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Anyone else find that Airbnb costs way more than a hotel 90% of the time?

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good, fuck airbnb

Airbnb costs are so ridiculous now it’s not even worth it.

It’s really only going to be used soon for vacation places and group house rentals. For 1-2 people Airbnb is a joke

Absolutely, you end up paying more for no service and often a uncomfortable room. Exorbitant cleaning fees for varying states of cleanliness and customer support. The only instances where I book with them are for unique accommodations or group trips when we enjoy cooking and the extra space. I use the platform to research smaller, independent establishments and try to book direct with them - more often then not they have their own alternate booking platform.

After having my Airbnb robbed in Paris and my flat in Sitges have no running water for two days, I’ve gone back to hotels.

oh hell yeah

Hotels are now way cheaper than Airbnbs. Only reason I could see to go the AirBnb/VRBO route is if you have pets you want to bring along or a large family you want in one location.

If you're comparing a single hotel room to an Airbnb, the hotel wins out in almost all circumstances.

Airbnb can sometimes win out if it's a group of people and you're comparing like 3-4 hotel rooms to 1 Airbnb rental.

it’s a $70B company lol

another example of a small vocal minority online not representing how most people think and act

Hotel’s are back to being trendy. It was fun while is lasted, Airbnb.

Still had the opposite experience, Airbnb is usually cheaper at most they’re about the same price which I book based on amenities at that point.

Market cap isn’t 70b. At least come with correct stats if you aim to make a point. It’s 60b and shares have plummeted over 50% this year. It is indeed dying.

The Hilton Hotels is using that in their ads 😭

They should be 100% banned.

The issue is that its valued like a tech company, which is not the business its in. And its comparable businesses are not valued the same. And they are clearly on the decline.

One of the big things they had going for them early was the cost was wildly competitive to hotels and other lodging but that advantage has dried up, because the company needs to like, actually make money, and people doing AirBnBs became professional AirBnBers and that was never the intention and its pushed rates higher.

Most things plummeted

yeah that explains their record Q3 quarter. made more money that at any point in their history

Back in the day, I used it as a cheaper alternative to hotels, especially because I traveled solo a lot. Now? I haven’t used it in years. I used VRBO over the summer and it was fine (VERY expensive) but I got something (a deck with a private pool) I wanted that I couldn’t find at hotels in the area. I don’t feel like dealing with the hassle and BS of air b&b, I just use hotels.

Its just fuckery with their finances. Those margins between net revenue vs net income are so high that there's no chance that it came from actual business but from screwing around with finance stuff.

I loved that WSJ article where they showed not only all the extra fees added onto an Airbnb bill but the surprise chore list from the homeowners, e.g. scrub the bathtub before you leave.

I think AirBnB is just changing. It's no longer the default cheap getaway option. But if you have a big group? AirBnB is probably still the best option. Hotels still make it weirdly difficult at times if you need multiple beds. It's also great for longer-term stays too.

While you may need to put in a bit more work to find good prices they're still out there. It's not like every listing is gouging you. It's dependent by owner.

They're a victim of the same thing that happened to Uber and other '10s tech companies: the VC money dried up. Now they need to make a profit.

I also saw a very compelling insight recently that resonated with me: "Airbnb's core user base grew up and can now more easily afford hotels." When I was a young 20-something, I liked staying in Airbnb home shares on European vacations. But now as a 30-something, I prefer a higher level of comfort and cleanliness.

I'd love to see some incentive for guests to report violations. Like refunded stays and coverage for moving to a last-minute hotel.

At that point shouldn't you be comparing a suite to an airbnb?

Good, next they should actually regulate rents.

You’re just saying words you don’t understand

Unless it's a group trip, there's no reason for AirBnB. Even on groups I'll sometimes stay in a hotel instead. At least with a hotel, I can leave my bags with their bellman and start the vacation if the room isn't ready.

I travel solo a lot. For shorter trips, I prefer hotels-if it’s an early checkout or you get there early, you can leave your stuff at the front desk, use that bathroom. Get advice from the concierge. Also hotels generally have way more flexible cancelation policies. I prefer Airbnb when I am doing a longer term stay. Usually the rates go way down, and I’ll message the owner directly to negotiate. During the pandemic I rented a whole beach house off season for 6 weeks and it was way cheaper than a hotel would have been. Also-once you establish a good relationship with a host, you can usually deal with them directly and leave Airbnb out.

Why not just abolish rent control? Get rid of all non price mechanisms and let developers build. No more restrictive zoning.

It seems excessive to the point that they may as well have just banned Airbnb and similar sites from the city entirely, that'd be a hell of a lot easier to monitor.

Hotels are cheaper half the time

I think most suites don’t have multiple bedrooms.

Two normal rooms will be cheaper than a two bed suite normally.

Do not support Airbnb. Do not give them your money.

To be fair, local taxes can be 10-15+% before all the Airbnb fees are added.

