Post by High Priestess on Sept 27, 2015 3:35:33 GMT
Tim shared:
Airbnb De-Listing Short Term Rental Company/ Operators in L.A.
The L.A. times reported that 2 short term rental companies were removed from Airbnb. Interesting article. They had 100's of propertie listed on Airbnb
I wonder how many people hosting here in San Francisco have mulitple properties they rent out?
Apparently there were a lot of complaints and protests especially in Venice, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood.
According to the LA Times, super operators are buying properties and turning them into short-term rentals.
Deborah:
Here's the link to that story:
lat.ms/1CpvCOZ
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airbnb-rift-20150404-story.html
One of those companies that was removed said it had 50 listings removed. Apparently at least one of those companies says it has been around since before Airbnb. WHich can help folks see that Airbnb wasn't necessarily the problem in the situation -- Airbnb didn't "create" these large vacation rental companies.
It's quite possible that, for instance in the case of those 50 listings that were removed, there are actually 50 different owners of those 50 listings ( or 40, or 30,what have you) -- eg, they aren't all owned by this vacation rental company, that company simply manages the properties of these other people.
In which case, here's some food for thought: what if instead of having one large property management company manage 50 different people's properties, each of those 50 people had their own single Airbnb listing?
The result would be the same. Whether a large company manages 50 properties for 50 owners, and thus has 50 listings under one "host", or whether the 50 property owners list their places individually and have only 1 listing per each host, the end result is the same -- that 50 properties are being used for short term rentals. Only the former case is offensive to many, while the latter, not nearly so much so.
Ernest:
I'm not offended by either. Both are private property and as such should be used at the discretion of the owner. I'm getting a bit tired of others thinking they should have the right to dictate to private property owners the means under which those properties should be used. This mentality kind of dilutes the meaning of "private property."
G:
Ernest,...I can't even believe someone who is a San Francisco resident would even say this. We are in real trouble in this city if people who own property think that they can do anything they want with that property without permits or approvals.
Ernest:
What does my being a San Francisco resident have to do with my personal beliefs regarding property rights? As I said, I believe owners of private property should be free to use their property as they see fit, unencumbered by the political views of their neighbors. If we, as a society, are concerned with providing housing stock for the general public, then we should do so as a society, rather than placing this duty solely onto owners of private property.
G:
So Ernest, so I understand you more clearly, are you telling me you think the current law regarding short term rentals is unfair to those property owners, even if the property owner is *not* a resident of San Francisco? If a property owner originally purchased real estate, not for their personal use, but as a rental property which was previously used for long term rentals, they should now be able turn that property into a short term rental, even if they don't reside in it?
Ernest:
People should be able to use their own property as they see fit. It shouldn't be my business or your business how someone else uses their own private property, after all, we don't own it, they do.
G:
So if your neighbor turns their place into a whorehouse, you'd be fine?
Ernest:
How would that bother me?
Tim:
Excellent points Deborah. I think the public (voting) would not care so much but when you have a few people pulling in over $100,000 per month then the message of short term rentals helping seniors, students, unemployed, middle class, etc., falls on deaf ears and makes a farce of homesharing.
The word on the street is "Airbnb is out of control" and the bad actors are going to cause hosting limits. I know people that bought other properies solely for short-term rentals.
I agree Deborah that $50,000 is better going to 5,000 people instead of one company.
IMHO, I find it horrible that these few bad actors are profiting on the backs of the struggling students and homeowners. It has become quite obvious why the registration numbers are low; it's because so many don't qualify with the new rules.
One supervisor that supported the bill privately told me that "Don't worry Tim, you can drive a bus through this legislation. No one is going to put grandma in jail."
I am disappointed because the "mom and pop" operators have seen a huge decrease in their bookings. People are forced to lower the prices and I even found that some were advertsing on other sites and not collecting taxes. The big operator companies have lowered the rates quite a bit and are fully booked up.
Personally, I think it is huge mess now. We need to take back control of the homesharing movement and democratize homesharing. We need to reverse the corporate take over.
One thing is for certain, we are in grave danger of getting 90 day restrictions for all. It might be a good time to re-think a different political game plan because the opposition is gathering steam.
We need to keep the big operators off the Airbnb site. This is the first step. If we don't police ourselves then the public will demand the government to step in and do it for us.
Perhaps we should set up internal control at Airbnb that you cannot host more than 1 property in San Francisco? Limit it to $100,000 per year. Once you go over this amount then your account is frozen? Host must be a real person not a company. Hotels, hedge funds, REITS, and real estate companies have no business being on Airbnb.
