[tptacek]

This is a lot of words for a question that seems like it has a simple answer. Whatever the difference is between being an "Airbnb superhost" and maintaining a license to operate a bed and breakfast out of your property, that's the "sketchiness" quotient we're talking about.

[mrgordon]

In many cases you cannot get a license to operate a bed and breakfast out of your property because they issue very few licenses and require various things like serving breakfast which most hosts don't do.

That doesn't make vacation rentals inherently sketchy. It just means that technology has enabled a different solution for the problem then was possible before and now cities will work out to what degree they will embrace it versus trying to regulate it out of existence. Don't get me wrong, I think certain aspects need to be strictly regulated but requiring tons of red tape to rent your apartment out once a year while you go abroad is not the long term solution and is a waste of usable space.

I think in the future people will laugh at how byzantine the laws were to rent out an apartment. Especially in these cities where the hotels are filled up and now people will just leave their apartments empty instead of accommodating people.

[tptacek]

Then, there you go, that's part of the sketchiness of Airbnb: a public policy decision was made to limit the number of short-term rental places (hotels, b-n-b's, etc), and part of what Airbnb is doing is simply overriding that by overwhelming the enforcement capabilities of cities.

[dorchadas]

Exactly. And it's definitely contributing to the housing crises in some cities. People would rather buy apartments/houses and put them on AirBnB, instead of renting them out to the people who work and need to live in the city. I know it's definitely part of the issue in Ireland, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the case elsewhere as well.

[JamesBarney]

Is there any data on this? I just can't imagine the market is that large, except in the smallest of town with the largest of tourist attractions.

I mean most large cities have hundreds of thousands to millions of people. I just can't imagine Airbnb would even be 1% of available properties.