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by asdff 1216 days ago
I think it suffered from a cobra problem to an extent. Airbnb was saying "rent out your spare square footage on the side for some beer money" and that model worked fine for a time. People would rent out a room for $50 a night and that would be great for them, because it was $50 they didn't have before that they wouldn't have made otherwise, and it was great for guests because it meant they could pay $50 and not be in a smoky motel.

Now we have people breeding cobras instead of being paid for cobras they already have so to speak. You have people building entire apartments with plans to put the entire thing on airbnb. Suddenly $50 a night doesn't cut it when you have a huge loan to pay off on that build, then if enough people in the market are operating like this prices just go up and up just like the wider landlord rental market (relative to the polite couple renting a backroom for way under market rate market, perhaps). You have people buying property and renovating it just to justify higher rental income, which only serves to feed the beast without creating any new supply in the market of course.