On: Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras

[unethical_ban]

Almost like Uber was marketed, AirBnB was not initially sold as a "make primary income off this". It was a way for people with excess assets (spare car and some time, spare room in a big house, etc) to make some money and the companies were the broker.

Turning Airbnb into a full-blown rental market with people and LLCs buying houses just for AirBnB was the downfall. At least, that's my interpretation.

[wodenokoto → unethical_ban]

You got it the wrong way around. The goal for both was to offer full time incomes and compete with taxis/hotels.

The “offer a spare room” and “pick up someone going the same way as you” narratives were about skirting regulations.

[mlrtime → unethical_ban]

I think Paris tried to curb this buy allowing Airbnb, but you can only rent out max 50% of the year. This makes it so local owners can make some money, but corporations wouldn't be able to get the yield they need at 50% occupancy.

[kshacker → mlrtime]

And did it work?

I ask because corporates usually figure out how to use the rules to their advantage and I am now trying to sniff through how they would play this.

[saywhanow → kshacker]

Can I buy a property, rent it out for six months, then re-sell it to this other, totally independent corporation I own?

This seems both obvious and difficult to prevent.

[xyzzy123 → saywhanow]

Usually there are large and unavoidable transaction costs involved in selling/buying properties. It's a liquidity event on a large amount of capital so it's pretty much inevitable that government want to get involved with taxes, duties, fees etc.

[RussianCow → kshacker]

Yeah, doesn't this just end up increasing short term rental prices across the board? It's not like there is a shortage of demand for lodging in Paris.