Post by High Priestess on May 30, 2016 17:43:45 GMT
Kat shared on NHF Jan 2015
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-102381
illegal listings
How do we report illegal listings?
Example- we have several new apartment complexes nearby and I was scanning other listings in my area to see whats new and noticed that some have rented out their brand new apartment for airbnb only. I know airbnb has had problems in NY for this kind of thing... how do you report a listing as not owner owned by apartment leased?
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Leah
Leaha year ago
You can flag it but honestly, airbnb isn't going to check or verify what is legal or what isn't. They leave that for the host to check. Potentially though, you can contact the property management company for those apartments to let them know of the listings but without knowing the specific apartment number, they need the renter's name too.
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Kat
Kata year ago
Thank you! Just don't want what happened in NY to happen in AZ as well!
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Andrew
Andrewa year ago
The thing is, virtually all Airbnb listings are currently operating in a legal grey area at best. Only a small number of jurisdictions have come up with a regulatory framework that accounts for the full spectrum of hosting situations, and a great many are under pressure to introduce new laws that will make hosting even more difficult. "Reporting" other hosts in your community purely out of speculation that they might be violating a law (when you, yourself, might be violating others without realizing) does not strike me as a helpful behavior at all.
If you suspect that a listing is in violation of an Airbnb policy, I do think flagging it is a correct solution. If a listing is in your own building, and you're certain that it violates the rules of your building, it would seem appropriate to report it to the owners or property managers. Otherwise, my best advice would be to mind your own business. There are far better ways to get involved with affecting better public policy for the sharing economy than this.
Reply Like 1 reply•16 likes Delete
Leah
Leaha year ago
Very true!!
Deborah
Deboraha year ago
I pretty much agree with Andrew that what is "legal" or "illegal" is rather ambiguous in a great many cases. As well, as Peter, the organizer of the group Home Sharers of San Francisco has often pointed out, just because a city/state or nation has a law, doesn't make that law right. Some laws are quite outdated and badly need to be revisited and revised to meet modern life. There are some cities, such as Barcelona, which have been quite hostile to home sharing, and Airbnb tries to very actively intervene in such places and meet with city leaders, in order to bring about changes that really benefit everyone. Amsterdam is a case in point of Airbnb public policy team success that way. Amsterdam started out basically viewing Airbnb as a "criminal" organization, encouraging "illegal" activity, and now sees Airbnb as one of the best things that could have happened to its city!! Suffice to say that Amsterdam's views on what is "illegal" have undergone a profound shift!!
If I were you, I would just leave those situations with those apartment listings to play out as they will.
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Leah
Leaha year ago
Right, and homeowners are not immune to angry neighbors that don't like the idea of strangers coming and going too. The tables can equally turn on a host living in a single family home, even without an HOA.
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Deborah
Deboraha year ago
Leah has an excellent point. And there was even a case, in Denver CO I think, of a woman who was legally renting out her single family home, and a crazy (literally crazy) next door neighbor started complaining about her, and the city came and actually fined the host, even though she was not violating any city law whatsoever. She asked the city to point to some law she was supposedly violating, and they could not point to one. Yet they were fining her anyway, and gave her a "cease and desist" order!! It was beyond ridiculous -- it was a case of a local government going on an illegal vendetta against a homeowner causing no harm to anyone whatsoever.
Leah
Leaha year ago
Yeah, poor Neesa. That neighbor was horrible.
Kat
Kata year ago
Oh that's awful! So far our neighbors are on board. They've loved the guests we've had and even invited them over for wine. I suppose we are lucky!
Kat
Kata year ago
Thanks everyone!
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Kat
Kata year ago
I posted this because the super bowl is in my state this year and there's been a lot of concern (news and local communities) and temp rentals popping up in places that have historically been apartments and not owner owned. There was a story on the news a few days ago and some town hall discussions about it. I was just reaching out to see what others have experienced.
