Airbnb ratings is the worst part. You can't trust them at all. That makes using Airbnb like playing Russian roulette. There's no negative feedback on the shittiest places.
Guess what? That no show host still has perfect ratings...
Can I ask why you used AirBNB for something so far outside the "normal" zone that it's pitched for? Why not just do a craigslist search for longterm sublets?
I've stayed at Airbnb places in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn area about ten times now over the past couple years and my experience has been satisfactory every time. And I've stayed in the entire range of Airbnb, from very nice places where I'm basically a roommate for a month and eating meals with my host, etc, to places where I rarely see the owner and it is obvious they don't live there but just rent it out, to an old loft that was subdivided into small rooms and being rented out to four different Airbnb guests at once. The subdivided loft one was probably the most illegal one I ever stayed in because it certainly wasn't up to code but it was still very cool and the other guests were polite and quiet.
The only time I've ever had a bad experience with AirBNB was once when staying at a place in San Francisco which turned out to be very dirty due to the owner being out of country and just having his next door neighbor give the keys to short term renters.
The rating system also makes it so that taking any action would probably result in an open flame war so that I'd probably get rejected by future landlords.
I call bullshit on this. Leaving a bad review on a host is not going to get you rejected by future landlords unless those landlords are also running dumps and they don't want to get bad reviews, and in that case you probably don't want to stay there anyway.
The key is to find places that have lots of reviews and read them. If you see anything amiss don't stay there. If you stick to well reviewed places you will have a great experience.
If you choose to break new ground and try completely new unreviewed places (which I have done from time to time) it is more of a gamble. You can also get some great experiences that way as well, because in general newer, unreviewed places don't charge as much so as to attract people, while the older very well reviewed and run places will charge nearly double in most cases compared to brand new places. Basically, you get what you pay for, as with many other things in life.
I've done this, I'm rather risk-averse with it comes to AirBnbs, and I've still run into bad places. I've had two bad experiences in this regard:
- One was a nice apartment, but I found out the landlord (the word "host" is both disingenuous and inaccurate for AirBnb and I despise the attempt at newspeak) lived full time in the room I was renting. She was old and clearly needed the supplemental income, and I displaced her onto the couch.
This was not made at all clear beforehand, and her place had many positive reviews. I did not sign up to displace an elderly person from her own bed, nor did I sign up to deny someone their only source of badly needed income. I suspect a lot of the positive reviews came from this. There was nothing otherwise wrong with the apartment.
- In the other one the bedroom was nice, at a good location, but the landlord had a dog that pissed and shat all over the common areas. Her place also had no shortage of good reviews (over a dozen at the time IIRC). In this case also it was clear she needed the supplemental income, and she was so damn apologetic about it and spent so much time trying to clean up after the dog that it was hard to write a negative review. I suspect, again, that this is why the place was so positively rated.
AirBnb's system is far from foolproof. In both cases I abstained from reviewing the places - a move I'm still unsure about. One thing I am sure about is that I resent being put in a position where I have such profound influence on someone's (badly needed) livelihood.
But yeah I agree that its not easy to leave a bad review sometimes. Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect.
Sure, and I did actually go back afterwards to see if I was just too thick to read between the lines. Couldn't find anything definitive, maybe some oblique hints.
Either way though, judiciously worded faux-reviews seem like they make the problem worse, not better. It forces the system into a state where only the power users know WTF is actually going on, and for everyone else the information is pure noise. You spend less time reading what's on the page and more time reading what isn't.
Funnily enough, this reminds me of the rental market in NYC, where it's all between-the-lines parsing and the system has invented a whole 'nother vocabulary to avoid saying what's what (see: "flex" 2-bedrooms).
This is one of the fundamental problems. I have no compunctions about leaving a hotel a bad review, because I know that they can afford it in the short run, and that as a stimulus mechanism for them to correct themselves, it's likely to work. In this case though, I don't think these landlords could afford a bad review, and they are not in a position where a bad review is a correcting mechanism - it's more likely to sink them entirely instead.