St:
I seem to remember back before Airbnb there were tons of vacation rentals all over SF, esp by the beach and the park! No one bothered!
Tim:
I lived at the beach for 30 years now and yes, there were some but I wouldn't say a ton. I know some of the 'ol timers. They were single working moms with kids that did this for the extra income to help pay for their kids education.
It has been a game changer since real estate companies came onto the scene and starting hosting multiple properties. They are going to drive the mom and pop operators out of business. When a company has a huge inventory, they can lower the rates but still retain great profits. When the competition is out; they raise prices.
We can ask former US Labor Secretary Rober Reich now teaching at UC Berkeley what are the consequences.......a further decline of the middle class and an income disparity that is the highest in the world.
St:
I don't know about thirty years ago, but around 15 years ago my girlfriends would come out from Europe with their young families and I would help them find a vacation rental round there! Plenty of choice, mostly apartments with the owners living close by if not onsite!
G:
I'd be happy to join protesters against corporate short-term rentals here in San Francisco.
Deborah":
I don't know what the answer is to this dilemma -- I see the biggest problem as being an image and thus a political problem for AIrbnb and short term rentals generally, where the public (including many hosts) gets upset about what looks like corporate profiteering in what is being billed as a Mom and Pop type business model. Income caps are definitely not the way to go --- since for instance, we have that SF Pacific Heights mansion that rents for over $7000 a night -- they can reach $100,000 in 15 nights of rentals.
My guess is that if/when the public in any given area starts crying "foul" about the large corporate property managers with dozens of listings, Airbnb will react to each of these outcries at that time. When the public wants some heads cut off, Airbnb will cut off a few heads to appease the angry crowd. Perhaps Airbnb needn't make any new rules or limits/restrictions, but simply respond to concerns like this on a case by case basis. As it did in NYC and now in LA.
As for large companies possibly creating a market situation in which Mom and Pop operations are at a disadvantage, that would be an issue for the smaller hosts rather than for the public at large.....and thus it would seem to be one of less immediate concern to Airbnb, and maybe not much concern to Airbnb. It also seems like an issue that would be difficult to "solve" without a lot more work or some restrictions that could end up being very unfair to some -- such as those who want to use a property manager to rent their place instead of just doing it themselves.
Tim:
I guess this is where the real money is made .....property management and buying more properties. I hear property managers get 40%! Taxes are 14% Commissions are 8-10% Credit Card processing is 3% and 1% for companies advising you what to charge for rates. Let's not forget City registration fees.
Is this wave of the future? Your homesharing experience is brought to you by corporations? IMHO, I want to deal with a host not a real estate professional. I think guests want that experience as well.
Deborah:
If property managers get 40%, I can't understand why property owners would use them, as they could make more money by renting places out themselves, especially given the other costs you mention.
I do think there is a lot of variety among guests as well as hosts, and so I can't see all guests going "corporate" and all preferring to work with these large companies.
Tim:
I just got off the phone with a friend in Hawaii and she recommended that Airbnb do labels like the food labeling in stores (organic and GMO)
Maybe.....managed by host or managed by a real estate company could be under the listing? She thinks guests would want to know that distinction and would prefer staying in host-managed properties.
Deborah:
It's a bit more complicated... since not all property managers are real estate companies, and also Airbnb does not require info about how any given person is related to the listing that they list -- Airbnb doesn't ask if the host is the property owner, or a tenant at the property, a property manager, the daughter of an elderly property owner who lives down the street from her Mom, or a friend or neighbor doing a favor for someone who doesn't want to do the hosting work themselves, or perhaps is elderly and doesnt' know how to use the internet.
Some property owners just wouldn't make good hosts -- take for instance the elderly, 84 year old woman who doesn't like computers and doesn't know how to use the internet. She would like to have guests at her house but can't manage the process. So her daughter who lives across town,or her neighbor who lives next door, helps her, perhaps for a small payment amount. Is this host-managed or managed by a property manager?
I can generally tell when looking at a listing, what is the relationship of the person hosting it, to the property. If they are listing a room in an apartment, I can deduce they are a tenant host. If they say they live there, then I know that. If they dont' say they live there, I can surmise they probably dont' live at the place. At least the guests I tend to have I think are also smart enough to be able to deduce these things and select their stay accordingly. If I were a guest, I wouldn't want to stay with a "host" who had 100 listings, or whose profile or reviews said that they would send "one of their people" to bring keys to me when I arrived. I am very supportive of small businesses and small operations, so in all endeavors, I make my selections accordingly, including in where I buy my groceries (almost never at Safeway or other chain supermarkets -- I go to the corner family produce store) and other goods/services. I suspect many people feel as I do.