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Bekah and Brian
Bekah and Briana year ago
We were just about to list our space when the Superbowl hit New Orleans and the increase in listings skyrocketed around that time. Pretty much the whole city was for temporary rent. The fact is, the city needed those visitors to come spend scads of money and had far too few hotel rooms to offer. Even Baton Rouge's hotels filled up with NOLA Superbowl people. There will always be news stories about this stuff, but will the city actually crack down? During the Superbowl? My money is on "no". And really, it's not likely to affect you in the long term (the excess SB listings slowly evaporated), so I'd leave it alone.
Leah
Leaha year ago
There are lots of new listings all the time. Everyone is experiencing greater competition, legit or not. The super bowl will be held at the new 49er stadium next year too so there are going to be crazy demand too. The downside, is that many of these new listings will end up cluttering up the search results. Some hosts are not serious, not responding to inquiries, not updating the calendars or blocking listings from the search results too. Such hosts are what makes guests frustrated with using airbnb and chosing the ease of a hotel instead. What we all need are quality hosts whom are committed to responding to inquiries, keeping calendars updated, thinking about a guest's wants or needs, vs just looking for a quick buck.
Reply Like 3 replies•4 likes Delete
Andrew
Andrewa year ago
Absolutely agree! The Search algorithm does favor these quality hosts, by quite a wide margin, but when you narrow your search down and apply the filters, the crap hosts often float to the top. I'd prefer for the bar to be set higher to have an active listing at all, but that would probably stop Airbnb from reaching a profitable saturation point in growing markets.
Bekah and Brian
Bekah and Briana year ago
<stands and applauds>
Patty
Pattya year ago
I agree as well! It amazes/distresses me that AirBnB does not have a process to remove listing which have not been updated in 6/9/12 months. The NJ listings are cluttered with $2500/night listings and it no doubt leaves the guest questioning the validity of the AirBnB site. I am told that Austin (Sby SW) and other SuperBowl cities have a similar problem. I have discussed this numerous times with AirBnB, but it has fallen on deaf ears for over a year!
Glenn
Glenna year ago
I think we need to be VERY careful about separating the hosts who own their listings from those who do not. That's not what we're about here.
I didn't think that was the intent of the original post but I'm starting to think otherwise after reading some of the comments as the thread continues. This type of thinking is exactly what the opponents of short term rentals and home sharing use against us and it's false.
The idea that an owner operated listing is automatically better than one with a host who rents is deceptive and misleading. The average home in my zip code in Los Angeles sells for over $2M.
Does that mean I shouldn't host? Because I don't have that kind of money? And someone who does have that kind of cash in the bank is automatically a better host than me? It seems to me the opposite would more than likely be true.
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Kat
Kata year ago
I guess my only thought, not saying one is better than the other, but when you rent a home or apartment the lease will ask who is living there. It typically does not allow for renting of anyone else besides those on the lease. And typically, say you pay 1500 a month for a place but you can make more per week than you pay per month. I believe that's wrong because you are profiting off of someone else's property. And my original question was specifically about apartment complexes, where a management company owns the entire property and rents each unit to individuals specified on the lease.
Glenn
Glenna year ago
See my longer comment below.
Susan
Susana year ago
So maybe you can explain why my earlier response to this post was unceremoniously deleted, Glenn? Because it seems to me, you're now just echoing the feelings I had on the original post. Is it ok for some to voice their opinions on this group, but not for others - dependent on the current views of the moderator/s??
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Glenn
Glenna year ago
Susan, I never saw another response from you so you need to take that up with someone else.
Susan
Susana year ago
Hi Glenn, thank you for the swift response - much appreciated. However, I do hope that this is not an indication that your group has now become a reflection of the entire Airbnb system as a whole... ie the left hand never seems to know what the left hand is doing...
Glenn
Glenna year ago
Susan, I never saw your comment so I don't know what to tell you. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you do seem just a bit passive aggressive in you indictment of the "entire Airbnb system" because you can't find your earlier response. Why not repost it if that's the case?
