[RobPfeifer]

I think this is way oversimplifying things. Hotels and apartments are zoned differently and regulated and managed differently. There are negative externalities in apartment buildings for AirBNB hosts that are paid for by their neighbors. Zoning is designed (often poorly!) to do this on a neighborhood level, but not at all to do so on a building by building or apartment by apartment level.

This is regulatory arbitrage for sure by AirBNB and hosts. The answer (theoretically) would be to more granularly undersrand the costs and benefits to all parties and redistribute appropriately. Unfortunately, neither the public or private sector is incentivized to solve this fairly - “competition” won’t solve it. Seems like a case where regulation would be the answer - it’s just unlikely any single city will solve it well, much less all of them.

[sonnyblarney]

I really doubt the significance of the 'cost to the neighbour'. Really is this noise? Because I don't think that's a cost issue so much, nor do I feel hotels are particularly more quiet, or that AirBnB guests are particularly more noisy or rough on property.

I think it's 80% an issue of artificial market distortion due to limitation.

Cities need to rethink this. There is zero negative burden to my neighbourhood if the building I live in happened to be a hotel.

It's time for a rethink.

[jib]

I strongly disagree. In a hotel I can call the reception and get them to deal with noise pretty quickly. In an apartment I’m stuck with no quick recourse if a bunch of assholes use Airbnb to rent out a flat next door to have a weekend of boozing (thank you, group of 7 Irish lads that left a bunch of puke all over my outdoors last month).

[sonnyblarney]

Yes, but regular residents of such a building have the same recourse: i.e. none - and there's little to suggest that AirBnB are truly more raucous than not.

For every 'noisey airbnb' you hear about, there are 1000x regular noisy neighours.

[KozmoNau7]

There is plenty to suggest that short-term renters are less well-behaved, compared to long-term renters.

The most obvious being the length of their stay. People only staying in a place for a week or less tend to not care about the neighborhood, because it's not their neighborhood. They don't have to rub shoulders with the neighbors for years, they don't have to keep a reasonably friendly relationship with them. They're probably never going to meet those people ever again.

Plus these are people on vacation and often on a budget, so a younger demographic, in the attractive part of a city. It can get rowdy.

Of course there are nice short-term renters as well. I go to a 3-day festival at the other end of the country every year, with 5 of my friends. We book with the same person every year, and Airbnb cuts our accomodation costs to less than a third, compared to even the cheapest hotel rooms. But we're all in our 30s and out of the "party until 4 in the morning" phase. We just need a decent place to sleep and eat breakfast.

And we certainly faced scrutiny the first time. 6 people, going to a beer-drinking headbanging metal festival? Yeah, that sounds sketchy and I absolutely understand their initial skepticism. But we had a personal connection who could vouch for us. This is also an apartment where the guy actually lives, he just stays over at his girlfriend's place whenever he rents it out. It wasn't bought specifically to rent it out.

And I've heard some real horror stories from friends, who did rent out through Airbnb and they all say "never again!". As do everyone in the condo building I live in, we've banned all short-term rental after a few nasty experiences.

E: Actually a law just passed here, limiting short-term rentals to 70 days per year maximum. I think that's a decent way to do it.

[sonnyblarney]

"There is plenty to suggest that short-term renters are less well-behaved, compared to long-term renters. The most obvious being the length of their stay."

That's not obvious at all. It's a hint but not evidence.

[KozmoNau7]

It is very clearly shown through people's experience when sharing a building with short-term renters, especially in desirable parts of cities.