What do you think about the Airbnb "crackdown" ?

[Christine395]

Airbnb CEO Finally Admits It: “People Are Unhappy” - And It’s Killing the Housing Market

I detest the above posted article because it fails to recognize that Airbnb is more of a community of Hosts and Travelers.

Long before Hotel industry times, people shared their homes with travelers passing through. For a little while, Airbnb revived that as part of the sharing economy. The sharing economy is a wealth redistribution phenomena. It helped poor to middle income people to improve their financial situation. It disrupted the wealth trickling down from the few rich model. I think there should be more sharing economy ventures for poor to middle income people to provide and receive services at a lower cost.

Why should all the money be held by big corporations? Why support the wealthy getting wealthier? Most of the people supporting the Airbnb "crackdown" are regulatory puppets for the rich, and/or lack wisdom, and/or they are jealous or envious people. In no way is Airbnb responsible for the housing crisis. That issue was created by the governments and the governments alone!!! People who Airbnb a space in their home should not be scapegoated for this.

That said, I think Airbnb should not have moved away from small time home sharing. Overly ambitious and/or rich people have purchased properties, Airbnb them, and become richer. That's Airbnb's down fall - to feed the greed and cater to the wealthy few by allowing hosts to list multiple properties. As the saying goes - when the tower gets too tall it topples.

I'd like to see a return to the old / classic Airbnb with a restriction on the number of listings. The maximum number of homes actively listed by Airbnb hosts should be limited. For example, a host could list 1 - 3 spaces in their home and if they have a cottage list it when not in use.

Homes that families share with occasional travelers should not be part of municipal short term rental bylaws. Private/family homes on the Airbnb platform should NOT be subject to bylaw officer inspections. These families should not be forced into long-term rental situations due to poorly communicated and complex registration processes. Government should not solve their housing crisis on the backs of private family home owners who enjoy sharing their homes from time to time. 

[Peg327]

Hi Christine395,

I agree! We have 2 spaces that are a part of our current home we rent out to Airbnb. We accept 1-2 guests only. A lot of my guests are locals that need a place for short-term for many reasons. I am glad I can offer this for them. During Covid it was especially helpful for families that needed to be separate for awhile.

I do not make more $ renting it out short term than I did when renting long-term. I'm simply trying to pay a mortgage! I have zero interest in having more rentals as managing two is plenty!

But I do feel limiting Hosts from having over 3 units would be very helpful. Not only for the community to be watered down with short-term rentals (especially through investors only that have no interest in supporting the community, only greed), but for the hosts to not be able to properly manage what they have.

I love what I do as a host & if the Gov't/town makes it more difficult, I will most likely be forced to move.

We are a changed World & there are seemingly more folks working remotely & looking for shorter term living (one to 3 months) than those searching for long-term.

"Government should not solve their housing crisis on the backs of private family home owners who enjoy sharing their homes from time to time." 

[Helen427]

The Problem is Data Mining and use of copy paste of Government Templates and forms used by those in Statistics and not applying Logic, Geographic difference, means and materials available in each of all our different locations.

This has escalated since the use of students and professors in Universities having had access to other "Researchers" and their works in other countries with different standards, measurements - feet, inches, gallons & litres, miles and kilometres etc, and applicable practices, with some using a their flat earth Approach in their chosen fields since 1984.

Look at the bigger picture.

There's been a significant failure and corrosive invasiveness and anti Human creep into society thanks to Anti Competitive practices world wide.

In the mid 1980's Deregulation was introduced in many countries to help raise Standards of poorer countries it was to stay status quo with Rule of Law.

This is the era United Nations also expanded it's number of countries included within it.

It's when State Owned Enterprises were sold off and society lost its way thanks to Databases of Information Systems - think Infosys etc.

Look back at history where they mention Housing Crisis, housing shortage, housing Intensification and read the same in the news today.

Whilst some countries are still in the midst of wars and disasters other haven't been yet we are in caught in the midst of the Information Systems.

Some of it's also Spin Doctor stuff.

An utter failing of the education system.

The use of Data mining in here and other related Forums and systems is as useful as dissecting that information, e.g a small number of the same names stating the the same information multiple times so it's disproportionate.

Add to the mix the Data Mining of Review Information and Customer Service copy paste with NO Due Diligence or Application of our Legislation and therein lies serious problems for all.

A state of lawlessness.

This was prevalent pre Covid with whole Properties been rented out and those who choose to Use the platform interface to operate a Business which shared homes are not likely that as was the original ABB concept.

Those people have been very vocal in here to the detriment of others.

Statistics are also flawed as they don't factor into account variables in locations, one off events so an increase of people in that location, school children returning to school and living in dormitories, shoulder periods of tourism and holidays in general.

People need to go back to how Census information was used prior to 1986 changes and apply critical analysis and thinking.

Cheers 

@Brian you are in the perfect place and have the power to address this just like others of us are to get the balance back in all our lives.

@Christine395 

@Peg327  and others