I betcha the market will take care of the "random people" thing.
There will be some buildings that advertise as "No AirBnB places". They will capture some portion of the market that is interested. If the law does not support a landlord doing that, we could probably work something out.
There will be other buildings that allow AirBnB type short-term renting. I can think of lots of folks that would like that type of housing, or be fine with the rent decrease that would probably be associated with it.
My opinion, the "random" people allegation is a problem in people's minds more than it is a problem in real life.
I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb.
Short term rentals present risk to landlord - damage of common property, excessive resource consumption (electric, hot water, gas, etc, that may not be paid directly by lease-holder). How high this risk is is a topic of hot debate, but it's certainly a non-zero number.
Considering that the landlord sees nothing from the AirBnb'ing, and they have some legal ability to classify their building as "no AirBnb", what sane landlord wouldn't do it? This goes doubly if rents in non-AirBnb buildings are, as you suggested, higher.
This leads naturally to the thought that we can incentivize landlords to allow AirBnbs (read: kickbacks) - at which point AirBnb starts looking an awwwwful lot like traditional hotels, or worse, the slum-tels of old.
Side note: giant companies like AirBnb keep using the word "sharing economy", which I find highly disingenuous. This isn't early-stage eBay, where you list things you don't need. It also isn't Craigslist. The vast majority of places on AirBnb aren't "I'll be out of town and I'd like to make some money on my apartment", the vast majority of AirBnbs are dedicated operations. A far cry from the "peer to peer" "efficient use of excess resources" that Lyft, Sidecar, AirBnb, et al, like to talk about.
We hate it when politicians use doublespeak, why do we so readily allow it when it's being done by a company that's on our good side?
Considering that the landlord sees nothing from the AirBnb'ing, and they have some legal ability to classify their building as "no AirBnb", what sane landlord wouldn't do it? This goes doubly if rents in non-AirBnb buildings are, as you suggested, higher.
Landlords won't allow AirBnB, they'll be AirBnB. They'll disallow it for long term tenants, yet always have every vacant unit listed on the site. If they can book it for a week, they'll make what you currently pay for the month's rent. Depending on how well you're located, there's going to be some pressure on your rent.
* I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb.*
I wonder if landlords would pay for tool that automatically crawls listings on AirBnB for their property listings, and notifies them when matches are found?
Airbnb would make recognizing that it's your property nontrivial. They don't show a specific address until a reservation is accepted; the point on the map is randomized and can be a few blocks away; photos are supplied by the host and may not match photos the landlord has (if the place is sufficiently well decorated and not distinctive, it may be hard for even a human to determine it's the same place).
If however you licensed some good facial recognition technology, perhaps you could compare the face in the Airbnb host's avatar with that on the ID each of your tenants supplied when applying for an apartment. It would be far from bulletproof, but could get you somewhere. In a less-densely populated place maybe you could even get away with "notify us if someone named Bob offers a new room within 0.5 miles of 622 Cedar St", perhaps hiring low-paid humans to sanity-check the results before passing the notification on to the landlord.
I did not think the incentives for landlords through, it seems. I think I agree with you that the market would not find a solution that would practically preserve the right of a renter to AirBnB his or her place.
Comments
I betcha the market will take care of the "random people" thing.
There will be some buildings that advertise as "No AirBnB places". They will capture some portion of the market that is interested. If the law does not support a landlord doing that, we could probably work something out.
There will be other buildings that allow AirBnB type short-term renting. I can think of lots of folks that would like that type of housing, or be fine with the rent decrease that would probably be associated with it.
My opinion, the "random" people allegation is a problem in people's minds more than it is a problem in real life.
I don't think this can work. A person is either legally entitled to AirBnb their place, or they aren't. If the choice is given to the landlord to create "no AirBnb" buildings, you can bet your ass that just about every single building will be declared no-AirBnb.
Short term rentals present risk to landlord - damage of common property, excessive resource consumption (electric, hot water, gas, etc, that may not be paid directly by lease-holder). How high this risk is is a topic of hot debate, but it's certainly a non-zero number.
Considering that the landlord sees nothing from the AirBnb'ing, and they have some legal ability to classify their building as "no AirBnb", what sane landlord wouldn't do it? This goes doubly if rents in non-AirBnb buildings are, as you suggested, higher.
This leads naturally to the thought that we can incentivize landlords to allow AirBnbs (read: kickbacks) - at which point AirBnb starts looking an awwwwful lot like traditional hotels, or worse, the slum-tels of old.
Side note: giant companies like AirBnb keep using the word "sharing economy", which I find highly disingenuous. This isn't early-stage eBay, where you list things you don't need. It also isn't Craigslist. The vast majority of places on AirBnb aren't "I'll be out of town and I'd like to make some money on my apartment", the vast majority of AirBnbs are dedicated operations. A far cry from the "peer to peer" "efficient use of excess resources" that Lyft, Sidecar, AirBnb, et al, like to talk about.
We hate it when politicians use doublespeak, why do we so readily allow it when it's being done by a company that's on our good side?
Landlords won't allow AirBnB, they'll be AirBnB. They'll disallow it for long term tenants, yet always have every vacant unit listed on the site. If they can book it for a week, they'll make what you currently pay for the month's rent. Depending on how well you're located, there's going to be some pressure on your rent.
I wonder if landlords would pay for tool that automatically crawls listings on AirBnB for their property listings, and notifies them when matches are found?
Airbnb would make recognizing that it's your property nontrivial. They don't show a specific address until a reservation is accepted; the point on the map is randomized and can be a few blocks away; photos are supplied by the host and may not match photos the landlord has (if the place is sufficiently well decorated and not distinctive, it may be hard for even a human to determine it's the same place).
If however you licensed some good facial recognition technology, perhaps you could compare the face in the Airbnb host's avatar with that on the ID each of your tenants supplied when applying for an apartment. It would be far from bulletproof, but could get you somewhere. In a less-densely populated place maybe you could even get away with "notify us if someone named Bob offers a new room within 0.5 miles of 622 Cedar St", perhaps hiring low-paid humans to sanity-check the results before passing the notification on to the landlord.
Probably.
I did not think the incentives for landlords through, it seems. I think I agree with you that the market would not find a solution that would practically preserve the right of a renter to AirBnB his or her place.