Having lived in a BK building where at least 25% (4 out of 16) of the tenants rented out their apt. on AirBnB with regular frequency, I can't wait for this to be addressed once and for all...
Strangers with keys to the front door, easily copied because our landlord didn't invest in secure locks. Strangers coming home at 3am on a weekday (Mo-We), inebriated, slamming the doors waking us up and the kid as well, quite often with more raucous strangers in tow for a night cap. Strangers picked up in a bar of our 'gentrifying' hood, who left at 5am after knocking back more beers and/or some boots.
I paid rent, for the joy of living in a virtual dorm, they collected monies while affecting my quality of life and safety. The lease specifically forbade short-term subletting. We lived in that place for 13 years, 10 without problems, but the last 3 at times unbearable because of these "good friends from Europe".
When we moved, our friendly neighbors across the hall, avowed AirBnB hosts (they came clean), suggested that we renew our lease one more year (rent stabilized) and put our apt. on AirBnB "as a source of income". They would happily "manage" our AirBnB listing (key transfer, cleaning) for a piece of the pie. We declined, we liked our other neighbors too much...
Let's stop calling them social sharing companies, and just rename them "loopholes", who make money by assisting others in breaking the law, violating the terms of their lease, and enabling tax evasion whilst denying any type of responsibility for "sharing" my quality of life to pieces...
Glad regulation is in the pipeline. Private home owners who reside in their own houses, share away, but keep AirBnB out of apt. buildings.
I got to experience the opposite side of the equation. I rented a 6 bedroom house in Austin to house my family during my wedding. There was an ominous note left on the fridge where the owner explained that the neighbors are hostile and will call the cops after 10pm if they hear any noise at all. Later in the day when my mom was out playing in the backyard with the grandkids, she got yelled at by the neighbors with warnings of calling the cops later that night.
Honestly I just wanted everything to go smoothly since I was getting married, but man, I felt sleazy housing my family in a hostile environment. And you know what, I can't really blame the neighbors at all. This was my first and last experience with Airbnb. It just felt dirty to be apart of such neighborhood hostilitly.
Interesting perspective. I've done AirBnB but only ever in single-family homes in jurisdictions where it's not illegal.
But if I rented a unit and it turned out that the unit was actually not legal to rent, and even more-so if the neighbors are hostile, why PAY for it? Sounds like a great basis for contesting the charge.
I bought a condo near a sporting/concert center and I live though hell during summer because my neighbors rent out their condos to concert going college kids on AirBnB.
I've written to my alderman, complained to the city with listings on AirBnb. Nothing. No response.
It would be a dream come true for me someone prosecutes AirBnb and puts the founders behind bars.
If you have an HOA, you should review the bylaws, etc. If the rentals you describe appear to be in violation, it might be worth speaking with an attorney about the possibility of a selective enforcement action.
Seconded. They're almost always in violation because mortgage underwriters don't like high numbers of rentals and they certainly wouldn't like any <30-day rentals. So standard HOA docs forbid all short-term rentals and often require jumping through hoops for 1-year rentals.
My HOA board was ready to put a lien on someone's condo because their dog frequently pooped in the common areas. HOA management companies issue liens with regularity and it would certainly force the owner to take action. I'd recommend attending the next board meeting an appealing directly to the HOA chair.
AirBnB violates NY's illegal hotel law (e.g. http://www.scribd.com/doc/142650911/Decision-and-Order-for-N...). AirBnB actively promotes in New York (they have been actively airing ads on local TV) and made no effort (at least, when the issue first flared up) to make users aware of the relevant laws.
OK, so they broke NYC law. I probably do that 25 times a day. So does everyone else. Did they do anything morally wrong? I mean the developers, not the people renting their apartments.
These are not victimless crimes, the neighbors are the victims, and AirBnb is willfully facilitating illegal and antisocial behavior. That's plainly immoral.
Renting your residence to vacationers is antisocial now. Ok.
I have to wonder what proportion of Airbnb's transactions ever cause any kind of disturbance to anyone. If it's the rule rather than the exception that "vacationers" turn out to be party animals who tear up the place, it's surprising that tenants in prosocial environments would even continue to take that risk.
