Air BNB Should be Banned

[antelopevalley]

This started off as a lovely idea. A way for people to rent a spare room and show people around their home town.

It has since turned into a way for people to make money without adhering to the minimum legal standards that proper holiday accommodation has to meet. Even basic health and safety standards such as smoke alarms do not have to be met.

And it has created chaos, reducing the amount of accommodation for families to rent, pushing up prices, and hollowing out tourist destinations turning them into a Disneyland where few people live.

A ban would mean that anyone wanting to rent out holiday accommodation would have to do it properly. People doing it well could remain running their business but the amateurs who haven't a clue what they are doing would leave the market.

I've personally only stayed in spare rooms, and love doing that. I'm able to use the kitchen, have a bit of company if the owner and I get on, find out a bit about the area, see inside some lovely houses, some very historic and the money I pay helps people pay their mortgage, some of the people I've stayed with have been self employed or retired so very helpful for them.
As a single person renting a flat would not be worth it

It’s not just a problem in the UK with AirBnB lettings displacing locals who want to rent long term, but in other countries too eg. Australia and popular US and Canadian cities. It’s actually illegal for Singaporeans to let their (entire) properties out on AirBnB and similar platforms.

I was tempted to book holiday homes on AirBnB and VRBO when I lived in the USA but ultimately was put off by having to pay cleaning fees of around $100 even if I only wanted to stay a night or two and it was ultimately cheaper to stay in hotels.

The business model is becoming far less attractive in the States right now - not just for hosts because of oversupply their bookings are declining. There is a discussion about the AirBnB “bubble” popularity and feasibility of short term rentals likely to burst with:

#AirBnBust on Twitter and TikTok

www.Reddit.com has an AirBnBust forum

#AirBnBust on Facebook

YouTube - lots of videos if you search for “AirBnBust”

In the UK I think that under lockdown and overseas travel wasn’t allowed, people wanted the security of avoiding Covid by staying in holiday homes and suddenly it became extremely profitable to become an AirBnB host with no shortage of bookings.

However, we can now travel overseas again and stay in resort hotels if we want and many singles, couples and families have resumed their usual holidays with Jet2, Tui, Trailfinders, Crystal Ski Holidays or sort out their own flights and accommodation etc. UK holidays are not quite so attractive due to our unreliable climate. AirBnB is attractive for short breaks and probably will continue to be popular year round for cities such as London, Bath, Edinburgh, Oxford etc. but oversupply is problematic for hosts and a disaster for people who need long term rentals., especially so in the coastal town where I live.

As usual its the wrong focus. All these people getting het up about self catering places (many of which couldnt even be used for long term housing as they're things like shepherds huts and the like, the focus should be government building and maintaining proper affordable housing (not what they currently call affordable)

Its much easier to attack holiday makers and second home owners.

Air BnB is pretty much now just a holiday let company. Therefore, normal holiday let rules and legalities should be applied to them.

No one should be able to,rent out accommodation that doesn't meet simple legal guidelines such as smoke alarms, H&S regs met, etc.

I've never actually used AirBnB as have been concerned about what happens if the let goes wrong whilst there or before/after, and how much protection you have.

Dd has used them a lot abroad as it's been cheaper and so far she's been lucky with her choices. But says, based on her friends experiences, some accommodation can be a bit ropey and not all of the owners seem very genuine.

You could still do that. Lots of regulated holiday let companies out there. Now AirBnB is predominately a holiday let company it should all be regulated in the same way.

Banning things that others find useful isn't going to happen.

If you're interested in this matter, there was a Private Member's Bill put forward by Rachel Maskell (MP for York) that proposed licensing short term accommodation and giving local authorities more control over them. I believe the Bill is still live, though they don't usually get enough time to pass all the required stages. You could write to your MP and urge them to support it, or to urge the government to sponsor a similar bill.

For most families 6 months is not enough stability. And also it's astronomically expensive. That's precisely why people let out their flats via air BnB - it's more lucrative than renting it as a landlord.

There is no regulation for holiday lets in the UK, nor for companies providing them. There are building regulations which apply to all properties, also specific commercial guidance for things like hot tubs but no actual specific regulations for holiday lets. You are totally wrong to say Air BnB is unregulated but other companies are- it is simply not true.

That is interesting. Because I have never been to a proper holiday cottage let in iter ways that does not meet basic safety standards. I have with air bnb including one with five star reviews described as luxury - was it fuck. I will no longer use air bnb. Safety is a basic minimum standard.

It is not true that other holiday let companies are regulated- they aren't. There is no UK regulation for minimum standards apart from building regs which apply to all properties.

