Post by High Priestess on Nov 21, 2015 15:45:06 GMT
See Lori and Tom's post here:
globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/1124/new-orleans-data-release-tonight
loriandtom posted this:
Here's the link to the document AirBnB released today re: data in New Orleans. There's a public discussion meeting tonight at UNO Lakefront starting at 6:30, and an AirBnB spokesperson will be there.
www.documentcloud.org/documents/2515341-new-orleans-impact-report.html#document/p1
beeandbee posted this:
except there is zero reason for me to believe these stats are any realer than "anti-airBNBers" stats, at all. I'm not quite sure what good these numbers do at a meeting full of pro-AirBNB folk other than allow them to feel good about what they're doing, which they all know perfectly well is completely illegal. So, I'll assuming this document is also bound for city council representatives. When I look at these numbers, then examine the listings, factor in the hosts/managers I know, and mentally map out what's going on in my neighborhood? This document looks like 100% pure uncut BS.
This isn't airBNB's first go-round with city council; they had reps here in meetings last Winter before Mardi Gras. NOLA City Council is *extremely* likely to regulate STRs and but soon. They have to - they'd be crazy not to; a lot of residents are LIVID and most of them have every right to be. My bet is on the following scenario: The council will get airBNB to add an occupancy/hotel tax onto bookings that heads directly to the city coffers (for whatever that's worth) and they'll charge a yearly STR registration fee for those hosts that qualify. The hosts that will qualify will be in-home hosts who are permanent residents and agree to host only X-number of days a year; everyone else will be SOL and in violation of the law. They'll determine residency via the Homestead Exemption rolls (a flawed method, yes, but it's all they've got) and since the city cannot afford to actually create/pay a task force to enforce much, the deterrent to hosting outside these parameters won’t be just a fine, it’ll be the loss of one’s homestead exemption. Lots of folks are making enough money hosting such that risking a fine of a few hundred dollars is no big whoop. Losing their $75,000 property tax credit? No sane host wants to risk that.
So as not to piss of the Bed & Breakfast/Guesthouse owners, the registration fees/occupancy taxes/fines etc will likely have to be a good deal higher than those paid by B&Bs and Guesthouses. I'd bet STR registration would run around $500/year. As for the occupancy tax, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the full 13% that hotels charge. Remember: City Council's game here is to deter, not foster. They know they have to do SOMETHING and they want to send a message. Plus, the city wants and needs the money.
Anyway, seems fair.
beeandbee posted:
I love lampshade cat!
It hasn't quite reached the level of child-murder hysteria here, but it's damn damn close. The only move the city has made so far is send out cease and desist letters with the threat of a $500 fine via the Safety/Permits department (as if they don't have enough stuff to deal with) and those letters (about 450 of them) were sent out based on year-old complaints. THAT'S how much the city cannot handle their own long-standing ban. They have got to lift the ban and meet in the middle somewhere. Now, were they all real complaints or just one a handful of antis with too much time on their hands combing through listings for ones they could identify and "complain" about? Likely both.
This is a small city whose entire economy is tourist driven; most of the housing stock are one and two family homes and up until recently houses were wildly inexpensive when compared to major US cities. We absolutely have people coming in from out of state by the busload, purchasing houses and turning them into 24/7/365 hotels that sleep up to 8 people. The neighborhood I live in has been eviscerated by STRs in the past two years. I'm very, very lucky to live on a block that's 90% permanent residents. We've had three houses change owners in the last year and the terror that those homes would be occupied by nightly renters was palpable. It's the first thing that gets asked when you see a SOLD sign on their home - "Soooooooo...who bought your house, exactly?"
A friend of mine (ironically an airBNB property manager) lives four blocks away on a street that is now 75% airBNB some with pools, some with hot tubs. So noise is a very serious issue, indeed and the dearth of long-term leases is a major problem. Around the corner the owner of three two-family homes evicted all their longterm tenants and are going to list them as 6 two bedroom nightly rentals. This stuff is pitting neighbor against neighbor. The vibe in my neighborhood is so negative that someone posted flyers on the electrical poles calling for people to call 911 whenever they saw anyone with a suitcase! That's not as bananas as thinking STRs are going to attract childnappers, but it's pretty nuts. I have another neighbor who when asked for directions inquired as to whether they were staying in an airBNB and when they said "yes" she said "Sorry, I don't give directions to short-term renters." It's cuckoo. As for STRs and crime, yes, some folks are claiming that having obvious tourists walking around the neighborhood attracts crimers because they see easy marks. I don't think there's any truth in that. We've got plenty of street crime regardless. Enough guests get mugged, though, and no one will want to stay outside the French Quarter anyway. Another common trope is "guest safety" and the lack of fire inspections (that one is most often chirped up by hoteliers/B&B owners). It's downright silly compared to the actual problems created by STRs. Then again, we were all sent smoke detectors because there was a death in an airBNB, so there you go.