Airbnb De-Listing Short Term Rental Company/ Operators in L.A.
The L.A. times reported that 2 short term rental companies were removed from Airbnb. Interesting article. They had 100's of propertie listed on Airbnb
I wonder how many people hosting here in San Francisco have mulitple properties they rent out?
Apparently there were a lot of complaints and protests especially in Venice, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood.
According to the LA Times, super operators are buying properties and turning them into short-term rentals.
Deborah:
Here's the link to that story:
lat.ms/1CpvCOZ
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airbnb-rift-20150404-story.html
One of those companies that was removed said it had 50 listings removed. Apparently at least one of those companies says it has been around since before Airbnb. WHich can help folks see that Airbnb wasn't necessarily the problem in the situation -- Airbnb didn't "create" these large vacation rental companies.
It's quite possible that, for instance in the case of those 50 listings that were removed, there are actually 50 different owners of those 50 listings ( or 40, or 30,what have you) -- eg, they aren't all owned by this vacation rental company, that company simply manages the properties of these other people.
In which case, here's some food for thought: what if instead of having one large property management company manage 50 different people's properties, each of those 50 people had their own single Airbnb listing?
The result would be the same. Whether a large company manages 50 properties for 50 owners, and thus has 50 listings under one "host", or whether the 50 property owners list their places individually and have only 1 listing per each host, the end result is the same -- that 50 properties are being used for short term rentals. Only the former case is offensive to many, while the latter, not nearly so much so.
Ernest:
I'm not offended by either. Both are private property and as such should be used at the discretion of the owner. I'm getting a bit tired of others thinking they should have the right to dictate to private property owners the means under which those properties should be used. This mentality kind of dilutes the meaning of "private property."
G:
Ernest,...I can't even believe someone who is a San Francisco resident would even say this. We are in real trouble in this city if people who own property think that they can do anything they want with that property without permits or approvals.
Ernest:
What does my being a San Francisco resident have to do with my personal beliefs regarding property rights? As I said, I believe owners of private property should be free to use their property as they see fit, unencumbered by the political views of their neighbors. If we, as a society, are concerned with providing housing stock for the general public, then we should do so as a society, rather than placing this duty solely onto owners of private property.
G:
So Ernest, so I understand you more clearly, are you telling me you think the current law regarding short term rentals is unfair to those property owners, even if the property owner is *not* a resident of San Francisco? If a property owner originally purchased real estate, not for their personal use, but as a rental property which was previously used for long term rentals, they should now be able turn that property into a short term rental, even if they don't reside in it?
Ernest:
People should be able to use their own property as they see fit. It shouldn't be my business or your business how someone else uses their own private property, after all, we don't own it, they do.
G:
So if your neighbor turns their place into a whorehouse, you'd be fine?
Ernest:
How would that bother me?
Tim:
Excellent points Deborah. I think the public (voting) would not care so much but when you have a few people pulling in over $100,000 per month then the message of short term rentals helping seniors, students, unemployed, middle class, etc., falls on deaf ears and makes a farce of homesharing.
The word on the street is "Airbnb is out of control" and the bad actors are going to cause hosting limits. I know people that bought other properies solely for short-term rentals.
I agree Deborah that $50,000 is better going to 5,000 people instead of one company.
IMHO, I find it horrible that these few bad actors are profiting on the backs of the struggling students and homeowners. It has become quite obvious why the registration numbers are low; it's because so many don't qualify with the new rules.
One supervisor that supported the bill privately told me that "Don't worry Tim, you can drive a bus through this legislation. No one is going to put grandma in jail."
I am disappointed because the "mom and pop" operators have seen a huge decrease in their bookings. People are forced to lower the prices and I even found that some were advertsing on other sites and not collecting taxes. The big operator companies have lowered the rates quite a bit and are fully booked up.
Personally, I think it is huge mess now. We need to take back control of the homesharing movement and democratize homesharing. We need to reverse the corporate take over.
One thing is for certain, we are in grave danger of getting 90 day restrictions for all. It might be a good time to re-think a different political game plan because the opposition is gathering steam.
We need to keep the big operators off the Airbnb site. This is the first step. If we don't police ourselves then the public will demand the government to step in and do it for us.
Perhaps we should set up internal control at Airbnb that you cannot host more than 1 property in San Francisco? Limit it to $100,000 per year. Once you go over this amount then your account is frozen? Host must be a real person not a company. Hotels, hedge funds, REITS, and real estate companies have no business being on Airbnb.
St:
I seem to remember back before Airbnb there were tons of vacation rentals all over SF, esp by the beach and the park! No one bothered!