I'm sort of in agreement. Majorca banned Airbnb a few years back and it was the best thing ever for the island. So many wealthy people were buying up all the houses on the island and letting them on Airbnb, which pushed the house prices up etc, and then local people couldn't afford to buy and it was a really big crisis. They banned it completely, and even though people do still let out their homes on the sly, it's pretty rare.
That said, its provided us with plenty of cheap(er) holidays to places in the uk in particular and we've spent money in local restaurants/shops etc which is good for their local economy.

Instead of trying to ban AirBnb, why not push for better laws and regulations for all holiday accommodations including hotels being held to a higher standards. Simply banning one company among many solves nothing.

Airbnb is different as it encourages total amateurs to enter the market. That is the difference.

Anybody can put their property on booking.com, VRBO, Trip Adviser etc. An 'amateur' could just as easily list on any Internet agent as Air BnB.

There is a huge misconception amongst the general public about Air BnB being somehow different to any other marketing platform. They are actually theist draconian with owners of any other platform I list on.

I'm currently staying in an anne

@Movinghouseatlast But people do not. Whereas air bnb market people encouraging them to enter the market for the first time. The perception is based on air bnbs own marketing.

And most cottage sites insist properties meet minimum standards.

I'm currently staying in an AirBnB next to the owner's farmhouse as I work away/remotely as a contractor.
Whilst I wholeheartedly disagree with the saturation of holiday lets in regions like Cornwall and Skye, which have hollowed out the local communities, I'd also say these communities were changing anyway. Local young people tend to migrate to where the work is. Take Portland as an example. Twenty years ago it was pretty bleak and it had a reputation of Portlanders never leaving the island unless they needed to buy new shoes. Young people were leaving for Poole and Bournemouth, or even New Zealand in their droves. The 2012 Olympics and some nifty regeneration has turned it into an artist's community and better WiFi has made remote working and small online businesses more possible. It means that many of the historic fisherman and quarryman cottages are being restored to a good standard. Most Weymouth people won't touch Portland so it takes outsiders to bring it to life. There are now more food shops and cafés on the island.
So AirBnB isn't all bad. It's the second homes that are left vacant that is a travesty.
I prefer a real home away from home as I like to cook and open actual windows, rather than being penned in an overheated Premier Inn with only burgers and chips on offer.

They don't. Where do you get this from? I advertise on 7 platforms and none of them do.

I also used to be with a traditional holiday cottage agency and they didn't either.

It is up to the individual owner to comply with any legislation or guidance. Hence why Sykes Cottages etc trot out the 'we are just a marketing agency' if there is a problem with a property.

I'm not saying it's right- I'm all for licencing and registration as some owners are not great. However saying its just an Air BnB 'problem' is factually incorrect.

Can you explain how it encourages total amateurs, and what measures other holiday letting sites have in place to prevent "total amateurs" advertising a property?

When we bought our gites in France we were "total amateurs", but in order to get bookings and generate income we needed to advertise the properties. We did this on a variety of sites, including Airbnb. None of the other sites contacted us to say "wait a minute, you seem like total amateurs at this game, please go away".

The holiday letting companies want your subscription fees/a portion of your rental income - simple as that.

As @Movinghouseatlast has said, anyone can advertise their property on a huge variety of sites, the singling out of Airbnb is just unnecessary.

Paris has done something similar to this too.
In our previous apartment, the apartment next door was briefly used as a holiday let - AirBnB or something like that and it was absolutely obnoxious. People coming and going at all hours of the day and night, making enormous amounts of noise, people mistaking the side the apartment was on and trying to get into ours, drunks screaming and yelling, people abusing the interphone system (pressing the buzzer for minutes on end[. These people had no investment in our building, they didn't care about anyone else who lived there.
The system definitely needs regulations. Strict ones.

And you would be happy if the house next door was a party pad rented out to half a dozen youngsters every night, loud music all through the night, screaming and shouting in the garden, vomit and broken bottles on your doorstep ? Not everyone who rents AirBnB naice people, they are very popular with young adults who still live at home.

This is really interesting. I don’t use Air bnb myself as it’s so arbitrary whether you’ll get nice, helpful owners or someone really unreasonable, with ridiculous demands/ expectations.

Id rather pay a bit more for my holiday than to get there and find I’m expected to spring clean the building before a 9 am checkout, despite paying a hefty cleaning fee. Or that there are no bins, and I have to drive to the tip on my holidays.

Reading this, it seems like it’s a good platform to continue for renting rooms within your own house, but that any whole property lets ought to be properly regulated.

As someone with three kids, what Airbnb did was highlight the GAPING hole in the market for child friendly accommodation. Hotels are impossible and impractical with kids.
No, I don't want my kids to share a bed,
Yes, I want a fridge so we can eat breakfast early,
Yes, I want to watch tv and talk to my husband after my kids go to bed.
Yes, I want a holiday too.

Why don't hotels fill this gap!!? They must know families want realistic hotel experiences too?