I'm throwing these stories out there because I believe all hosts need to understand that these tales of evictions and noise complaints and nowhere for folks who live here (and have lived here for years) to rent an apt are not just scare tactics by anti-airBNBers. Unchecked proliferation of Short Term rentals cause SERIOUS issues and hosts have to be willing to appreciate/understand them otherwise we'll be looking at hardcore bans all over the damn place. Hosts in NYC who won HOUSING LOTTERIES for reduced/subsidized rent have turned around and listed those apts for hundreds of dollars a night. That ain't right. I don't want out of towners scooping up houses in my neighborhood and renting them nightly. I want neighbors; and if that neighbor wants to rent inside their home while they're still in it that should be up to them. Every city will have its own set of whacky STR problems. The New Orleans problems are glaring.
One set of stats says we're in serious trouble and one set of stats says "no, no, it's all great, we're helping" and the truth lies somewhere in between. But until airBNB takes some responsibility for the fact that they make zillions of dollars from hosts breaking laws all over the planet, I'm not going to trust their numbers blindly. All this document does is say "Look how we contribute!". There's truth in it, sure, but there's truth in the mess left in their wake, too. STRs are not going away and they shouldn't go away - this is a new model that not everyone is used to, not everyone embraces and that is obviously going to get tweaked over time. I know people balk at regulation but how else can the model continue?
High Priestess posted:
THanks so much Bekah for sharing about what is happening in New Orleans. I had not realized that the situation was what you describe, with some areas being 75% Airbnb rentals. Clearly that is a problem -- though I would suspect that this has to do to some extent with New Orleans being a tourist city. I haven't heard of other cities with this problem-- though New York City does have STR problems too, and it too is a tourist destination --- and I believe in most cities which are not tourist cities, there just is not the demand for short term rentals, for folks to be providing so many of them. There would be an oversupply which would quickly make it unprofitable to do STR's, in most cities, if regions were 75% Short term rental.
Also, many cities which are tourist cities, also have rent control laws, which often prevent property owners from evicting tenants -- not only evicting them so they could do STR's, but the law prevents all no-fault evictions. New Orleans has no rent control, and this site indicates that Louisiana actually has laws prohibiting rent control:
www.landlord.com/rent_control_laws_by_state.htm
THough I am not in favor of rent control, in terms of the problems you are describing, rent control laws which generally come with eviction control would prevent some of those problems, since it would prohibit owners doing evictions in order to create STR rentals. So, San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC all are tourist destinations, but all have rent control that prohibit no fault evictions of tenants from non owner occupied properties.
Given what you are saying about the problems in New Orleans, I see your cynicism about the statistics provided.
When cities adopt short term rental regulations, this mostly tends to result in laws that prohibit short term rentals in properties that are not the host's primary residence. See the list of cities with short term rental regulations in California, here:
globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/880/short-rental-regulations-number-cities
This seems to be a compromise that many cities strike in order to protect long term housing, in areas where there is a concern about that, or to show sensitivity to fears about excessive noise --- even when there have been few if any complaints about problems from short term rentals. For instance, in Berkeley, CA, there are about 800 Airbnb listings (out of 116,768 people -- or about 0.6% of the total number of people) and there have been VERY few complaints about Short term rentals. THere have apparently been 10 complaints, and some of those have been totally without merit -- for instance, a tenant vociferously complaining that his landlord is doing STR's, and about noise from those, when in fact the landlord is not doing short term rentals, but is doing "midterm" rentals which are completely and totally legal in any city or state in the USA. (The tenant was mistaken in thinking that any listing that appears on AIrbnb, is for a short term rental, when in fact one can list on Airbnb even if one rents for only 30 days or longer, or even 3 months or longer). In Piedmont, CA, a city of 11,000 people, there are some 25-30 Airbnb listings (or 0.009% of the population!) , and there have been NO material complaints about those, only trivial complaints such as "someone was walking on my shared driveway" or "someone was out smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house" or "there MIGHT be a parking problem due to this." I think if we compared the number of complaints about long term rentals to those about short term rentals in many non-tourist cities, we would find that there are many more complaints about noise issues, blight, crime and so forth that have to do with either property owners themselves or their relatives, or with long term renters --- (often problem tenants which, due to rent control laws, property owners are not able to evict!)
