and murderously removing the elites when they do that.
I'd like to not "live in interesting times" that include violent revolution. Covid19 is enough fun for me, thanks. I'm a boring fuddy duddy like that. Party pooper. Don't drink. Etc
Historically, we used hotels to visit places we spent limited time in.
(Or you can camp, visit friends, etc.)
Units converted to AirBnBs were not designed for short-term stays or taxed on that basis, and generally AirBnB only exists because it leveraged regulatory arbitrage quickly enough to grow to the point it could lobby for changes to the law. But after multiple studies in multiple cities confirmed that only a handful of investors benefited from loose unregulated short-term rentals, the pendulum began swinging back towards regulating them like the hotels they are.
There have been articles about this. It sticks in my mind because I used to be in insurance.
Residential buildings were not intended to be used this way and all the policy and infrastructure points to "No, really, you weren't supposed to use this as a commercial vehicle. That's not what all of society agreed to for this piece of real property."
For landlord insurance I'd pay about £300/year in Scotland, and €60/year in Finland. I'd be surprised if there were short-term policies, as distinct from long-term-tenant policies, that we significantly more expensive than that.
Housing is a basic human right. But this is denied to millions of Americans, simply because those that came before them, were able to secure affordable housing for themselves, while locking out others from attaining affordable housing.
How about close proximity to family and relatives?
Sure, you can move to middle-of-nowhere Texas, and buy land for cheap, but how are you going to pay for that cheaper mortgage, if there are no jobs around? Maybe you can get a telecommuting job?
However, at some point, their votes interfered with the human rights of others. At what point does the government and society step in, and say, enough is enough?
Meanwhile Airbnb creates a level of convenience and affordability that makes travel accessible to the masses. I'm sure the software engineers down-voting wouldn't be significantly affected if Airbnb was forced out of operation. Just another version of NIMBYism.
But, if affordability really is your top goal, you'll do even better if you go with a hotel that offers kitchenette suites. In my experience, they typically offer a lower nightly fee than having an airbnb to yourself (especially if you are staying at least a week and don't require someone else to come make your bed for you ever day), and still let you save on meal costs.
(Airbnbing a room out of someone's house is even less expensive, but I don't think that style of airbnb rental is really the subject of much controversy.)
I've also seen articles about how tourism is destroying cities, destroying the environment, etc.
Meanwhile, an upside to the current pandemic is a massive drop in pollution so extreme it's visible on satellite imagery.
I am reluctant to agree that optimizing for the right of "ordinary people" to pursue jet set lifestyles is really in the best interest of humanity.
I'm happy to let people travel. But "Let's ruin the planet for touristy shit and claim it to be some egalitarian ideal to open that path to less rich people so they can join in on that" is not really a value that strikes me as belonging in the wise and idealistic column.
Mayhap we can find something better if we put a little effort into it.
Absolutely not something I'm advocating. I talk a lot about housing issues. I think it can be solved without making landlords into the victims here.
That's a long conversation I don't really want to have at the moment. This comment might cast a little light on it:
In a "fair" world, property would appreciate at the inflation rate. No more, no less. It's also not fair to help people make money on property at the expense of the poor and the younger generations. So where does that leave us?
Also, I had no car. Hotels always had some eateries and the like in walking distance. If an Airbnb is basically in the middle of fuck nowhere with no amenities nearby, it does you no good if you have no car and very limited funds.
I stayed a lot in two hotels in Fresno. One had a Chipotle, McDonald's, two restaurants and a 7-11 right on top of it and the bus stop was also practically right on top of it. There was more shopping about a 15 or 20 minute walk away.
The other had a Taco Bell practically up against it and more stuff a few minutes walk away even though it was in the worst part of town with the fewest amenities. This also meant it cost less than the other one.
Clearly a greater good than, say, having a place to live, no?
You have a point with your first paragraph - it would have been a good place to stop. Until the bigger issue is addressed, optimizing for a hypothetical situation is premature.
Hypothetical? We've seen travel numbers increase significantly over the last decade, and Airbnb now claims a large chunk of that. I think it's important point to remind people why Airbnb exists -- it's a great service with positive benefits. I have stayed in far more Airbnb's than hotels over the last few years, saving money and typically getting a better overall experience.
> Clearly a greater good than, say, having a place to live, no?
This goes back to the first point. Let people build more units. If that doesn't fix the problem, then start evaluating more extreme measures that limit the amount of people that are able to travel to an area at a given time (in the name of making sure people have a place to live.)
To be absolutely clear: you have identified a greater good if and only if your proposed solution for making housing more affordable is implemented successfully.
The post would read almost exactly the same if it addressed your points in the opposite order. Saying it would 'answer' the question as if you're the total arbiter of this is just not true. They're not confused about what you mean, they're disagreeing.
And it's really not a step one, step two situation anyway. Both parts are important at the same time, in different ways.