[noduerme]

It's not just your city. It's happening everywhere. I'm a homeowner and I absolutely hate it. It destroys daily life and livability. I would never rent my house on it - or, frankly, to anyone who wasn't like me and wanted to stay a long time and live there and respect the place. People see a quick buck and take it, and don't give a shit, but they're driving their own property values down.

[edit] What I mean is, I don't see it as really accruing value for landowners either. I see a lot of short-sighted landowners making money from a system that is going to drive them to ruin in the long term when there is no functional city left in the place they own their property... ultimately the only people who profit from flipping the geography of a city into a hotel are airbnb investors and absentee landlords in the short run.

[nojito]

>but they're driving their own property values down.

Property values don't matter when I get a return of 2-4x my mortage by using AirBnB.

The income you are able to generate through AirBnB is very enticing.

[noduerme]

So is the income you can generate by letting an oil company come frack on your ranch, but it's still pretty shortsighted.

[nojito]

My neighbors don't care so how is that comparison applicable?

[pastacacioepepe]

I see yes, in the long term it might even be harmful for landlords.

[noduerme]

Here at least in Portland, we sort of differentiate between people who live in the houses they own, versus people or companies who own property for speculation/rent collection. Most of the homeowners I know are simply happy to finally own a place they live in and stop paying rent.

It's still somewhat possible here; for example, last month, a friend who's a 42 year old bartender and just had a baby finally bought a house only about 30 blocks east (east is cheaper); if he'd had enough money for a down payment 5 years ago we would be living on the same block. I make about twice as much as he does. I want him to be living on my block. That's the kind of city that I want to live in, that's why people want to live in Portland in the first place. That's why I decided to buy my house here.

Airbnb is extremely corrosive to a "working city" environment where people of different social / income classes are able to live and work in the same neighborhoods, because it encourages petit homeowners like me to take a paycheck to abandon our properties so the hoteliers extract rent. Yet it's exactly the mixture of working class life which made Airbnb's most attractive tourist cities like Madrid and Lisbon, Portland and Amsterdam so popular with tourists.

IMHO Airbnb is a blight for landlords and renters and there's a very good argument to be made that no property outside a city-bonded hotel should be rented for less than 3-6 months. I said this about taxis not being driven by civilians back when I was a cab driver and Uber showed up, so, I can see I'm on the wrong side of history...