[orthoganol]

The thing we need precaution against is AirBnB hosts who've turned renting out apartments into full fledged businesses. Because in my experience when someone doesn't actually live in the apartment, quality drops and there's no actual home-iness. One exchange: "Is this a mattress? Is it not just a box spring?" "I'm sorry you don't enjoy this type of mattress... For this price point for this rental, this is what you can expect."

As far as full apartments go, I'd seriously like to meet one AirBnB host in Japan or China (the main places I've used it) who aren't part of AirBnB based businesses, just 1 person who is actually sharing their home while they're away for a bit, or whatever AirBnB claims it's all about.

This is the giant elephant in the room about AirBnB, and I doubt they're ever going to discuss it publicly.

[JohnTHaller]

The majority of AirBnB rentals in NYC are "entire place", or at least they were when it was easier to compare available numbers. This despite the fact that renting out your entire place when you're not there is illegal in NYC unless you've specifically been licensed as a bed and breakfast. Not just illegal as in 'violating your lease' (the majority of AirBnb) but illegal as in a violation of the law. Interestingly, AirBnB's NYC commercials only highlight the private room with the family also present since they own the place aspect - which is a very small portion of AirBnB's NYC business.

[dferlemann]

In China, many people invest their money in properties. So, you would have a well-off household owns more and more apartments just for safekeeping. I would imagine it's a good opportunity for AirBnB type of services to thrive. At the same time, a lot of Chinese are quite distrusting of unknown person for good reasons. Renting out their own place with all their belongings can just be asking for trouble.

Japan on another hand, might be doing a better job welcoming guest to stay over their own home. I wouldn't know though.