Let me clarify... the noise is one thing, the constant flow of people another, and the issue of not feeling/being secure yet another (and not the least). Add to that the effects it has on rents and available apartments, and you might see my point that regulation of illegal short-term sublets by tenants in an apartment building is indeed in need of regulation.
When I was an apartment dweller, the noise, constant flow of people, and feeling of insecurity (and silverfish) went with the territory because that's the type of place I could afford. If I had been in a nice, quiet apartment with pleasant neighbors, I would have been wary of being evicted for violating the lease unless the risk of my "guests" causing a problem was very low.
That's why I have to wonder what the real situation is. I see a few complaints about disturbances with nothing being done by the landlord (which is what I'd expect at my old slum apartment), but nobody complaining about being evicted for using Airbnb (which is what I'd expect if a tenant were to turn a nice apartment building into a party hotel, as some complainers insinuate).
In any case, this seems like a problem that already has a resolution: Evict people for subletting if the contract prohibits it, regardless of whether the customers were found on a web site or in the back alley.
If it isn't willful, then you need to demonstrate that that you're not totally ignorant of the concerns people have. Educating yourself isn't our job; it's yours.
> Having lived in a BK building where at least 25% (4 out of 16) of the tenants rented out their apt. on AirBnB with regular frequency, I can't wait for this to be addressed once and for all...
I didn't think AirBnB was a thing in Bangkok at all!?
Then it sounds like your lease agreement isn't being enforced. That's a landlord problem, not a legal problem.
>Glad regulation is in the pipeline.
Why? So that all of us who use AirBnB have no options left? I know I can't afford travel without it.
How about instead of trying to ham-fist legal solutions to minor problems, you just get your landlord to enforce the lease agreement that already bans AirBnB renting?
It's a landlord problem if it happens in one place. If it's happening all over the place and is facilitated by a single entity or a small number of entities, it certainly is a problem that will end up getting solved by legislation.
If AirBnB were serious about legal compliance, there are plenty of tools they could make. Any developer here could suggest several, I'm sure. But they're intentionally sailing very close to the wind. They've done well by it so far, but I could imagine this strategy biting them in the ass if they push it too far. A couple of spectacular failures yielding some dramatically written articles would be enough to generate a lot of public outrage.
I always wondered why, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7924005 below gives a good reason why (summary: tenants who rent out via AirBnB can afford bigger rent increases).
It's a combination landlord (lease) and legal problem. In NYC short term leases are explicitly not allowed. Also note, as others have below, that it is very difficult to evict someone in New York.
Glad because just 4 apts. in the building ruined it for the rest of us. I don't care about your travel plans, I care about my quality of life.
Maybe people don't care if you can't afford the price of something. It's not everyone else's responsibility to ensure your entitlement to travel on your limited budget. Stay home and make something of it instead of vomiting in everyone else's hallways. We pay the rents and mortgages for these places and AirBnb customers come and crap on it.
And why should it have to be incumbent upon everyone else to enforce rules? What the f$*&? The more I hear of you the more I agree that regulations can't come fast or hard enough.
There are people who have actually lived and invest in these places. Now, there's a whole "disruptive" community thinking because they have a phone with an app, they should be able to help transfer the value of someone else's life and homes into the pockets of AirBnb's founders? Let me catch your tears in this jar so I can savor them.
If you cant afford a hotel how are you paying for the rest of the trip. Im a graduate student and I can afford to travel and pay for a decent hotel. If you can't you shouldn't be traveling and you shouldn't expect others to put up with poor situations because you want a cheap place to stay.
How do you go about getting a landlord to enforce a lease agreement? As long as the landlord is getting paid on time and the place isn't destroyed, he probably doesn't care. This seems like a textbook example of an externality that's only solvable by regulation, or by more strictly enforcing any city laws that require landlords to forbid short term sublets.
>How do you go about getting a landlord to enforce a lease agreement?
Uh, ask them? If they refuse, just threatening them with a court case will probably do the job. They are legally obligated to uphold their end of your lease agreement.
>This seems like a textbook example of an externality that's only solvable by regulation
Again, why? It's covered under existing laws. If that doesn't do it, why do you think more laws will?
> Uh, ask them? If they refuse, just threatening them with a court case will probably do the job. They are legally obligated to uphold their end of your lease agreement.
That is not correct.
