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Post by High Priestess on Apr 5, 2016 2:00:55 GMT
See the article: cooperator.com/article/cracking-down-on-airbnbIn January, Airbnb listed New York City as the third-most travelled to city for business trips on its new “Airbnb for Business” platform. The announcement comes a month after the company released data showing that nearly 60 percent of Airbnb users in New York City are renting out their entire apartments while they are not at home—which is illegal under New York State law. This comes about four months after the City of New York hired Christian Klossner as the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (MOSE). MOSE leads an interagency task force going after illegal hotels New York City. As a former narcotics prosecutor, Klossner told reporters back in October that he will be using similar strategies to go after illegal hotels in the city. He noted that the process would go from a complaint-driven system to one that actively sought out illegal hotels.
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Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Apr 10, 2016 4:49:21 GMT
There is some kerfluffle in Chicago also, though not as developed as NY. What is strangest to me and has me very confused, is that nine months ago, I received an email from Airbnb asking me to participate in the Chicago pilot program for business listings, which were required to be entire home rentals. Now, they are saying that Airbnb should just be people renting out their spare room for just a bit of cash on the side. Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing? Or does the company just really not have any concern for what they lead hosts into or if they hang them out to dry? Fortunately, I passed on participating in that program.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank you, Deborah, for creating this wonderful forum and for sharing so much excellent information. What a lot of work you must have put into it!
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 10, 2016 5:24:19 GMT
You're welcome, Shaun ! YEs, it has been quite a lot of work -- really hundreds and hundreds of hours -- but one thing that always bothered me about all the host groups was that they weren't well organized to find information. So that was a big aspect of setting this one up. And I also thought there should be a lot of posts about news regarding Airbnb and short term rentals since that always interests hosts but we don't see many posts about those things on most of the host groups.
Well, I think Airbnb has to wear many faces, to please many different people. Once you have to deal with politics -- which you do if you are a big company, and particularly if you are creating businesses that don't fit well into existing regulations and/or require new regulations in many areas --- then you have to be skilled at politics, which means pleasing different groups. It's not that Airbnb itself is confused, it's that it has to deal with political pressures.
I think if there were no city government issues to worry about, Airbnb would be very happy to allow anyone to have any kind of listing, and there would be no concern about limiting the number of entire home/apartment listings a host could have. Airbnb itself could care less about that. It's only the cities and housing activists who are concerned about those things, so Airbnb has to work with these political pressures.
There is no problem in most places with a host having just one entire home/apartment rental, and actually there are many places in the US where there is not a housing issue that would create political pressure for hosts to have only one such. FOr instance, in areas that have long been vacation "cities" like Big Bear Lake, or Lake Tahoe, the cities are oriented to having vacation rentals. They are not so concerned about long term tenants in places like this. So there is no universal policy -- there is only politics to deal with from place to place. Does CHicago prohibit hosts listing entire apartments? I think it may sometimes be the case that the department promoting business traveler listings for instance does not communicate withe the department which is watching the political situation in each city.
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Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Apr 10, 2016 6:13:55 GMT
I love all the news you put on the forum. That's my favorite thing of all! Thank you!!
You make a very good point about the one department doesn't communicate with the other. It can be quite confusing from the hosts perspective.
The situation in Chicago is as follows:
Licenses are required. There are two types. The Vacation Rental License required home ownership and the owner of the house must not live there at all. Or, the Bed and Breakfast License which requires the homeowner or lessee to live there, being absent no less than 120 days a year, and requires a parking lot. (There are many other stipulations, I just listed the ones most difficult to comply with.) And then there is also zoning requirements of course.
So, people do not get a license because they can't afford 25,000 dollars to put a parking lot on property they don't even own. Or don't feel they can qualify for a VRL because they rent their leased apt out while they travel.
I began delisting my own listings, and was contacted by an Airbnb rep who met my landlord and I for coffee. She was urging me not to delist or quit Airbnb, but she had no answers, really.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 10, 2016 14:53:51 GMT
From what you describe about the laws in Chicago, the situation is simply described as a city with outdated laws which do NOT fit the reality of modern times. It's completely ridiculous to think that someone needs a parking lot to be a host. Not to mention that in many cases it would be impossible to install one.