The thing is Airbnb originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystem which has considerably less controls and reviews but also a guest base who in general are willing to put up with less than savory conditions. Airbnb kind of tames that wild west of couch surfing by providing a review system and a more legitimate system of paying and getting paid. But it doesn't reach the full legitimacy of a corporate hotel.
Some of my friends ask me whether or not they should try Airbnb, and based on their personalities I will sometimes tell them no, because I know some of my friends just can't deal with it and need a real hotel. Others are more adventurous and I'll tell them to go for it.
For that subset of people who would be willing to try couch surfing on staying in a hostel Airbnb is like a luxury service and has all the key benefits of meeting interesting people and living like a local when traveling. But for people who wouldn't dare try couch surfing and find hostels unsavory then Airbnb is kind of on the edge. They might like it because it is a step above couch surfing and hostels, but most of the time they won't like Airbnb either.
The difference between reviewing them and reviewing an AirBnb isn't how faceless they are, it's how much they can afford it, and how much they can actually use the review as an impetus to improve. That review does no good if it simply means the business folds.
> "The thing is Airbnb originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystem"
Ehhhh... I'm not sure if I buy that line of argument. Couchsurfing.org originates from the couch surfing and hostel ecosystems, where the focus is on experience with the host/guests instead of a plainly quid pro quo exchange. AirBnb has no real focus on this experiential exchange and instead has always been very firmly in the "make money on your place" camp.
AirBnb likes to portray themselves as being related to the populist communities of couch surfing and hostels, but I don't see any evidence that they were ever in that space. They certainly aren't now. I was initially an ardent supporter of AirBnb, but their persistently dishonest PR positioning has really turned me off lately; that includes their persistent and annoying efforts at positioning themselves as some sort of populist revolution.
When's the last time AirBnb ever marketed themselves as "find a place, meet cool hosts, go adventuring with your hosts/fellow guests"? Because that's a fundamentally core part of the hosteling and couch surfing ethos. AFAIK this has never been an AirBnb angle.
In fact, if you look at the featured properties (curated by AirBnb themselves) you will see a dramatic dominance in luxury properties, not cute little bungalows where you're likely to hang out with a cool host. The descriptions are also always strictly about the property, not the host, and the photographs are also strictly of the property, not the host.
The host is a small-print detail in the AirBnb model, which makes it almost entirely antithetical to hosteling or couch surfing.
To me the property focused listings are a way for Airbnb to attract people who are too nervous to try the real couch surfing community by making Airbnb appear more like a property first hotel system. You can't blame them for this, because the subset of people who are willing to try this kind of thing if it was purely host based would be quite a bit smaller.
But the problem is that Airbnb obviously isn't a normal hotel system, and so some people who go into the experience expecting a hotel experience can be turned off by it when it doesn't meet their expectations.
On the other hand people like me who enjoy the chance to meet new people enjoy the social aspect but also like the slightly added safety of the reviews, pictures, and the payment system. Of course it depends on the host, but I've had some amazing experiences with hosts during some Airbnb stays: going to rock concerts, restaurants and bars, eating meals that they've cooked, and of course just talking to them and learning about their lives. My favorite experience was getting to stay with a couple who were aerialists for Cirque du Soleil, and months later returning to NYC to see an amazing opening performance by their own troupe of performers.
So to me Airbnb seems on the surface to be property based like you said, but underneath has a strong host ecosystem like couchsurfing.org The problem is that Airbnb is using properties to attract guests instead of the host experience. Of course this attracts people who are more demanding about the property and when the property falls short people are naturally unsatisfied.
AirBnb has always been angling to be a hotel (or at least Bed & Breakfast) replacement.
Unfortunately AirBnb doesn't have an API, so I did the best thing I could: searched for rooms vs. whole-apartments in a way that would actually give me counts.
