Short Term Rentals and Air BN B's

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2016 19:33:27 GMT bixaorellana said:

Really, New Orleans has been speculated to death since the 70s. Real estate agents would report to the city such things such as roofs in bad repair. Then they'd wait for the property owner -- generally an old lady who was living in her old family home -- to get the citation from the city with the attendant estimations for repair. Then they'd swoop in and offer some lowball figure. Often the old lady, knowing her old shotgun house had been built for a few thousand dollars, would see the realtor's offer as riches untold. Little did she suspect that she couldn't buy anything the least bit comparable for that offer.

Spot on.
Added to that, the "clouded titles" which made/make for developers/speculators to find a way to acquire houses and other properties, mostly uninhabited along with empty lots long neglected.
It has gone on for years but, really has accelerated and the unfortunate family members who are entitled to this property don't "have a leg to stand on" and challenge.

Again, GREED.

[whatagain]

What bothers me is the lack of respect.
No respect from renters as to neigbours and laws.
No respect from owners as to neighbours laws taxes and safety.

I have been I some apartments in Paris. Most were small (I wanted to keep the price to 100 eur).
They were mostly illegal - in the sense that i had to request an invoice and got the number 5 or even 2 in July ...
They were not local. They were refurbished in modern style wit the precious AC. Nobody lives there so what about living like a local ?

But the worst is safety. I sleep in hotels expecting electricity to be complying to rules.
In illegal apt with old gas heaters ?

I slept once in a n&b in the wild and there was a fire in her chimney. We could have died by monocarbon ingestion...

And I xcannot have no sympathy for owners who bought apt to convert into illegal yearly short term rentals and now face a thread of reduced revenue or fines.

[rikita]

this was in the newspaper i read, if anyone wants to read german: www.taz.de/Airbnb-Wohnungen-in-Berlin/!5362240/

the new laws led to a decrease of airbnb offers in berlin but it is going up again and the owners are finding tricks to get around the rules - like, you can rent out a place if you occupy fifty percent of it yourself, so instead of living in one apartment and renting out another, they take out walls to make it one big apartment of which they rent out a part ... also, if someone does rent out illegally, it is not always easy to find out, and then it takes quite a while for the whole process to make them stop and to get them to pay a fine ... the airbnb user with the highest amount of offers has 18 flats he rents out ... also, if you rent out places for two months at a time, they don't fall under the new laws, but also don't fall under the laws regulating normal rent prices ...

[chexbres]

I don't understand why anybody would blindly book an apartment - especially in a very old building - believing that everybody enjoys the same standards of living that they do wherever they live.
There are never enough electrical outlets, so everybody has extension cords all over the place. If too many appliances like washer/dryers/dishwashers are added, the pipes can't always accommodate the load - especially if people insist on running things at the same time. Sometimes a "sanibroyeur" toilet has been installed - which operates electrically and can't handle anything other than human waste. Hot water heaters don't always produce enough for more than 2 people. Refrigerators don't work on the same system - continually shutting off to defrost. Radiateurs can be faulty, electric heaters often overheat.
Not to mention the fact that nobody I know keeps fire extinguishers around, has a fire escape or has even bothered to install the one required smoke detector for his apartment.

But I guess tourists have been spoon-fed the stories about how important the "atmosphere" and the "quaint" factor are - and just disregard the lumpy mattresses, small space and other inconveniences of staying in a "real" apartment for a few days.

I rented 8 apartments before I bought my own. These were apartments lived in by residents, and who didn't make any effort to make them look like hotel rooms. Nothing ever worked, there were armies of mice, fuses blew all the time, the water pressure was minimal - and the owners didn't care. In 2007 and 2008, this was all that was available, and though many individuals and corporations have wised up and made an effort to make their apartments look more like hotel rooms, most of them have left things in an unsafe state of affairs.

I don't understand why anyone would allow his family - especially young children and the elderly - to stay in a place which can't meet the basic codes for safety and sanitation.

[rikita]

um ... because money? and because as you said, standards vary, so not everyone has that high a standard when booking, or needs washers, dryers and dishwashers in a holiday apartment (you don't really get those in hotels either), and because in some countries you don't even have any other choice, and because you have no choice but book blindly if you are not there yet before you need the place ...

while i agree that airbnb brings a lot of problems to the local housing markets, it is convenient when traveling. i used it in italy last year and in romania this year - and yeah, standards varied, not all beds were that great, but we could not have been able to afford italy otherwise and even in romania the hotel rooms we would have been able to afford would have had a bed and a table next to it, that's it, so no chance to sit and chat while the child is sleeping, no space for her to play - while in some of the airbnb places we had a kitchen or balcony to hang out once she is a sleep, lots of floor space, in one place we had a garden to our disposal - and yes, atmosphere, at least to me, is important, too ...

well, and even for longer stays - i blindly booked my room in peru (not through airbnb, but from a friend of someone i knew from a language exchange site) - though i suppose this was something you do as a student, not later, as it was a completely bare room in an old house, there was a communal shower (only cold water), though i was allowed to use the owners shower (warm water if it was a very thin trickle), communal bathroom, i had to nail something in front of my door to keep the rats out, they realized i needed at least a bed and organized one for me when i arrived at 5 a.m. in the morning, there was one electric outlet in the room ... and i remember my time there quite fondly, though it was a bit tough to get used to at first ...

[bjd]

I agree with Rikita -- it's both a question of money and a desire to be in a place that is not just a hotel room. There is a question of expectations too. If I rent a place for a vacation, I don't expect a washer/dryer/dishwasher. Just somewhere to make breakfast or a quick meal rather than always going to a restaurant.

I have only rented Airbnb twice. Both were very good (one in Leipzig, one in Bayonne) -- both times it was the owner's house, in the second case the owner would go stay with relatives while the house was rented. I have however rented places blindly -- some were pretty awful, like in Ukraine, others were fine -- in Krakow, Poland. The bad places make for funny stories afterwards.

[mich64]

We recently booked a villa in Costa Rica with another couple for a holiday in February 2017. She and I did research and when we found the one we both liked, I sent messages via Trip Advisor messenger. I asked the same questions of each and received responses that also included some words of advice. Our friends have been to the region before and have rented on previous trips and were very happy with their selected accommodations.

Then this week I began planning our holiday to Italy in September 2017. We arrive in Venice for 3 nights and I have spent months on hotel sites. I happened to select apartments on one site and found some interesting choices. I again sent out messages and one of them I received back was full of pictures of the apartment and links to other places they have stayed in Venice and a link to their travel blog. They have also been very helpful with arrival advice.

[Deleted]

Good news from Airbnb:

techcrunch.com/2017/01/29/airbnb-free-housing-immigration-ban/