Tim:
I lived at the beach for 30 years now and yes, there were some but I wouldn't say a ton. I know some of the 'ol timers. They were single working moms with kids that did this for the extra income to help pay for their kids education.
It has been a game changer since real estate companies came onto the scene and starting hosting multiple properties. They are going to drive the mom and pop operators out of business. When a company has a huge inventory, they can lower the rates but still retain great profits. When the competition is out; they raise prices.
We can ask former US Labor Secretary Rober Reich now teaching at UC Berkeley what are the consequences.......a further decline of the middle class and an income disparity that is the highest in the world.
St:
I don't know about thirty years ago, but around 15 years ago my girlfriends would come out from Europe with their young families and I would help them find a vacation rental round there! Plenty of choice, mostly apartments with the owners living close by if not onsite!
G:
I'd be happy to join protesters against corporate short-term rentals here in San Francisco.
Deborah":
I don't know what the answer is to this dilemma -- I see the biggest problem as being an image and thus a political problem for AIrbnb and short term rentals generally, where the public (including many hosts) gets upset about what looks like corporate profiteering in what is being billed as a Mom and Pop type business model. Income caps are definitely not the way to go --- since for instance, we have that SF Pacific Heights mansion that rents for over $7000 a night -- they can reach $100,000 in 15 nights of rentals.
My guess is that if/when the public in any given area starts crying "foul" about the large corporate property managers with dozens of listings, Airbnb will react to each of these outcries at that time. When the public wants some heads cut off, Airbnb will cut off a few heads to appease the angry crowd. Perhaps Airbnb needn't make any new rules or limits/restrictions, but simply respond to concerns like this on a case by case basis. As it did in NYC and now in LA.
As for large companies possibly creating a market situation in which Mom and Pop operations are at a disadvantage, that would be an issue for the smaller hosts rather than for the public at large.....and thus it would seem to be one of less immediate concern to Airbnb, and maybe not much concern to Airbnb. It also seems like an issue that would be difficult to "solve" without a lot more work or some restrictions that could end up being very unfair to some -- such as those who want to use a property manager to rent their place instead of just doing it themselves.
Tim:
I guess this is where the real money is made .....property management and buying more properties. I hear property managers get 40%! Taxes are 14% Commissions are 8-10% Credit Card processing is 3% and 1% for companies advising you what to charge for rates. Let's not forget City registration fees.
Is this wave of the future? Your homesharing experience is brought to you by corporations? IMHO, I want to deal with a host not a real estate professional. I think guests want that experience as well.
Deborah:
If property managers get 40%, I can't understand why property owners would use them, as they could make more money by renting places out themselves, especially given the other costs you mention.
I do think there is a lot of variety among guests as well as hosts, and so I can't see all guests going "corporate" and all preferring to work with these large companies.
Tim:
I just got off the phone with a friend in Hawaii and she recommended that Airbnb do labels like the food labeling in stores (organic and GMO)
Maybe.....managed by host or managed by a real estate company could be under the listing? She thinks guests would want to know that distinction and would prefer staying in host-managed properties.
Deborah:
It's a bit more complicated... since not all property managers are real estate companies, and also Airbnb does not require info about how any given person is related to the listing that they list -- Airbnb doesn't ask if the host is the property owner, or a tenant at the property, a property manager, the daughter of an elderly property owner who lives down the street from her Mom, or a friend or neighbor doing a favor for someone who doesn't want to do the hosting work themselves, or perhaps is elderly and doesnt' know how to use the internet.
Some property owners just wouldn't make good hosts -- take for instance the elderly, 84 year old woman who doesn't like computers and doesn't know how to use the internet. She would like to have guests at her house but can't manage the process. So her daughter who lives across town,or her neighbor who lives next door, helps her, perhaps for a small payment amount. Is this host-managed or managed by a property manager?
I can generally tell when looking at a listing, what is the relationship of the person hosting it, to the property. If they are listing a room in an apartment, I can deduce they are a tenant host. If they say they live there, then I know that. If they dont' say they live there, I can surmise they probably dont' live at the place. At least the guests I tend to have I think are also smart enough to be able to deduce these things and select their stay accordingly. If I were a guest, I wouldn't want to stay with a "host" who had 100 listings, or whose profile or reviews said that they would send "one of their people" to bring keys to me when I arrived. I am very supportive of small businesses and small operations, so in all endeavors, I make my selections accordingly, including in where I buy my groceries (almost never at Safeway or other chain supermarkets -- I go to the corner family produce store) and other goods/services. I suspect many people feel as I do.