So I think that to strike this compromise and allow short term rentals only on the property where the property owner actually lives, is not ideal (for me, ideal would be that property owners are free to do as they wish with their property, but are subject to citations for noise complaints, etc) but is a politically expedient way to go, that preserves home sharing for the middle class, and preserves home sharing as it was originally visualized by AIrbnb, while also addressing community and neighbor concerns, and protecting housing for long term residents. I will be interested to see what happens in New Orleans.
globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/1124/new-orleans-data-release-tonight
loriandtom posted this:
Here's the link to the document AirBnB released today re: data in New Orleans. There's a public discussion meeting tonight at UNO Lakefront starting at 6:30, and an AirBnB spokesperson will be there.
www.documentcloud.org/documents/2515341-new-orleans-impact-report.html#document/p1
beeandbee posted this:
except there is zero reason for me to believe these stats are any realer than "anti-airBNBers" stats, at all. I'm not quite sure what good these numbers do at a meeting full of pro-AirBNB folk other than allow them to feel good about what they're doing, which they all know perfectly well is completely illegal. So, I'll assuming this document is also bound for city council representatives. When I look at these numbers, then examine the listings, factor in the hosts/managers I know, and mentally map out what's going on in my neighborhood? This document looks like 100% pure uncut BS.
This isn't airBNB's first go-round with city council; they had reps here in meetings last Winter before Mardi Gras. NOLA City Council is *extremely* likely to regulate STRs and but soon. They have to - they'd be crazy not to; a lot of residents are LIVID and most of them have every right to be. My bet is on the following scenario: The council will get airBNB to add an occupancy/hotel tax onto bookings that heads directly to the city coffers (for whatever that's worth) and they'll charge a yearly STR registration fee for those hosts that qualify. The hosts that will qualify will be in-home hosts who are permanent residents and agree to host only X-number of days a year; everyone else will be SOL and in violation of the law. They'll determine residency via the Homestead Exemption rolls (a flawed method, yes, but it's all they've got) and since the city cannot afford to actually create/pay a task force to enforce much, the deterrent to hosting outside these parameters won’t be just a fine, it’ll be the loss of one’s homestead exemption. Lots of folks are making enough money hosting such that risking a fine of a few hundred dollars is no big whoop. Losing their $75,000 property tax credit? No sane host wants to risk that.
So as not to piss of the Bed & Breakfast/Guesthouse owners, the registration fees/occupancy taxes/fines etc will likely have to be a good deal higher than those paid by B&Bs and Guesthouses. I'd bet STR registration would run around $500/year. As for the occupancy tax, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the full 13% that hotels charge. Remember: City Council's game here is to deter, not foster. They know they have to do SOMETHING and they want to send a message. Plus, the city wants and needs the money.
Anyway, seems fair.
beeandbee posted:
I love lampshade cat!
It hasn't quite reached the level of child-murder hysteria here, but it's damn damn close. The only move the city has made so far is send out cease and desist letters with the threat of a $500 fine via the Safety/Permits department (as if they don't have enough stuff to deal with) and those letters (about 450 of them) were sent out based on year-old complaints. THAT'S how much the city cannot handle their own long-standing ban. They have got to lift the ban and meet in the middle somewhere. Now, were they all real complaints or just one a handful of antis with too much time on their hands combing through listings for ones they could identify and "complain" about? Likely both.
This is a small city whose entire economy is tourist driven; most of the housing stock are one and two family homes and up until recently houses were wildly inexpensive when compared to major US cities. We absolutely have people coming in from out of state by the busload, purchasing houses and turning them into 24/7/365 hotels that sleep up to 8 people. The neighborhood I live in has been eviscerated by STRs in the past two years. I'm very, very lucky to live on a block that's 90% permanent residents. We've had three houses change owners in the last year and the terror that those homes would be occupied by nightly renters was palpable. It's the first thing that gets asked when you see a SOLD sign on their home - "Soooooooo...who bought your house, exactly?"
A friend of mine (ironically an airBNB property manager) lives four blocks away on a street that is now 75% airBNB some with pools, some with hot tubs. So noise is a very serious issue, indeed and the dearth of long-term leases is a major problem. Around the corner the owner of three two-family homes evicted all their longterm tenants and are going to list them as 6 two bedroom nightly rentals. This stuff is pitting neighbor against neighbor. The vibe in my neighborhood is so negative that someone posted flyers on the electrical poles calling for people to call 911 whenever they saw anyone with a suitcase! That's not as bananas as thinking STRs are going to attract childnappers, but it's pretty nuts. I have another neighbor who when asked for directions inquired as to whether they were staying in an airBNB and when they said "yes" she said "Sorry, I don't give directions to short-term renters." It's cuckoo. As for STRs and crime, yes, some folks are claiming that having obvious tourists walking around the neighborhood attracts crimers because they see easy marks. I don't think there's any truth in that. We've got plenty of street crime regardless. Enough guests get mugged, though, and no one will want to stay outside the French Quarter anyway. Another common trope is "guest safety" and the lack of fire inspections (that one is most often chirped up by hoteliers/B&B owners). It's downright silly compared to the actual problems created by STRs. Then again, we were all sent smoke detectors because there was a death in an airBNB, so there you go.