In and around Greenwich Village, NYC: 634 whole-apartment listings, 132 private rooms in apartments, 6 shared rooms.
On the Upper East Side: 126, 13, 2
In Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn: 146, 50, 2
In Park Slope, Brooklyn: 559, 196, 5
In Astoria, Queens: 107, 111, 7
Moving away from NYC to SF...
In the Castro: 238, 129, 3
In North Beach: 176, 67, 9
In SOMA: 421, 197, 63
Or another state entirely...
In Capitol Hill, Seattle: 130, 55, 9
In Belltown, Seattle: 96, 16, 6
All of the searches were performed with the default filters, with the additional filters being only geographic bounds and type of listing. Now, I've got experience with all of the neighborhoods listed here, and they're all places where locals actually live. We're not exclusively at, say, Times Square.
I realize you've had good experiences with AirBnb, but I've argued, and still maintain in light of this data, that AirBnb is on the surface property-based, and is also beneath property-based. There seems to be a subcommunity dedicated to the more Couchsurfing type of experiences, but the data is stacked against them. AirBnb likes to borrow and quote heavily from this subcommunity in an effort to appear more populist and grassroots, but in reality the vast majority of listings on AirBnb are dedicated rental properties, not situations where the host is even present.
The reviews were mostly positive, except for one negative that did result in a flame war. I'm not sure what changed, but I heard from another one of the tenants that AirBNB was going to send a representative to check the place out after a number of complaints, but it sounds like the guy never came.
But if you leave a review complaining about real issues like no towels, dirty sheets or bathroom then that's not going to hurt your chances with good hosts. Believe me I've left a bad review based on an Airbnb place being dirty, and I've left a neutrally toned review that complained about some minor issues like a slightly dangerous ladder leading up to the loft bed at once place I stayed at, and I don't have any issues getting great Airbnb places.
It generally works really well, and in many cities all over the planet.
I trust you provided feedback against your bad host?
It isn't feedback against bad hosts, it is the amount of work that it takes to _not_ get a bad host which isn't comparable to weeding out bad hotels.
This is about landlords who don't want individuals to make money subletting their apartments. The old rich guys in Westchester who own all the housing in the Bronx.
There are a lot of people who are stuck living next to illegal,
untaxed hotels because one of their neighbors AirBNBs their place full time.
AirBNB is a crapshoot - I did it one time it was amazing... since all parties involved were responsible.
NYC may need to be subject to special consumer protection rules, pay taxes etc. in order to make this work.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky cautions that the government
is over-reaching in its demand for data.
The city has embraced rent control as a way of foisting the cost of "affordable" housing on landlords. As a result, apartments constrained to below-market rents receive below-market maintenance. Now illegal subletters seek to capture the benefit of this market distortion.
But maybe you're right - the way to fix this problem of deteriorating housing is for the government to become more involved in micromanaging the illegal subletting.
Wrong about why we are still saddled with these laws. The dirty little secret is that owners of condos and coops in the city know that by constraining the supply of housing in the city, their properties appreciate in value.
There are much worse problems constraining housing supply like how NY is zoned (though Bloomberg did a lot to change this). Zoning that controls the Floor-Area Ratio in many neighborhoods keeps old 4-story tenement buildings from being knocked down in favor of denser housing.
Worse still are minimum parking requirements where landlords are forced to build or provide parking to tenants when it's just not possible. Sunnyside, Queens is the perfect example of this problem.
My only point was that while rich people everywhere use zoning to constrain housing and make their own properties more valuable through public policy, in NYC the rent stabilization and control laws have similar effects while masquerading as enlightened social policy.
Obviously there's still a need for these programs but people have extreme reactions either way based on their politics.
What I will say is that rent control, aside from the affordable rents, gave me huge opportunities as far as what schools I could go to and socially. If I had to live in other areas for low-income folks growing up, there's a good chance I wouldn't have come as far as I have.