Susan
Susana year ago
Lol...no offence taken, Glenn - but I can assure you, passive aggressive is definitely not the way of the Irish. We're much too straightforward and uncomplicated for that kind of subtlety! 'Tell it like it is', is more our style... and when I say that the left hand of Airbnb never seems to know what the right hand is doing, I mean exactly that - no hidden meanings or innuendo there whatsoever! As many who have ever had the misfortune of having to take up an issue with CX can attest, mixed messages and confusion reign supreme.. And it's certainly not a case of me not being able to 'find' my earlier response - it's simply a case of my response disappearing without trace, even though I was still receiving emails from the system informing me that there had been further comments on my (now inexplicably invisible) post...
Glenn
Glenna year ago
I understand where you're coming from because I have posted comments before and for one reason or another they don't get written to the web server. Or it looks like they do and then they don't show up. I don't know why, but I got into the habit of copying anything in a entry field when posting to groups before clicking the submit button a while ago and still do it. When in doubt, I'll submit it twice. The duplicates get cleaned up eventually anyway.
Glenn
Glenna year ago
Also regarding the notification emails: The subject lines are often misleading for these. When the email subject says "[Name] commented on your post!" that means someone has added a comment to the thread, which is what the subject line should say. It's not necessarily a comment on your post unless you authored the original. When it says "[Name] replied to your comment" that's referring to this type of reply I'm typing here (the one where the line feeds are stripped out, which is irritating to no end).
Susan
Susana year ago
Apologies...I meant that the right hand never seems to know what the left hand is doing, of course ;-)
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Glenn
Glenna year ago
[continuing my reply to Kat and Gerald's comment above]
I understand where you're coming from but I disagree and here's why:
(1) Do not assume the host is breaking the lease contract with the building. A hosting situation is not a typical apartment rental situation anyway. That the "typical" apartment lease prohibits subleasing is likely irrelevant if the host knows what they are doing. The host could be someone like me who has a lease rider changing the agreement.
(2) The agreement between the landlord and the leaseholder is a private contract and unless the listing is in an area where rent control will dictate otherwise, subleasing, depending on how it is legally defined by your state or municipality, is not a matter of law, but of contract breach, meaning it's not prima facie illegal. If the host is in fact under contract breach, the landlord would have to sue under unlawful detainer proceedings, not under a law prohibiting subleasing since that likely doesn't exist.
(3) Your numbers are questionable in terms of profitability. If the rent on an apartment is $1500 and you're saying the host could "make" more than 4X that in a month, the nightly rate would have to be over $200 a night to *gross* over $6000 a month. That still does not account for vacancies between reservations, utilities, cleaning, furniture and housewares, wear and tear, repairs, expendable items and other costs of doing business.
(4A) "Profiting off of someone else's property." I am often surprised hosts do not get more upset when they hear this because it completely negates the value the host adds to the guest experience. Everyone was up in arms about the Hosts can Get Rich Quick with $20 posting and this is the same line of thinking. Yes, it's someone else's property but unless the guest is staying in an empty, unfurnished apartment there's a considerable value to what the host adds to the operation in terms of capital expense, time and risk since the landlord gets paid by the host if there are guests who book the listing or not. The host does not have this luxury. If there are no guests to cover the rent, the host better find the money elsewhere or get out of the apartment.
(4B) "Profiting off of someone else's property." Very rarely do management companies own an entire building. The capital outlay is too high for most management companies considering how many employees they have. If one property suffers a huge loss, the entire management operation could go bankrupt. Instead investors own the property and the management company operates the building. In other words, the management company is profiting off of someone else's property. Do you still think this is wrong?
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Susan
Susana year ago
For the record, I agree wholeheartedly with your post here, Glenn. I would also add though, that even in the case of many 'homeowners', depending on their specific mortgage agreements, there may also be a legal requirement to obtain 'consent to let' from their lenders, particularly in the case of a residential mortgage, as opposed to a buy-to-let situation. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.. :-)
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-102381
illegal listings
How do we report illegal listings?
