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Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by zozbot234 on Thursday March 19, 2026 @07:46AM (#47437763)
> despite the law here making it easy to evict tenants

"Easy" is relative. "Evicting" an airbnb'er once the term is up will always be orders of magnitude easier than kicking out a long-term tenant who regards that as their actual home. There's not even anything necessarily wrong with this! The easiest way to address the issue is literally to slash any remaining red-tape that's making things difficult for those who would want to AirBnb these properties out, while managing the resulting side-effects (including the plausible effect on the long-term rentals market) by levying a special fee if necessary.

As a bonus, easy AirBnb rental provides an alternative for some who might otherwise want a permanent holiday home.

Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by michaelmrose on Thursday March 19, 2026 @01:11PM (#47442637)
If we don't have an excess of housing why should we allow ANYONE even one single property to serve as an unlicensed hotel. If we tax un-lived in property extremely punitively nobody will hold them at all and it should soon be sold or rented out.
Re:Austin's Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents by zozbot234 on Thursday March 19, 2026 @01:18PM (#47442728)
I'm fine with taxing both long-term vacant properties and AirBnb at fairly high rates, since both have negative effects on the surrounding neighborhood - the latter to a markedly less extent than the former, of course.