Let L = the landlord,
R = the tenant who is renting out his apartment,
T = the tenant who is being annoyed by the
problems R's sub-renters are causing
You are proposing that T sue L for not enforcing a term in R's lease against R. R does not wish to have this term enforced.
The lease agreement being violated (at least as far as the term that prohibits sub-renting the apartment goes) is the one between L and R, not the one between L and T. T would not have standing to sue since T is not a party to the contract between L and R.
In NYC, at least, it's also a legal problem. Short-term rentals (even of property that you own) are illegal under city law. The law would consider the hosts to be:
- Running illegal hotels in buildings that are not zoned for commercial use.
- Running a business without a valid business permit.
- Failing to pay the hotel tax and other business taxes.
- Violating fire regulations that govern hotels and other commercial property.
If your rent is $40 a day and AirBnb guests are paying $80 a day don't they deserve to be there more than you? I don't buy the "I was there first" or "but zoning" arguments.
Besides, I've lived in private room in a hostel in a developing country for the last three months and haven't experienced any of these problems. I find it hard to believe the average apartment building with AirBnB units would be worse.
If it wasn't for the zoning laws and the ban on short term rentals, the landlord would be doing it himself and there would be no such clause.
I'm just saying it's totally unfair that someone who lives in NY should pay considerably less for housing than someone visiting and since the city isn't willing to do something to fix that, this black market has popped up to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunity.
> I'm just saying it's totally unfair that someone who lives in NY should pay considerably less for housing than someone visiting
People who live there are in the market for long term housing. People visiting are in the market for short term housing. Comparing this is kind of ridiculous, because they serve people with quite different needs.
The product (a place to sleep) is the same and there's no reason for one type of person to pay more than the other besides government interference.
This is the mirror of taxis vs owning a car. There is no good reason for it to cost so much more to take a taxi than to get a ride from some guy with a car besides government regulation.
As soon as you ignore that regulation you get products that everyone loves except the people who were benefiting under the old unfair system. In the taxi case it's people who were charging above market rates for transportation. In this case, it's people paying below market rates to live in NYC.
That's self-evidently false. Here are two reasons why, out of presumably many:
Long-term renters make up-front commitments. They are "buying in bulk", which reduces the inventory risk for the landlord. A hotelier, on the other hand, has to set prices to account for vacancy rates, and for the risk that their vacancy rate estimation is going to be wrong.
Long-term renters are self-serve customers. Short-term renters depart after a few days, leaving the room they leased uninhabitable. Not only does it cost money to reset and restock a room after a guest leaves, but to do so involves retaining staff, which introduces all the expense of headcount.
All of that is true and is why an AirBnb costs more than renting an apartment. However, the cost difference between an AirBnb and a comparable hotel room is all regulation.
Without the regulation, it would be unprofitable to sublease a single apartment on AirBnb as you'd be unable to compete with people who can run a whole building at scale with dedicated maid service etc.
No, you've oversimplified again. Many whole-home Airbnb rentals --- most, if the narrative of the site is to believed --- are owner-occupied. They don't have the inventory risk problem. A hotel is an investment that must make some minimum return, or else go out of business.
I had the impression that most AirBnbs in NYC were not owner-occupied but full-time AirBnbs and that's what people were complaining about.
Anyways if you improve the legal alternatives and the margins get low enough I think a lot of the owner-occupied ones will simply give up. Right now it's so insanely profitable that it's well worth the work and inconveniences (and legal risk!) even for middle class people.
Airbnb will naturally drive up rents in places where it’s being used. If a tenant has the capacity to pay (e.g.) $2000 for an apartment, but now can get an additional (e.g.) $300 a month, the tenant’s capacity to pay is now $2300.
A savvy landlord or condo association would want to capture this. Because it’s new, it’s seen as a disturbance. A little bit of thinking would reveal that there is now $XXX new money coming in the door (due to better utilization of the property).
It’s in the owners’ ultimate interest to figure out how to either a) accommodate this explicitly and safely, and capture some of the new revenue or b) prohibit it because the tenants prefer it, but know that the price of a “non-shared” building will carry a premium.
One way a condo association might adopt the idea is to point out that Airbnb’ers $$ might be used for building upgrades or to reduce condo fees.
An HOA board which explicitly allows Airbnb listings, and especially one that profits from it, is in for a world of pain. You cannot get financing for a mortgage in a short-term rental community. That will discourage new buyers who can't get financing and drive down re-sale values.