Example- we have several new apartment complexes nearby and I was scanning other listings in my area to see whats new and noticed that some have rented out their brand new apartment for airbnb only. I know airbnb has had problems in NY for this kind of thing... how do you report a listing as not owner owned by apartment leased?
12 comments
Following
Like
Delete
Hide
Leah
Leaha year ago
You can flag it but honestly, airbnb isn't going to check or verify what is legal or what isn't. They leave that for the host to check. Potentially though, you can contact the property management company for those apartments to let them know of the listings but without knowing the specific apartment number, they need the renter's name too.
Reply Like 2 likes Delete
Kat
Kata year ago
Thank you! Just don't want what happened in NY to happen in AZ as well!
Reply Like 1 like Delete
Andrew
Andrewa year ago
The thing is, virtually all Airbnb listings are currently operating in a legal grey area at best. Only a small number of jurisdictions have come up with a regulatory framework that accounts for the full spectrum of hosting situations, and a great many are under pressure to introduce new laws that will make hosting even more difficult. "Reporting" other hosts in your community purely out of speculation that they might be violating a law (when you, yourself, might be violating others without realizing) does not strike me as a helpful behavior at all.
If you suspect that a listing is in violation of an Airbnb policy, I do think flagging it is a correct solution. If a listing is in your own building, and you're certain that it violates the rules of your building, it would seem appropriate to report it to the owners or property managers. Otherwise, my best advice would be to mind your own business. There are far better ways to get involved with affecting better public policy for the sharing economy than this.
Reply Like 1 reply•16 likes Delete
Leah
Leaha year ago
Very true!!
Deborah
Deboraha year ago
I pretty much agree with Andrew that what is "legal" or "illegal" is rather ambiguous in a great many cases. As well, as Peter, the organizer of the group Home Sharers of San Francisco has often pointed out, just because a city/state or nation has a law, doesn't make that law right. Some laws are quite outdated and badly need to be revisited and revised to meet modern life. There are some cities, such as Barcelona, which have been quite hostile to home sharing, and Airbnb tries to very actively intervene in such places and meet with city leaders, in order to bring about changes that really benefit everyone. Amsterdam is a case in point of Airbnb public policy team success that way. Amsterdam started out basically viewing Airbnb as a "criminal" organization, encouraging "illegal" activity, and now sees Airbnb as one of the best things that could have happened to its city!! Suffice to say that Amsterdam's views on what is "illegal" have undergone a profound shift!!
If I were you, I would just leave those situations with those apartment listings to play out as they will.
Reply Like 3 likes Delete
Leah
Leaha year ago
Right, and homeowners are not immune to angry neighbors that don't like the idea of strangers coming and going too. The tables can equally turn on a host living in a single family home, even without an HOA.
Reply Liked 3 replies•4 likes Delete
Deborah
Deboraha year ago
Leah has an excellent point. And there was even a case, in Denver CO I think, of a woman who was legally renting out her single family home, and a crazy (literally crazy) next door neighbor started complaining about her, and the city came and actually fined the host, even though she was not violating any city law whatsoever. She asked the city to point to some law she was supposedly violating, and they could not point to one. Yet they were fining her anyway, and gave her a "cease and desist" order!! It was beyond ridiculous -- it was a case of a local government going on an illegal vendetta against a homeowner causing no harm to anyone whatsoever.
Leah
Leaha year ago
Yeah, poor Neesa. That neighbor was horrible.
Kat
Kata year ago
Oh that's awful! So far our neighbors are on board. They've loved the guests we've had and even invited them over for wine. I suppose we are lucky!
Kat
Kata year ago
Thanks everyone!
Reply Like Delete
Kat
Kata year ago
I posted this because the super bowl is in my state this year and there's been a lot of concern (news and local communities) and temp rentals popping up in places that have historically been apartments and not owner owned. There was a story on the news a few days ago and some town hall discussions about it. I was just reaching out to see what others have experienced.
