| If you don’t like a law or regulation, and so you lie about or misrepresent something to get around the law or regulation, that makes you sketchy and possibly undeserving of trust or business operation privileges. You can vote to change the laws or regulations, speak out about them to convince others to do the same, lobby Congress, etc., all while not operating outside of the law in the meantime. It’s absurd to defend the property owners who are doing this, as if a city having suboptimal regulatory policy just means free reign to violate the law or fraudulently avoid regulations. > “Meanwhile the same people will instead now go to Craigslist or a local equivalent and rent out 50 properties without the need to create any accounts or earn superhost status. They won't report that income, it won't be taxed, and they probably won't have a legitimate business. Somehow this is a win.” No. This is a ludicrous counterfactual to compare to. Operating a huge ring of short stay rental units is not just automatically profitable or worthwhile. There isn’t just huge liquid supply of renters willing to do it through some untrusted Craigslist contact, not at all. It is specifically the Airbnb certification and the tacit endorsement that comes with being part of a mainstream booking platform that makes it attractive for someome to pay to operate a ring of units like this skirting city regulations. This is only enabled by the platform, which is why it is the right point at which to enforce regulations. The more likely counterfactual is that those units would have been purchased either by people intending to live in them full time, or landlords looking for standard leasing opportunities for longterm tenants, both of which might be a net more productive use for the city overall. |
And who is to decide what is more productive? If you happen to think that I'm the less productive, because I guess "reasons", them I'm to be kicked out from a city?
Also, the issue is with cities limiting supply of housing.