THis is but one of probably hundreds if not thousands of examples of cities who have laws which were created decades ago, which have nothing to do with Airbnb hosting, and should never be applied to Airbnb hosting. Many city governments "get it" that their old laws are outdated and ill suited to modern times and that they need to revamp them to fit the reality of Airbnb hosting, if for no other reason, than to not make outlaws out of hundreds if not thousands of their residents who are engaged in hosting.
So what these city governments will often do, when they see the problem between the ill fitting laws and the modern reality, is refuse to enforce laws which clearly are inappropriate. THe city of Berkeley California took this approach. Short term rentals were illegal under the old laws -- it saw hundreds of people hosting and realized that short term rental hosting was a growing phenomenon it had to contend with, and it convened to create new laws. Most other cities who have created new short term rental regs did it for the same reason -- their old laws were not useful. San Francicso, Portland, Richmond VA, Sacramento, etc --
Hosts in cities like yours need to organize and put pressure on the city to do just that, and it helps a lot to cite other cities which have done this and are doing this. look over those laws in other cities and write to your city reps about it. Airbnb can also help hosts organize in cities.
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Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Apr 10, 2016 15:28:50 GMT
Chicago hosts has a Facebook page, and Airbnb is trying to create an Airbnb Action group. We have already met with the girl who is organizing the Airbnb one, and she isn't really an effective organizer, more of just someone who meets hosts for a coffee and is more of a or person, encouraging hosts not to stop hosting. But yes, the groups are beginning to form.
Legislstion has been introduced in Chicago, with everybody putting forth their own proposal. Some alderman (the guy who wrote the law which is only five or six years old!) wants to keep it as it. The mayor's proposal is that people can only host 90 days a year without a license (not sure if he'd rewrite the regs and remove the parking lot requirement). Airbnb is proposing their own, and even though we met with their or rep, she could not tell us what Airbnb is proposing, so we don't know what Airbnb thinks is reasonable for Chicago, so no one knows what to do.
This last week, hotels even submitted their own proposal. All of this should be debated in May at the monthly city meeting. We'll see.
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Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Apr 10, 2016 15:44:09 GMT
Sorry for the typo. I meant, the Airbnb rep is more of a PR person.
She has never hosted and couldn't tell us anything at all about what Airbnb would propose, and had no answers of substance on anything, while trying to enlist us to put our support behind Airbnb to lobby for our industry, whether we would be willing to attend marches and so forth. The thing is, since she could not tell us what exactly we would be supporting (what Airbnb is proposing) she may not garner a very big protest group.
The next week she held a bar night with local hosts and we didn't go. Mainly, we are more than twice her age, seem to know more about everything related to Airbnb, and hanging out in a trendy bar in lieu of real answers and action felt like it would be a waste of our time.
Initially, we were excited to meet her and said we would be willing to attend marches, but after speaking with her for a couple of hours, we were, well, to be honest, a little insulted that Airbnb sent us an inexperienced but adorable child to play protest with us. I know that sounds harsh, but it really was that devoid of anything useful and on a personal level, she did not have the maturity to relate to us, although the demographic for our listings are in the 20-35 range and we always relate well to our guests. We definitely got the feeling that her job was to get us to come to events, but we also got the feeling that she didn't find us as hip as herself. It was pretty ridiculous.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 10, 2016 17:00:01 GMT
Shaun, what you are describing is a perfect example of AIrbnb's devaluing of life experience and over-valuing of youth. The way a Jungian Analyst would describe it, Airbnb has a Puer Aeternus complex. I am always a little shocked when I visit Airbnb Headquarters in San Francisco and I feel like an ancient relic there, older than everyone I see, even the CEO, Brian Chesky when I see him, or the heads of departments -- everyone who is surely making big money -- and I am only 53 years old, myself. I think Chip Conley and Chris Lehane are my age or a bit older, but everyone else seems to be in their 20's and 30's. I think this problem is particularly notable on Customer service lines where too many of us hosts feel like we are calling in talking to children. It just seems obvious to me that the kinds of tricky situations that hosts face with guests, will be better understood by people who have life experience -- meaning, people in middle age. So come on Airbnb, hire at least a few middle aged people!! THe awkwardness about the efforts of Airbnb to create community are described here by Peter and others: globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/2047/community-leadersI will cross reference your comments here to that post as well..
