from here
what_next wrote:
And regarding airbnb it is about time we get rid of these parasites.
Local law should be enforced and they would have no business. Subrenting is prohibited in most rental contracts and many local laws re hosting tourists also prohibit what AirBnB is doing without a license. It is time that law enforcement looks at this and stops this or forces people to pay taxes and licenses.
I would never use them again, even though the only time we did on my wife’s insistance, it was not bad. But normally Booking or Trivago are much better value for the money and at least they are legal.
It really depends. I have a second appartment in Munich which i also use as my office – and if I would decide, every now and then, to offer it through airbnb I’d rather not be called a “parasite”. I have not done it yet, so it’s empty most of the time, or used by pilots I know – but I know that it is absolutely legal to offer one room through airbnb,
Alexis wrote:
I’d rather not be called a “parasite”.
The company airbnb is the parasite to make that clear. With almost zero investment they generate huge income though “gentrification”. People who rent or sub-rent their appartments through airbnb must look in the mirror and decide for themselves what they want to be called.
It’s the market working though. Obviously people have always wanted to do this but previously there was no practical way to advertise it.
I have stayed in loads of AirB&B apartments where the people are away for the weekend, so they lock up their personal stuff and rent it out and get a few hundred € for doing nothing more than chuck the bedsheets into a washing machine when they come back. And why not? I’d say most city apartments were in this category… I would never do it but enough people are OK with the risk, and can use the money.
I have never rented just a room – no point in paying so little for a short stay.
cases where social housing is being sublet to tourists
It tends to become known when a big apartment block burns down…
Peter wrote:
Obviously people have always wanted to do this but previously there was no practical way to advertise it.
There have always been non-commercial portals for as long as the interenet exists. My sister used to alternate between two university jobs in 3-month intervals and she would always sub-rent the appartment she wasn’t using long before airbnb claimed to have invented that wheel. However she did not make any profit from that and she would always rent it to students and university staff for a minimum of one month.
And concepts like “house swapping” and “house sitting” were popular in the States decades before the internet – so there must have been established communication channels for that.
Peter wrote:
… apartments where the people are away for the weekend, so they lock up their personal stuff and rent it out …
I would say that’s absolutely legitimate and nobody objects to this kind of sub-renting. As long as the owners/primary renters really live there themselves for the best part of the year. But this is not what we see around here, at least not in the major cities and tourist centres.
I wonder what’s so immoral about that business idea?
It IS problematic in places where there are real housinng problems, like in Munich. And there are clear rules by the city what’s okay and what is not. For example I can always and without a problem rent the 2nd room in my office. What’s not ok is to buy appartments for the sole purpose to offer them on airbnb. I am absoultely against that, just like i don’t like Uber.
Alexis wrote:
I wonder what’s so immoral about that business idea?
It is against Paragraph 14 of our constitution (“Eigentum verpflichtet”). In other countries which do not have such laws it might be different. As long as companies like airbnb and uber do not violate the laws of the countries they operate in they can do what they want.
As airbnb rentals are not regulated by such things as fire inspections I would never use them. Booking.com works for me – or the booking sites of the major chains.
However she did not make any profit from that
That is however not sustainable. In the long run you cannot run a deficit because you will go bust. So you have to aim for a surplus (same for an aeroclub, etc). And almost nobody will run an advertising site for nothing. It’s a lot of work, especially dealing with the public.
What I don’t like is the likes of booking.com taking such a large % and this creates what is obviously a love/hate relationship between them and the hotels or properties they advertise. But they do a competent job in return. The reviews are normally valuable because they are posted only by those who actually stayed, which is important nowadays when there are firms who write fake reviews by the thousand. And if you book via these sites, they have to be much more careful than if you book directly, because you might give them a bad review… you lose that option if you book directly.
Another reason you have to run a surplus is because some tenants trash the place – especially students 
When I was a student (University of Sussex) I saw many places trashed by drunken parties and people puking all over the place. The consequence was that the landlords (“hosts”) were sometimes quite aggressive or even dishonest in claiming some damage was not pre-existing.
Well, sometimes they were right. One apartment I had for a year was returned in pristine condition. What he didn’t discover for years, if ever, was that a tree in the garden was filled with about 10,000 air rifle pellets 
As airbnb rentals are not regulated by such things as fire inspections I would never use them
Yet, people are expected to live in them the other 5 days…. I’d say there is something wrong with the building regulations and their enforcement. There is no fundamental difference between a city block with 500 residents (some on airb&b) and a hotel with 500 residents. Both types of residents are similarly likely to have a fag in bed, etc…
Perhaps the moral of the story there is that if you get a 2 bedroom apartment in Paris, Brussels or Athens on airb&b for €30/night, it may be “interesting” I would never look for an apartment for less than the price of a single hotel room, say €100-150, and then you get generally nice places.
What’s not ok is to buy appartments for the sole purpose to offer them on airbnb
How do you propose to stop it? You would have to make it illegal to own more than one property. AIUI, in Japan they don’t allow you to buy a car unless you can show you have a parking spot. That level of control would be difficult to operate in Europe which is supposed to be “free”.
Peter wrote:
Both types of residents are similarly likely to have a fag in bed, etc…
But the hotel is more likely to have clearly marked escape routes, will certainly have smoke detectors and often sprinklers as well.
