Post by High Priestess on Feb 27, 2016 15:30:26 GMT
Apparently many of the listings Airbnb purged in NYC have re-appeared, according to this article:
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-25/airbnb-s-purged-landlords-are-relisting-their-apartments
Airbnb confirmed on Wednesday that it scrubbed 1,500 listings run by commercial landlords just before opening its books to the public. One thing the company didn’t mention: Many of those landlords added units after the purge, often relisting the same ones that had been removed.
Many of those units, however, have already crept back onto the market. As of Nov. 1 a single Airbnb host was listing three studio apartments in Midtown Manhattan, according to data provided to Bloomberg by Murray Cox, creator of the website Inside Airbnb. On Nov. 20 the listings were gone, but by Jan. 1 the host had added three apartments back to the site. While the listing IDs had changed, in two cases, the host’s descriptions of those apartments were exactly the same. In the third example the landlord had changed the description from a “Red Studio Near Empire BLDG” to “Red Studio on Broadway.” The price, $250, stayed the same. The host didn’t respond to a request for comment sent via Airbnb’s website.
“Today, we suspended 138 hosts who had listings removed from our community in New York City and later attempted to list space in New York City on Airbnb,” said company spokesman Nick Papas in response to Bloomberg’s request for comment. “We are constantly reviewing our community, and if we find unwelcome commercial activity in New York City, those listings will be removed.”
In all, the new data showed that 134 hosts who’d operated multiple units before the purge have added at least one unit since. Forty-four of those hosts added at least two. Of the 15 who added three or more since the purge, 12 appear to have relisted some or all of the apartments that were previously removed from the site. Airbnb listings don’t include street addresses or apartment numbers, so in most cases, Cox’s data don’t definitively show that the new listings are for the exact same apartments that were previously removed. The data doesn’t differentiate between listings purged by Airbnb and those removed by hosts of their own accord.
In the case of at least two landlords, listings removed from the site in November returned later with the same listing ID. That may indicate the listings were removed by the host before the purge, not removed by Airbnb.
If hosts can re-list purged apartments, it “tells you how hosts are learning to get around either scrutiny from Airbnb or scrutiny from the public,” Cox said.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-25/airbnb-s-purged-landlords-are-relisting-their-apartments
Airbnb confirmed on Wednesday that it scrubbed 1,500 listings run by commercial landlords just before opening its books to the public. One thing the company didn’t mention: Many of those landlords added units after the purge, often relisting the same ones that had been removed.
Many of those units, however, have already crept back onto the market. As of Nov. 1 a single Airbnb host was listing three studio apartments in Midtown Manhattan, according to data provided to Bloomberg by Murray Cox, creator of the website Inside Airbnb. On Nov. 20 the listings were gone, but by Jan. 1 the host had added three apartments back to the site. While the listing IDs had changed, in two cases, the host’s descriptions of those apartments were exactly the same. In the third example the landlord had changed the description from a “Red Studio Near Empire BLDG” to “Red Studio on Broadway.” The price, $250, stayed the same. The host didn’t respond to a request for comment sent via Airbnb’s website.
“Today, we suspended 138 hosts who had listings removed from our community in New York City and later attempted to list space in New York City on Airbnb,” said company spokesman Nick Papas in response to Bloomberg’s request for comment. “We are constantly reviewing our community, and if we find unwelcome commercial activity in New York City, those listings will be removed.”
In all, the new data showed that 134 hosts who’d operated multiple units before the purge have added at least one unit since. Forty-four of those hosts added at least two. Of the 15 who added three or more since the purge, 12 appear to have relisted some or all of the apartments that were previously removed from the site. Airbnb listings don’t include street addresses or apartment numbers, so in most cases, Cox’s data don’t definitively show that the new listings are for the exact same apartments that were previously removed. The data doesn’t differentiate between listings purged by Airbnb and those removed by hosts of their own accord.
In the case of at least two landlords, listings removed from the site in November returned later with the same listing ID. That may indicate the listings were removed by the host before the purge, not removed by Airbnb.
If hosts can re-list purged apartments, it “tells you how hosts are learning to get around either scrutiny from Airbnb or scrutiny from the public,” Cox said.