This is not the issue.
There are very, very few rent-controlled apartments left in NYC. Almost nobody who works in the tech industry here has one, because it requires having lived in the same apartment since the 1970s. If you have one, though, you could easily be paying 5% of market rent.
Rent stabilization is a very different set of laws altogether, and these apartments are also vanishing slowly.
As for true rent control, landlords would love it if their rent-controlled tenants were to sublet their apartment on AirBNB. That would allow the landlord to kick the tenant out and charge market rent - 20 times more - for the apartment.
You are right to make the technical distinction between NYC's "rent control" and "rent stabilization", but both have the same negative consequences for housing maintenance and creation.
According to [1], in 2011 about 47% of NYC housing units were rent-regulated.
[1] http://furmancenter.org/files/publications/HVS_Rent_Stabiliz...
People subletting their apartments aren't subletting rent-controlled apartments, by and large. This doesn't apply in other cities, but in NYC, any listings you see on AirBnb are almost certainly for unregulated apartments.
> According to [1], in 2011 about 47% of NYC housing units were rent-regulated.
73% of those (34% of total apartments) are pre-1947, which are regulated, but most of those are under a separate provision, which means they aren't subject to the same restrictions as what we're talking about here.
My point is, rent-controlled apartments are being subletted. The situation in my building is not a fringe case. Craigslist and word of mouth illegal subletting is common. AirBnB is not the only name in the illegal subletting game in NYC, but they are the only name in luxury illegal sublets.
If they are rent-controlled, even if they are paying their rent, he can evict them with no problem.
The relevant government agencies have a moderate amount of information line, but I'd recommend calling them instead. I've done this before; they're very friendly and helpful if you call them on the phone. I'd recommend giving them a call and asking for advice on the eviction process:
http://www.nyshcr.org/rent/ http://www.housingnyc.com/html/about/about.html
I grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in midtown manhattan that my mom has lived in since the 70s (you have to have lived in the apartment since before the end of 1971, actually).
However, it's not true that you could easily be paying 5% of market rent. My mom is paying about 50% of market rent and here's why:
Every 2 years the landlord is allowed to increase the rent by up to 7.5%, not exceeding the maximum base rent. Housing votes to increase the maximum base rents and ends up voting in favor of it maybe 3 times a decade or so.
However, if the landlord makes capital improvements to the building, they're allowed to increase the rent and in buildings in good areas with rent controlled tenants, they often do. Capital improvements let them raise the rent a lot more than that 7.5%.
My mom paid $318/mo for her apartment in 1984. If housing had voted to increase the maximum base rent every single time and the landlord increased the rent 7.5% every two years she would be paying $875. But this hasn't happened. Even so, she pays nearly double this amount because of capital improvements made to the building over the years.
They've even fucked her over and increased her rent based on capital improvements to the apartment she made herself out of pocket (updated wiring, renovated bathroom, etc).
As someone who used to work at a tax certiorari firm, I can tell you there's just as much fucking over between the landlords and city/state tax money. Landlords are making money for not doing a whole lot except owning land. New York landlords make a killing. I've seen their returns. There are landlords who leave large portions of or entire buildings vacant _on purpose_.
If you really want to go down that rabbit hole, we can talk about how land ownership and the tax structure is a massive wealth extraction from the lower classes.
Don't give me that bullshit argument.
So when you have problems with your wiring that your landlord refuses to fix (that are required to be fixed by housing regs) you have two options: a) complain and wait months/years for action or b) fix it yourself out of pocket.
You choose option b and then the landlord raises your rent. You don't think that's getting fucked over? You think tenants should put up with shitty (below required) conditions just because the rent is cheap (as regulated by law)?
Wow.
Both sets of laws will (in theory) lose effect if the city drops below 90% occupancy for a year.
Owners can not rent less than 30 days unless they are present. In addition, I do not know of a single condominium building that allows AirBnb style rentals -- most at this point have modified their rules/by-laws to explicitly forbid it so as not to leave any room for interpretation open.