Why would a lender be troubled by this? The property, due to a new source of income, is worth more. Seems like more income = less risk from the lender’s point of view.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have extensive rules on what mortgages they'll buy. These are known as conforming loans and get buyers the best terms and easiest approval (thus raising sale prices). For condos these rules are especially complex. Any property which has commercial use or rentals is already flagged for extra scrutiny and there are some uses which flat-out get it disqualified.
Lenders not only want to be able to have Fannie/Freddie buy their loans eventually, but they also want the home to be easily sold. And traditionally home buyers want the "white picket fence" dream. Once the property turns into a an apartment/vacation/commercial complex, their market of buyers totally changes. There's nothing wrong with that inherently but it means that different people need to be underwriting and making those loans who can properly assess the value.
Good point. I assumed the rents were driven up because fewer apts became available (tenants renting out their old place, or even landlords not signing up new tenants and taking the AirBnB revenue stream without the headaches or leases or evictions) but as you outline, the extra income may allow landlords to drive up the rents without much of a risk of turnover...
So what does Airbnb do when a property owner demands Airbnb delist his property from its site? Clearly an owner has more right than his tenant to determine where his property is rented, especially if their lease agreement prohibits short term rentals.
If Airbnb received a legal notice from a property owner demanding it delist his property, it seems like they would have to comply. Otherwise they might face a pretty simple case of negligence for listing an owner's property for rent without his approval. The only evidence the owner needs to supply is a signed copy of the lease and public records of ownership.
So why aren't landlords doing this? I think the issue is either they don't care, or there's no easy way to do it. Perhaps somebody should set up a service that facilitates this process by reducing it to uploading a copy of the lease agreement and ownership records, then sending a request to Airbnb. If enough property owners use a service like that, it could gain some significant attention.
I love AirBnB as a customer, used it a few times and have a great experience with it... but I would be worried if somebody rent apartment next to me without they presence at all...
... on the other hand how would you enforce non-subletting policies? Likely only some high-end biometrics access could do that, but that won't happen any time soon in vast majority of the places.
Terminate which lease? Let's say I rent an apartment from landlord A. We are cool. Now tenant B rents the apartment next door from landlord C, and promptly lists it on Airbnb.
I am not a party to the contract between B and C, so can't do anything to terminate that lease. My landlord A hasn't done anything to breach our contract, so I have no grounds to terminate that. So I'm SOL.
C might be willing to terminate the lease, especially if it is exposing them to liabilities they don't want. And as the sibling comment mentions, C might need to deal with the situation to live up so some other agreement.
But sure, I was thinking from the perspective of the owner, not a neighbor.
They can't, because then everyone would opt out. Professional landlords keep up on what's going on in their business as much as any other group of people - you don't think they have sites and mailing lists? - and renting isn't a business you can be careless about, because bad things really do happen to property.
So AirBnB pretty much has to do the wink-nudge thing, where they officially forbid 90% of transactions, but let them happen anyway.
I am not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but hypothetically, couldn't the landlord simply have his lawyer send a list of addresses he owns to Airbnb? Shouldn't Airbnb have a responsibility to exclude addresses upon receiving a DMCA-style take down notice?
That has the same problem as DMCA takedown notices. Anyone could claim to own any address, so then Airbnb would have to verify every address claimed as un-sublettable by a landlord instead of verifying every address claimed as sublettable by a tenant.
I would suspect ownership of physical addresses to be a lot less murky and problematic than copyright ownership since it is a matter of public record and issues of fair use do not come into play. Ownership of a physical address could be verified once and thereafter excluded until a new landlord who buys the property opts-into the service.
IANAL, but I would think that if Airbnb ignored a request to exclude addresses, that would likely expose them to a greater chance of losing a lawsuit.
Additionally, cities or states could pass laws requiring services like Airbnb to have easy opt-out policies for landlords rather than banning the service altogether.
Nope. Not everyone. I wish. The nasty side-effects of AirBnB in metro areas however are becoming increasingly clear to non-users/non-hosts... and journalists.
If you want to avoid the moral hazard of tenants subletting their apartment, and the owners being screwed, you need a mechanism for the contract (which disallows subletting) to be enforced.