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Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Apr 10, 2016 23:31:15 GMT
Thanks Deborah, I hear you. At 49 I'm not ready to be put out to pasture yet, in fact, I feel like I just got smarter a few years ago! I read the links to the other host describing being recruited as a community leader. I passed because it seemed so silly, but also, combined with the very real threats to our industry and the fact that I am a "bad actor multiple listing host" (I have a big old house with lots of rooms and just love having them filled with the diversity and wonder that Airbnb guests bring) I just felt like as the battle in Chicago heats up, and I might be on the chopping block, well, it all just was a bit much. I was trying to solve a problem, not sample my first salted carameltini. There definitely seemed a bit of this going on fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/ the story eyed cult thing I see you have in another thread. So, when you go to the headquarters, are your concerns heard?
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 10, 2016 23:59:33 GMT
Well there isn't really any benefit to going into Airbnb headquarters in terms of having access to Airbnb to be heard -- even those who know many of the big Airbnb mucki-mucks personally, don't get heard very much. Airbnb asks for feedback from certain people and will consider that feedback, but just sharing your opinion with an Airbnb employee in some random department, doesn't get much done.
Airbnb is planning to roll out something that I think will be a fantastic feature, if they do it -- on the new Community Center, I was told they will have a place there for hosts to present ideas for Airbnb -- could be ideas for the Community Center, or ideas for Airbnb generally (eg new products). IF they do this and they really listen to hosts, I think it would be very beneficial, both to hosts to feel heard, and to Airbnb to benefit from ideas of people who are really "in the trenches."
I don't think people are referring to people who rent rooms in their own home when they talk about "bad actors" and "multiple listing hosts". In fact one of the biggest problems I have with the term "multiple listing hosts" is that it seems to refer to anyone who has more than one listing, when that isn't the area of controversy. THe area of controversy is generally people who are listing multiple entire homes or apartments.
However, given the level of short term rental hysteria sweeping the land, there are undoubtedly at least some who practically view it as a felony if you rent more than one room in your house on Airbnb. I find this enormously hypocritical, since many people who are renting out more than one room, have been doing so for a great many years, and this fact has not sent others to the doctor with high blood pressure until the rise of Airbnb. For instance, my house has been a community house for over 40 years -- and I've been renting out several rooms myself in it for over a decade. I didn't just start doing that when Airbnb began - -- I had been doing it far longer. Yet because some people suddenly are bursting their blood vessels when they look around their neighborhood and see someone listing more than one room on Airbnb, I now feel nearly criminalized by the fervor to scapegoat what was once the profession of "widows struggling to make ends meet." In fact as a middle aged single woman, I fit the profile of the traditional boarding house or guest house proprietor. I quote from a book on 19th century boarding houses and guest houses as follows:
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Post by Inanna (Shaun) on Apr 11, 2016 1:10:54 GMT
Oh wow, Deborah, you really get it! That is exactly what I have, a sort of a boarding house, mostly for international students. And yes, I feel "criminalized". No no doubt you know this site insideairbnb.comThey list me by name under "top hosts". It really freaked me out. Since then, I've been getting my roommates/boarders from CL and word of mouth more. It seems awfully silly to criminalize a job or a lifestyle. It sure will be interesting to see how this all develops.
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Post by High Priestess on Apr 11, 2016 1:28:11 GMT
Yes, I know of www.insideairbnb.com -- and I know that its founder, Murray Cox , is using AIrbnb's information against Airbnb and against Short term rental hosts, as he seems to have taken it upon himself to be an activist for the preservation of long term housing. Like many people who are concerned about the housing crisis, they dont' want to have to face the reality that the housing crisis has no easy solution and no easy one thing to blame. But they do all like to blame Airbnb and short term rental hosts. When you feel helpless, it's nice to have a scapegoat! PS Have you seen my blog about this issue yet? SEe here: globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/1323/airbnb-housing-crisis-new-blog or here globalhostingblogs.com/2015/12/18/airbnb-and-the-housing-crisis/ Yes I see you on there for Chicago. It is very creepy for someone to be taking the hosts with the most listings in a given area and stating this about them: SO basically, without knowing anything at all about the hosts that he is highlighting, he is insinuating that just because they have multiple listings they are likely to be in violation of rental laws. THis is very irresponsible and I think actually he could be sued for libel or slander for doing this. I will send you a private message regarding this issue....
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