Any Los Angeles hosts actually been "approved" by the city yet?

[Pete69]

So Los Angeles requires hosts to register their stay and pay $89 by Oct 31, 2019.  They began accepting registrations on July 1, 2019.

There's 16,700 airbnb stays in Los Angeles and someone at Airbnb told me that only 425 have registered. Have any of you folks who registered, received any approval notice yet? And if so, have you gotten the bad news that your registration period is only good for 365 days FROM THE TIME YOU REGISTERED?

I was one of the suckers who unwittingly registered on day 1 to "get it out of the way", not knowing that the city was going to short change me of registration period for registering early. So my $89 is only supposed to be good until July 1, 2020, INSTEAD of until Oct 31, 2020. The city will nickle and dime you if you register early. 

But hopefully everyone emails and calls up the city and demands that their registration is good until Oct 31, 2020.

[Nina75]

Its not worth it... Im looking into renting rooms or Focusing on 30 days or longer type reservations. ( Not to mention AirBnb will send all your data to the City of LA.<---- Scares me!!! ) I pulled 5 of my listings off AirBnb yesterday. not to mention AirBnb feels that Guests are more important than hosts, and they allow guests to lie and cancel for any reason. I'm working more on Direct marketing advertising on FaceBook, ( I just listed 1 property on a Chinese web site) and IG, as opposed to using AirBnb. The good days are over.

[Nina75]

I remember once I Llsited a property as being in Santa Monica when it was atually in Venice... I was visited by a city of Santa Monica compliance officer, it was pretty fun wasting her time. This is going to be a game a chess. 

[Pete69]

@Nina75 Visited by a compliance officer? Did they just show up at your door unannounced? If so I would ask to see their search warrant.

It will be interesting to see how many Airbnb stays disappear after October 31st. Eventually I believe that individual hosts will fill the void left behind by entrepreneurs being driven out. Opportunity knocks. Simple supply and demand. Once that happens, it's back to square one for the politicians trying to achieve rental supply / price utopia in Los Angeles. I still say if someone can't afford to live in LA then move to a cheaper city. Not everyone can afford LA, just as not everyone is smart enough to get into an ivy league school. Let supply and demand work itself out.

[Nina75]

@Pete69  I did some research on different forums and they basically She followed the same script as other people have said. She said that she was interested in it for her family but she called from a santa monica number, she called between 9-5 etc... I knew that I wasnt in Santa monica so no I did not ask for a search warrant, I didnt care. She could not have fined me anyway. I kinda did it as a test to see what the experience would be Like.

[Nina75]

You can believe what you want, but 90% of hosting will be wiped out.. i'm not hosting for only 3 months and some of my neighbors are AirBnb haters, so 1 year is out of the question. But $7500 fine is not worth hosting in LA. I have some land and ive been fined by the city before and once they charge you $7500, they will never wave that fine. If you dont pay it they will throw the fine on your property taxes and if you dont pay your property taxes, they will sell your home at a tax auction. People think that they own property until the city fines you, and you realize you dont own anything, you are a caretaker.  Then you have to fight AirBnb and AirBnb cancelling reservations on a whim without "true" reasons etc...

The Unions won... Homeowners Lost, Los Angeles Backroom deals win again. 

The way the city fines you, reminds me of some of these AirBnb hosts who refuse to give refunds under any circumstance. They city is the same way, they want that money. 

[Nina75]

I also blame the homeowners for this mess, id go to some City Council meetings and there would be like 10 hosts there. Hosts never really put any effort into trying to fight this.

[Pete69]

[quote]90% of hosting will be wiped out[/quote]

That many stays are run by people not using their primary residence?

A lot of entrepreneurs are simply finding co-hosts to put units in their name.

Either way I think more individual hosts will pop up to take advantage of the drop in supply.