[Spivak]

Well yes, but also no. I would hope that it's not terribly surprising that just about any property in a major metro area is going to earn more revenue on average as a series of short term rentals than a long-term tenant or sale. I mean that's pretty much the standard trade you make for lots of things. You accept lower rates in exchange for lower risk and more consistent revenue.

Airbnb did a weird thing and proved/facilitated so much demand that landlords realized that listing on Airbnb could net you that increased profit with lower risk since they provide a steady stream of renters changing the risk/reward profile.

So we're left with some awkwardness of people being priced out of their apartments not because of anything evil but because Airbnb et al close that information gap and proved that short-term rentals aren't nearly as risky as landlords thought and that forking over 30% for customer acquisition still works out in their favor.

[randomsearch]

I think you’re leaving out the key aspect of Airbnb’s move, which is to transform a large amount of housing into hotels without appropriate regulation. That’s what enables it to be so profitable.

[Spivak]

Right but that's an orthogonal issue to what the market will pay for a given property. I agree that a lot of the draw of Airbnb is that it's cheaper than hotels but this is the case where the current crop of regulations are harmful since people on Airbnb know exactly what they're getting. The regulations aren't addressing any information/knowledge asymmetry or safety concerns that aren't covered in "this is just some randos house" disclaimer. I'm sure that helps Airbnb's funnel but I doubt the absence of hotel regulations would make the current crop of hotels any cheaper since the regulations are tailor made for what they were doing already. Yayy regulatory capture. Right! Back on topic. But none of this matters because we're not comparing hotels to Airbnb, we're comparing Airbnb to renting or selling which is a different batch of zoning regulations they're skirting.

But that reinforces my point since the reason that city planners zone properties/areas for long-term residential only sans a few excepted hotels is keep the prices down to levels that individuals and families can actually afford because you're only competing with other people in your rough income range and not commercial buyers. So I don't see a contradiction in cities just banning Airbnb like any other commercial activity for that reason but it's all like artificial mannn.

[pintxo]

Also current situation shows there is a 100 year risk that will likely return the average risk of short term renting to the original (pre AirBnB) value. So in a Long enough time frame AirBnB didn‘t change anything?