[afjl]

I think it's highly unlikely...but I'd be very happy to be wrong, too.

These highly-leveraged "new" companies and individuals make up only a portion of AirBnB-rented homes, which themselves are only a small portion of the entire housing market. There was a very recent interview or article with AirBnB's CEO where he (I'm sure he was fudging the numbers a bit) said only 1/3 of AirBNB homes are actually owned by these kinds of speculative home-buyers. The remaining 2/3 are split evenly between traditional real estate leasing companies and homeowners with only 1 house.

Also, worth considering that short-term rentals can easily be transformed back into long-term rentals. In any case, I think a national housing market plunge is highly unlikely.

[CaptainZapp]

> These highly-leveraged "new" companies and individuals make up only a portion of AirBnB-rented homes

That's what AirBnb very much likes you to believe. In my opinion they lie a lot.

> which themselves are only a small portion of the entire housing market.

That really depends on the city. Barcelona, Amsterdam, Prague and other cities were literally killed by AirBnb and by extension by AirBnb slumlords.

> Also, worth considering that short-term rentals can easily be transformed back into long-term rentals.

That maybe true. Then again, if you max out your credit card to speculate on highly leveraged financial products the time window for clean-up may be very short and you may be forced to sell at a very bad price.

I, for one, are really not sorry for this bunch of city killing assholes. For short term financial gains they make life miserable for everybody else.

[IkmoIkmo]

Yes that's of course what the CEO wants to say, because professional airbnb = hotel company not playing by the hotel regulations/license rules, plus it's pushing out locals. So he downplays that and wants to make it seem as if airbnb is majority-driven by mom n pop folk, who make available a free room or their home some of the time to supplement income a bit, harmless.

In reality, a typical person (like me) would rent out their space about 10 days a year, while an airbnb company aims for 365. Could very well be that 2/3rd of listings are average-joes and 1/3rd are professional.

But in terms of nightly stays, it could still be about 20 professional to 1 average-joe. And those nightly stays ultimately reflect the revenue that drives the economics of these properties, airbnb's business and the impact on the local market.

[llamataboot]

1/3 is not a small number in this equation though!

[afjl]

It is a small number compared to the entire housing market.