I am President of my condo board and we both have this language in our rules as well as have a hefty fine for violating them. The minimum allowed rental is 12 months and includes a full background and financial check. Unit owners with common amenities do _not_ want short-term rentals in their buildings and can prevent them legally.
>I hope that the people who've been profiting from the lack of enforcement are forced to play on a level playing field.
If only there were a level playing field. I think the rebellion from the regulatory structure is a reaction to the unfairness of it. Hotel reg's, Taxi reg's, these systems unfairly favor established players and established business models.
One of the price differences between AirBnB and other establishments is that often AirBnB-Host don't factor in taxes just because they consider themselves exempt. Why should tax avoidance be tolerated? What's unfair about cracking down on those that cheat?
Nobody would argue against sanitation in principle, but I have never seen a health inspector at a hotel. OTOH, I have seen some nasty hotel rooms.
> I also fail to see that adherence to health and fire code unfairly favors established players - quite to the contrary, those not adhering to the standards take an unfair advantage.
Indeed, they do: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Four...
I didn't say that AirBnB should be exempt from all regulation. I opined that the existing regulations are unfair, and that may be a reason that some entities want to disrupt that space. I would hope that some compromise can be reached that is effective at protecting people (unlike the current system), and isn't prohibitively expensive or onerous, or doesn't limit competition from non-traditional entities.
Yeah dude, you're right, it's this point you made up that no one is upset about that people are ACTUALLY upset about...?
Oh, I see, because your experience has been negative you should definitely make up a strawman and beat it to death for no good reason. We all know that projecting views on everyone on an entire site is a super healthy and productive way to make a point.
I'm upset about the lack of taxation and regulation. I care about it in the AirBnb context, I also care about it in the Lyft and Sidecar context. These are all cases where we have a massive provisioning of services, in a context where caveat emptor is not actually practical, in industries where vendor-side abuse has been historically endemic.
We regulated the slum-hotels of the 20s and 30s out of existence. We regulated gypsy cabs (mostly) out of existence. I personally still recall living in a time where unregulated cabs would hold passengers for ransom by driving them to the middle of nowhere. Thankfully I no longer live in such a time or place.
I'm concerned that in our obsession with "move fast and break things" we're doing a lot of the latter. Some of these regulations are powered by vested interests. Some of it is historical and represent hard-learned lessons. The tech industry's collective attitude towards them seems to be "all laws are archaic and outdated, ignore all laws that don't benefit us". I for one don't believe in this for one second.
It turns out there are real reasons why hotels are regulated, why banking is regulated, why cabs are regulated, why meat-packing is regulated (still waiting for a internet-based meat-packing startup - Mechanical Turk meets Tyson Foods! Just slice the side of beef we send you, in your kitchen, then pack it back into the cooler with the pre-addressed label...), and so on.
The reason always is: because the business has been PROVEN TO FUCK PEOPLE OVER WHEN UNREGULATED.
(Longer answer: there's a systemic power problem between the provider and user of these businesses. Tourists have no power to avoid being fucked over, for example. Meat with E. Coli looks the same as meat without.)
But the 20-year-olds have grown up in a world where the business does not fuck people over (because it is regulated) and so they do not see any reason why it might require regulation.
And the VCs, the only adults in the equation, don't act the part of grownups because they're hoping the regulators are slow enough for a lot of profits to be extracted before shutdown occurs.
I know that a lot of people on this site think that if you add the words 'on the internet' you should be exempt from all regulation and taxation, but that's just not how the world works.
I hope that the people who've been profiting from the lack of enforcement are forced to play on a level playing field.
Disclaimer: my experience with NYC AirBNBs have been incredibly negative, including people listing with fake names, revealing that they'd given fake addresses at the last minute (when it was already too late to change plans), showing deceptive photos, and giving false descriptions.