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Post by High Priestess on Feb 3, 2016 21:36:13 GMT
In New York City and Sam Francisco as well, the Number of while apartments being rented out short-term , compared to the total population of the city is very small -- I didn't mean to suggest that I believe that there is a real rational reason for keeping entire place listings off the market is short-term rentals .
No I think that the public outcry about this is often irrational , particularly the most hysterical elements of it, and it comes from a concern about rising Rents and a reduction of affordable housing ---and there's a desire to find a scapegoat and Airbnb is a very convenient scapegoat .
So I agree completely--- the number of apartments being taken off the market for short-term rentals is very small, as well as the fact which you mention , that many of those apartments being offered as short-term rentals have not been taken away from someone who was using it for permanent housing .
In fact if you read other posts and blogs I have written about this-- I believe rent control (which we have in New York City and San Francisco & more places in the US ) is more responsible for rising rents and lack of affirdable housing than short-term rentals will ever be.
yet Airbnb and short-term rentals get scapegoated and as a result Airbnb hosts will experience the effects of that .
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 4, 2016 4:55:17 GMT
In San Francisco in particular, the hysteria over short term rentals and Airbnb is unbelievable...for those who haven't seen this kind of thing before. There are a number of tenant and housing groups which are extremely hostile to Airbnb --- for them it seems that even one apartment taken from the rental market is too many, and they are prepared to fight tooth and nail over every single one. The context is that in SF the laws are perhaps more hostile to property owners and biased towards tenants, than in any other city in the USA. So tenants already have this experience of power over property owners and being able to control what property owners can do with their property. It incenses them to no end that property owners are finding ways to avoid what I view as the overreaching and inappropriate restrictions of rent control, by doing short term rentals that dont' come under rent control laws. Never mind the fact that rent control is not a viable means of providing more affordable housing, and that the bulk of the studies on rent control laws show that they cause rents to increase and affordable housing to decrease in any given region. See my blog on this here: globalhostingblogs.com/2015/12/18/airbnb-and-the-housing-crisis/
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 4, 2016 23:11:59 GMT
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 4, 2016 23:25:34 GMT
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 4, 2016 23:35:25 GMT
Thanks so much for sharing this, trafalgar. It's helpful to know what is going on and where. I am speculating...I wonder if Airbnb thought that those hosts with one listing, who had it de-listed -- were not actually living in that apartment?
Yes, I am sure this move by Airbnb is a face-saving exercise. It's wholly political, a response to political pressures and accusations by many. There's politics in everything and this is no different. Unfortunately many good things get sacrificed when political forces need to be appeased.
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 4, 2016 23:53:58 GMT
You wrote about the San Francisco hysteria - but really, there is no actual hysteria over here in Europe. Sure, there's bit of grumbling and local authorities making noises about wanting to clamp down, but no general hysteria and you are not afraid to admit to your friends that you're an Airbnb host! It seems as if it's a case of SF hysteria going global like a virus.
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 4, 2016 23:59:52 GMT
What you say is I think very true...the hysteria from SF is travelling like a bad case of influenza around the globe. Actually the concerns about removing long term housing from the market are present in a good number of American cities, though this concern rises to the level of hysteria mainly in San Francisco and New YOrk City, --- not surprisingly, as these are the most expensive of all US cities to live in. But in many Bay Area cities (for instance), regulations have been passed or eventually will be passed, which prohibit people doing short term rentals of properties that they don't live in. I think the same is true in Portland, SEattle, Austin, and New Orleans....
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 5, 2016 0:03:29 GMT
What is inexplicable is the refusal to explain what's going on. Airbnb is perfectly entitled to delist anyone they want. But I don't understand why they are being so terribly coy about the reason. It's really unattractive and paranoia-inducing.
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Post by apricotnelli on Feb 6, 2016 14:20:42 GMT
I am not an expert on company law but I have been a company director and been responsible for the website. As far as I know if the website is being run as the official website of company x and company x is registered in Ireland then it must be compliant with Irish company law. It doesnt matter if the website is .com or .ie what matters is the company that is running it. I dont know if that is what you mean by US website. The fact that a website is .com doesn't matter.
Re any accountant would know the rules better than me I only know from being a company director and also a sole trader what I have done. If a company charges you VAT in Ireland you are entitled to ask for a vat compliant receipt. Companies don't always give the official vat receipts unless you ask as they are are not useful for the majority of consumers. They are applicable for an individual or a company registered to file vat. Tesco can do it if you are buying office supplies there but to get it they ask for your company name and address. Their standard receipt is not a VAT receipt whereas if you go into a plumbing supply shop that deals with trade they will hand you a VAT receipt
I expect that in airbnbs case the majority of hosts are not vat registered and do not need official vat receipts. Frankly for the small amounts mostly charged revenue is unlikely to look for the official receipts. The threshold for filing for VAT is 20k trading I think.
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Post by apricotnelli on Feb 6, 2016 14:23:56 GMT
Re the server question some companies who host such as Amazon provide for EU servers for data their customers specify as customer info required to stay in the EU and non EU servers for data again their customers specify. this is probably more an issue for the bigger multinational companies as companies like Blacknight provide hosting in Ireland.
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Post by apricotnelli on Feb 6, 2016 14:26:42 GMT
Deborah I doubt you need to ask about airbnb servers it is something most companies would be very conscious of. They are in general very careful about data protection and I am sure they do keep their EU customer data within the EU. Airbnb probably have someone responsible inhouse for data protection
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 10, 2016 12:38:39 GMT
Well, the threatened delisting day in London was yesterday Feb 9. Last week I bookmarked all the hosts who had reported getting the email, I also bookmarked a bunch of obviously commercial operators, i.e. with 10 or more listings (none of whom had reported getting the email - just to test whether they might also have been targeted).
I also noted the number of listings they had.
I checked them all today, and compared number of listings last week with number of listings today. The Results:
Kim - last week 1x listing - no change Stanley - last week 1x listing - no change Patrick - last week 2x listings - now 1x listing Jason - last week 1x listing - no change Karim - last week 2x listings - now 1x listing Cassandra - last week 4x listings - now 3x listings ====
I selected seven commercial operators - with 10x, 14x, 33x, 22x, 107x, 39x and 19x listings. No change except for one; the one with x39 listings now has 36x.
==== Still a complete mystery....
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Post by High Priestess on Feb 10, 2016 12:42:24 GMT
Thanks for letting us know what has happened here -- it is very strange, isn't it? Keep watch on it -- the delisting may be delayed.
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 11, 2016 22:39:53 GMT
You will recall I heard last week that a host who got the email (and who has one listing) got a call from Airbnb HQ saying it was a mistake. (I didn't include them in stats given above). I just heard back from another host who got the email (also with one listing) to whom I'd suggested the data access request and also gave them the email addresses of Chip and Brian. Anyway, this host emailed C&B (I don't think pursued the data request - wish somebody would!) and got a phone call from HQ like the other host, saying it was a mistake.
Encouraging anyway, for hosts with a single listing.
I checked a few, not all, today and haven't seen any change.
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Post by trafalgar on Feb 11, 2016 23:55:31 GMT
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