I'm throwing these stories out there because I believe all hosts need to understand that these tales of evictions and noise complaints and nowhere for folks who live here (and have lived here for years) to rent an apt are not just scare tactics by anti-airBNBers. Unchecked proliferation of Short Term rentals cause SERIOUS issues and hosts have to be willing to appreciate/understand them otherwise we'll be looking at hardcore bans all over the damn place. Hosts in NYC who won HOUSING LOTTERIES for reduced/subsidized rent have turned around and listed those apts for hundreds of dollars a night. That ain't right. I don't want out of towners scooping up houses in my neighborhood and renting them nightly. I want neighbors; and if that neighbor wants to rent inside their home while they're still in it that should be up to them. Every city will have its own set of whacky STR problems. The New Orleans problems are glaring.
One set of stats says we're in serious trouble and one set of stats says "no, no, it's all great, we're helping" and the truth lies somewhere in between. But until airBNB takes some responsibility for the fact that they make zillions of dollars from hosts breaking laws all over the planet, I'm not going to trust their numbers blindly. All this document does is say "Look how we contribute!". There's truth in it, sure, but there's truth in the mess left in their wake, too. STRs are not going away and they shouldn't go away - this is a new model that not everyone is used to, not everyone embraces and that is obviously going to get tweaked over time. I know people balk at regulation but how else can the model continue?
High Priestess posted:
THanks so much Bekah for sharing about what is happening in New Orleans. I had not realized that the situation was what you describe, with some areas being 75% Airbnb rentals. Clearly that is a problem -- though I would suspect that this has to do to some extent with New Orleans being a tourist city. I haven't heard of other cities with this problem-- though New York City does have STR problems too, and it too is a tourist destination --- and I believe in most cities which are not tourist cities, there just is not the demand for short term rentals, for folks to be providing so many of them. There would be an oversupply which would quickly make it unprofitable to do STR's, in most cities, if regions were 75% Short term rental.
Also, many cities which are tourist cities, also have rent control laws, which often prevent property owners from evicting tenants -- not only evicting them so they could do STR's, but the law prevents all no-fault evictions. New Orleans has no rent control, and this site indicates that Louisiana actually has laws prohibiting rent control:
www.landlord.com/rent_control_laws_by_state.htm
THough I am not in favor of rent control, in terms of the problems you are describing, rent control laws which generally come with eviction control would prevent some of those problems, since it would prohibit owners doing evictions in order to create STR rentals. So, San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC all are tourist destinations, but all have rent control that prohibit no fault evictions of tenants from non owner occupied properties.
Given what you are saying about the problems in New Orleans, I see your cynicism about the statistics provided.
When cities adopt short term rental regulations, this mostly tends to result in laws that prohibit short term rentals in properties that are not the host's primary residence. See the list of cities with short term rental regulations in California, here:
globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/880/short-rental-regulations-number-cities
This seems to be a compromise that many cities strike in order to protect long term housing, in areas where there is a concern about that, or to show sensitivity to fears about excessive noise --- even when there have been few if any complaints about problems from short term rentals. For instance, in Berkeley, CA, there are about 800 Airbnb listings (out of 116,768 people -- or about 0.6% of the total number of people) and there have been VERY few complaints about Short term rentals. THere have apparently been 10 complaints, and some of those have been totally without merit -- for instance, a tenant vociferously complaining that his landlord is doing STR's, and about noise from those, when in fact the landlord is not doing short term rentals, but is doing "midterm" rentals which are completely and totally legal in any city or state in the USA. (The tenant was mistaken in thinking that any listing that appears on AIrbnb, is for a short term rental, when in fact one can list on Airbnb even if one rents for only 30 days or longer, or even 3 months or longer). In Piedmont, CA, a city of 11,000 people, there are some 25-30 Airbnb listings (or 0.009% of the population!) , and there have been NO material complaints about those, only trivial complaints such as "someone was walking on my shared driveway" or "someone was out smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house" or "there MIGHT be a parking problem due to this." I think if we compared the number of complaints about long term rentals to those about short term rentals in many non-tourist cities, we would find that there are many more complaints about noise issues, blight, crime and so forth that have to do with either property owners themselves or their relatives, or with long term renters --- (often problem tenants which, due to rent control laws, property owners are not able to evict!)
So I think that to strike this compromise and allow short term rentals only on the property where the property owner actually lives, is not ideal (for me, ideal would be that property owners are free to do as they wish with their property, but are subject to citations for noise complaints, etc) but is a politically expedient way to go, that preserves home sharing for the middle class, and preserves home sharing as it was originally visualized by AIrbnb, while also addressing community and neighbor concerns, and protecting housing for long term residents. I will be interested to see what happens in New Orleans.
