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by colinmhayes 1401 days ago
There's nothing wrong with airbnbs. The problem is that airbnbs increase the demand for housing while local governments make it impossible to build new housing. Let supply follow demand.

This is like saying "uber increased dmeand for cars and that made cars expensive". No, the car companies just built more cars. We need to build more homes.

1 comments

I mean sure. But land is limited. If you really want to build more homes you're going to have to bulldoze entire neighborhoods of single-family homes in places like Phoenix. Which is fine with me, I prefer a denser place, but I'm guessing that'd be a non-starter. And many places have sprawled so far that unless we densify it's not really all that helpful to keep carving out desert or farmland depending on where you live.

So I think there is a problem with AirBNBs. Even discounting quality of life issues that they can create for people actually living near them, they take a valuable resource for locals and turn them into pure investment plays that stay empty long stretches of time. Death to Nimbys generally, but I think you could get them on the same page as housing advocates if you went after short-term rentals.