[chrstphrhrt]

Hoarding shelter should be outlawed anyway. Or hotel licenses should be required with massive fines for evasion. Get a real job "hosts" (a disturbing doublespeak term for parasite).

The original evolution of couch surfing that Airbnb started with was still cool and I like to be able to let my apartment when out of town. It's the rent seeking behaviour that distorts the housing market.

[supernovae]

How are they hoarding? Why call them parasites? More people still rent out houses for long term (as investments) than STR and really, with no data to back up your claims and attacking people for creating something others demand seems... misguided.

A lot of STR's are homes that have always been second homes or homes that would never have full occupancy in cities they occupy. They're homes that bring skiers to mountains, friends and family to beach, loved ones to touristy areas.

They create lots of revenue, jobs and the impact in their local economies is huge - from property managers to cleaning services to Lowes/Homedepot/Ikea spend to tax revenue (VRBO does collect occupancy tax where required) to working with cities for legal operations.

I'd say STR owners are just people who invested and make money through other means of hard work (and risk - such as now). The "disturbing" people are the ones like yourself who can't fathom there are millions of people who work in the STR travel industry either directly or indirectly and you seem to hate them. Most STR owners still hold their day jobs and just want to share their house (and the burden).

[biztos]

I’m not downvoting, but you do realize that subletting while out of town is both rent-seeking and distorting the hotel market, right?

[chrstphrhrt]

If it's your primary residence that you live in for e.g. 80% of the year and you swap with other primary residences or actually stay in normal hotels when travelling, I can't see any distortion there.

Not trying to apologize for hosts or hotels in particular, I just feel like primary residence swapping is pretty harmless. Also, if hotel licenses are required, how is adding more hotels distorting the hotel market other than adding a tiny amount of fair and regulated competition?

[chrstphrhrt]

Nice downvotes, found the sycophant Airbnb managers who just fired everyone :)