Reply Like 1 reply Delete
Bekah and Brian
Bekah and Briana year ago
We were just about to list our space when the Superbowl hit New Orleans and the increase in listings skyrocketed around that time. Pretty much the whole city was for temporary rent. The fact is, the city needed those visitors to come spend scads of money and had far too few hotel rooms to offer. Even Baton Rouge's hotels filled up with NOLA Superbowl people. There will always be news stories about this stuff, but will the city actually crack down? During the Superbowl? My money is on "no". And really, it's not likely to affect you in the long term (the excess SB listings slowly evaporated), so I'd leave it alone.
Leah
Leaha year ago
There are lots of new listings all the time. Everyone is experiencing greater competition, legit or not. The super bowl will be held at the new 49er stadium next year too so there are going to be crazy demand too. The downside, is that many of these new listings will end up cluttering up the search results. Some hosts are not serious, not responding to inquiries, not updating the calendars or blocking listings from the search results too. Such hosts are what makes guests frustrated with using airbnb and chosing the ease of a hotel instead. What we all need are quality hosts whom are committed to responding to inquiries, keeping calendars updated, thinking about a guest's wants or needs, vs just looking for a quick buck.
Reply Like 3 replies•4 likes Delete
Andrew
Andrewa year ago
Absolutely agree! The Search algorithm does favor these quality hosts, by quite a wide margin, but when you narrow your search down and apply the filters, the crap hosts often float to the top. I'd prefer for the bar to be set higher to have an active listing at all, but that would probably stop Airbnb from reaching a profitable saturation point in growing markets.
Bekah and Brian
Bekah and Briana year ago
<stands and applauds>
Patty
Pattya year ago
I agree as well! It amazes/distresses me that AirBnB does not have a process to remove listing which have not been updated in 6/9/12 months. The NJ listings are cluttered with $2500/night listings and it no doubt leaves the guest questioning the validity of the AirBnB site. I am told that Austin (Sby SW) and other SuperBowl cities have a similar problem. I have discussed this numerous times with AirBnB, but it has fallen on deaf ears for over a year!
Glenn
Glenna year ago
I think we need to be VERY careful about separating the hosts who own their listings from those who do not. That's not what we're about here.
I didn't think that was the intent of the original post but I'm starting to think otherwise after reading some of the comments as the thread continues. This type of thinking is exactly what the opponents of short term rentals and home sharing use against us and it's false.
The idea that an owner operated listing is automatically better than one with a host who rents is deceptive and misleading. The average home in my zip code in Los Angeles sells for over $2M.
Does that mean I shouldn't host? Because I don't have that kind of money? And someone who does have that kind of cash in the bank is automatically a better host than me? It seems to me the opposite would more than likely be true.
Reply Like 2 replies Delete
Kat
Kata year ago
I guess my only thought, not saying one is better than the other, but when you rent a home or apartment the lease will ask who is living there. It typically does not allow for renting of anyone else besides those on the lease. And typically, say you pay 1500 a month for a place but you can make more per week than you pay per month. I believe that's wrong because you are profiting off of someone else's property. And my original question was specifically about apartment complexes, where a management company owns the entire property and rents each unit to individuals specified on the lease.
Glenn
Glenna year ago
See my longer comment below.
Susan
Susana year ago
So maybe you can explain why my earlier response to this post was unceremoniously deleted, Glenn? Because it seems to me, you're now just echoing the feelings I had on the original post. Is it ok for some to voice their opinions on this group, but not for others - dependent on the current views of the moderator/s??
Reply Like 6 replies Delete
Glenn
Glenna year ago
Susan, I never saw another response from you so you need to take that up with someone else.
Susan
Susana year ago
Hi Glenn, thank you for the swift response - much appreciated. However, I do hope that this is not an indication that your group has now become a reflection of the entire Airbnb system as a whole... ie the left hand never seems to know what the left hand is doing...
Glenn
Glenna year ago
Susan, I never saw your comment so I don't know what to tell you. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you do seem just a bit passive aggressive in you indictment of the "entire Airbnb system" because you can't find your earlier response. Why not repost it if that's the case?