So how do you effectively enforce that? Should the owner have cameras in the hallway? Should the tenants be subject to random checks? some balance has to be found to keep both sides happy.
The other question is why are tenants going through the trouble and risks of subletting. And this guy knows why:
The rent is too damn high. But it's not being helped by Airbnb. When "spare" housing is converted to short-term rentals then rental units remain near capacity, and rents continue to rise. The traditional scenario is that apartments remained empty, thus increasing the supply of available housing, and putting downward pressure on rent prices.
No, Airbnb isn't helping rent prices, but it is helping people who sublet their apartments via Airbnb pay their rent more easily while making it harder for everyone else. Another negative externality.
Yeah, I suspect cities are going to start banning for-profit full-time subletting, especially in cities with rent control. It'd be a shame if more reasonable use cases get swept up in that.
Of note: in NYC, it is already illegal according to most leases, and short-term leases are illegal for home-owners unless they reside in the home at the same time.
I get your point, but housing isn't like ice-cream. You can't just decide you don't want ice-cream because it's too expensive.
The alternative is living on the street, which brings with itself inability to maintain employment and so on down the spiral. It's literally better not to eat for a few days, than it is to find yourself on the street with all your stuff. A point of no return.
So the incentive to seek "tricks" is high (whether it be Airbnb, or living with 5-6 other people in a small apartment), and demand is dictated purely by how many people are there needing to rent, versus how much money they have.
Housing isn't an all or nothing decision. You can always opt for something smaller, in a worse neighborhood, or outside the metro area ... requiring a longer commute. The impact that Airbnb has is that transient visitors are utilizing real estate zoned for longer-term residential use instead of booking stays in hotels. Hotels are upset because they're losing business to an entity not subject to the same regulations and oversight they're subjected to. But more-importantly, long-term residents of a city are impacted by a shortage of available real estate because they're looking to sign a year long lease ... not move from Airbnb rental to Airbnb rental from week to week.
I understand what you're saying with your ice cream analogy, but I'm not sure I agree that it relates to housing in the way you suggest.
I think it takes a really fucked up worldview to say "I don't like noisy visitors, so we should just ban AirBnB outright."
Really? Is that your first response whenever you don't like something? Just make it illegal!
How about you ask for enforcement/introduction of non-subleasing policies for your building? There is absolutely no good reason to screw over everyone else in the process.
The problem is that not only is AirBnB not trying to do anything about it, they are actually continuing to push ahead further.
Having the building you live in double as a downscale hotel is absolutely craptastic. From all your comments, you seem not to understand this rather simple point.
It's not just the noise, it's the security as well.
Safety is a real concern. The area still has muggings, drug dealing and even a few murders. Knowing who belongs in your building and who has a key is an important aspect of living in BK.
Strangers with keys to the front door, easily copied because our landlord didn't invest in secure locks. Strangers coming home at 3am on a weekday (Mo-We), inebriated, slamming the doors waking us up and the kid as well, quite often with more raucous strangers in tow for a night cap. Strangers picked up in a bar of our 'gentrifying' hood, who left at 5am after knocking back more beers and/or some boots.
I paid rent, for the joy of living in a virtual dorm, they collected monies while affecting my quality of life and safety. The lease specifically forbade short-term subletting. We lived in that place for 13 years, 10 without problems, but the last 3 at times unbearable because of these "good friends from Europe".
When we moved, our friendly neighbors across the hall, avowed AirBnB hosts (they came clean), suggested that we renew our lease one more year (rent stabilized) and put our apt. on AirBnB "as a source of income". They would happily "manage" our AirBnB listing (key transfer, cleaning) for a piece of the pie. We declined, we liked our other neighbors too much...
With reports from Berlin, San Francisco and other cities showcasing how AirBnB has affected availability of apt's and is one of the main drivers of rising rents ( eg see http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/item/airbnb-san-francisc... and http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/1230/Berlin-squee... ) it's about time something is done about this.
Let's stop calling them social sharing companies, and just rename them "loopholes", who make money by assisting others in breaking the law, violating the terms of their lease, and enabling tax evasion whilst denying any type of responsibility for "sharing" my quality of life to pieces...
Glad regulation is in the pipeline. Private home owners who reside in their own houses, share away, but keep AirBnB out of apt. buildings.
Edit: words/grammar