Susan
Susana year ago
Lol...no offence taken, Glenn - but I can assure you, passive aggressive is definitely not the way of the Irish. We're much too straightforward and uncomplicated for that kind of subtlety! 'Tell it like it is', is more our style... and when I say that the left hand of Airbnb never seems to know what the right hand is doing, I mean exactly that - no hidden meanings or innuendo there whatsoever! As many who have ever had the misfortune of having to take up an issue with CX can attest, mixed messages and confusion reign supreme.. And it's certainly not a case of me not being able to 'find' my earlier response - it's simply a case of my response disappearing without trace, even though I was still receiving emails from the system informing me that there had been further comments on my (now inexplicably invisible) post...
Glenn
Glenna year ago
I understand where you're coming from because I have posted comments before and for one reason or another they don't get written to the web server. Or it looks like they do and then they don't show up. I don't know why, but I got into the habit of copying anything in a entry field when posting to groups before clicking the submit button a while ago and still do it. When in doubt, I'll submit it twice. The duplicates get cleaned up eventually anyway.
Glenn
Glenna year ago
Also regarding the notification emails: The subject lines are often misleading for these. When the email subject says "[Name] commented on your post!" that means someone has added a comment to the thread, which is what the subject line should say. It's not necessarily a comment on your post unless you authored the original. When it says "[Name] replied to your comment" that's referring to this type of reply I'm typing here (the one where the line feeds are stripped out, which is irritating to no end).
Susan
Susana year ago
Apologies...I meant that the right hand never seems to know what the left hand is doing, of course ;-)
Reply Like Delete
Glenn
Glenna year ago
[continuing my reply to Kat and Gerald's comment above]
I understand where you're coming from but I disagree and here's why:
(1) Do not assume the host is breaking the lease contract with the building. A hosting situation is not a typical apartment rental situation anyway. That the "typical" apartment lease prohibits subleasing is likely irrelevant if the host knows what they are doing. The host could be someone like me who has a lease rider changing the agreement.
(2) The agreement between the landlord and the leaseholder is a private contract and unless the listing is in an area where rent control will dictate otherwise, subleasing, depending on how it is legally defined by your state or municipality, is not a matter of law, but of contract breach, meaning it's not prima facie illegal. If the host is in fact under contract breach, the landlord would have to sue under unlawful detainer proceedings, not under a law prohibiting subleasing since that likely doesn't exist.
(3) Your numbers are questionable in terms of profitability. If the rent on an apartment is $1500 and you're saying the host could "make" more than 4X that in a month, the nightly rate would have to be over $200 a night to *gross* over $6000 a month. That still does not account for vacancies between reservations, utilities, cleaning, furniture and housewares, wear and tear, repairs, expendable items and other costs of doing business.
(4A) "Profiting off of someone else's property." I am often surprised hosts do not get more upset when they hear this because it completely negates the value the host adds to the guest experience. Everyone was up in arms about the Hosts can Get Rich Quick with $20 posting and this is the same line of thinking. Yes, it's someone else's property but unless the guest is staying in an empty, unfurnished apartment there's a considerable value to what the host adds to the operation in terms of capital expense, time and risk since the landlord gets paid by the host if there are guests who book the listing or not. The host does not have this luxury. If there are no guests to cover the rent, the host better find the money elsewhere or get out of the apartment.
(4B) "Profiting off of someone else's property." Very rarely do management companies own an entire building. The capital outlay is too high for most management companies considering how many employees they have. If one property suffers a huge loss, the entire management operation could go bankrupt. Instead investors own the property and the management company operates the building. In other words, the management company is profiting off of someone else's property. Do you still think this is wrong?
Reply Liked 1 reply•2 likes Delete
Susan
Susana year ago
For the record, I agree wholeheartedly with your post here, Glenn. I would also add though, that even in the case of many 'homeowners', depending on their specific mortgage agreements, there may also be a legal requirement to obtain 'consent to let' from their lenders, particularly in the case of a residential mortgage, as opposed to a buy-to-let situation. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.. :-)