What’s your alternative for a similar experience?

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Hotels should be cheaper because you get less for your money it's a tiny studio apartment except with no kitchen and lots of times not even a fridge or couch. When you stay at an airbnb lots of times its multiple rooms, living room, kitchen, etc. The fact that airbnbs are cheaper AND have more amenities AND are more conveniently located to non-touristy places seems like a temporary misprice of market goods.

Airbnb absolutely shit the bed by allowing hosts to fuck around and set exorbitant cleaning fees though. I had another one that listed for a 3-bedroom in the headline/search results but then made us a pay an extra fee to get the unlock code for the 3rd bedroom when we showed up. Airbnb only refunded my money when I threatened to file a complaint for false advertising with the attorney general.

Maybe hotel chains should start making more multi-room suites with living rooms and kitchens, since that's what a lot of groups want when they go on vacation.

Airbnb fucked me and they'll fuck you too. Hard.

Airbnb are good for families. But so are its competitors VRBO and Hotels.com, which both have apartment and house rentals, and maybe other sites. They aren't unique.

airbnb fucking awful and partially responsible for the housing price bubble

I’ll look for AirBnBs if I’m traveling to somewhere known for local ingredients. Think Italy, France, Spain, etc. I enjoy having a kitchen and going to local markets to put together some meals. A metropolitan place like New York tho? Eh, give me the hotel room.

Why? I stay in both and both have their place. Hotels can't always give you what Airbnbs can give. In fact most hotels still have garbage WiFi and nothing but a bed and TV.

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airbnb is a cancer on the housing market and the sooner the company is beaten into submission by regulation the better

This is parroted all over Reddit and if people just took a moment to think about it you’d quickly realize you’re not making a fair comparison. Hotels are, the vast majority of the time, 350 square feet and simply don’t work for a family or groups. Rentals are entire apartments or homes with a yard or other amenities. Surely it’s easy to comprehend that rentals are a better value if you consider the above.

Well, yea why wouldn’t they be more expensive? You’re getting way more space and privacy.

Maybe in some markets but it’s been a huge boon to our local economy which is dependent on tourism dollars. Local towns here really like airbnbs.

They’re dead? Have you checked their financials lately…?

I travel twice a month for work. I haven’t seen this to be true at all.

let me guess, you're one of these self-styled airbnb hilton wannabes, get a real job!

For short stays, totally. The cleaning and service charges add up.

this wont make housing cheaper.

That's probably a good thing

Airbnb is good for groups but that’s it. The idea was a hotel alternative but it is now a business. Just like house flipping. Not everyone can do it. Plus the fee abuse needs to be stopped.

Airbnb allows housing to be funged into hotel rooms but not the other way around. It has a niche because there is unmet demand for cheap hotels, but also worsens the unmet demand for housing. It doesn’t cause the problem, it reveals it.

Yes, restricting Airbnb is probably a good move in the short term. But the real answer is we need to green light a lot more construction of both housing and hotels.

But it's nice to see the new styles from ikea without having to go to ikea.

Same here. I traveled in groups in my 20s and Airbnb made it very cheap. Something like $50/night when you divided it among your friends. Nowadays, I travel with my SO and Airbnb pricing is comparable with hotels, except Airbnbs come with chores and a complicated check in or check out.

Can you send the info to the tax department? Might get attention

Agreed. For my wedding in Japan, I had my entire family fly over to Tokyo. We're big on family so everyone wanted to stick together for the duration of the trip. I booked them (if I remember I think it was 15 relatives and my parents) an entire house close to Ikebukuro). It was the only option and it turned out to be WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY cheaper than hotel rooms (Tokyo area hotels are notoriously expensive especially during Sakura season which is when my wedding was held).

Anyway, tangential story, I booked a single apartment studio for my mother and father when they came to visit (this was another time, a year or two after my wedding). It was hosted by a woman (forgot the name but it's important to the story) who claimed to have the best cleaning services and most awesome response times and blah blah blah. I picked up my parents at Haneda, brought them to the Airbnb, we checked in and it was a fucking dump. Bed had a shit ton of, what looked like male pubic hair, crusted yellow stains on the sheets and pillow cases, crusty yellow blotchy stains on the ceiling. Bathroom smelled like someone threw up in there, but it was spotless except for what looked like blood stains smeared all over one side of the wall. Floors were old as fuck. Basically, the apartment looked nothing like the photos which were heavily edited and all taken at angles to make everything look larger. I should have known better.

I reached out the host by phone. A man picks up instead of the host. He said he is the host's friend and that she's away (obviously bullshit because I was aware that in Tokyo lots of third party home managers help hosts rent their apartments or houses on Airbnb). I explain to him the situation calmly, and said I want a refund. He refused but said he could send cleaners to the apartment the NEXT day. I refused back at him and I demanded a refund. Guy said he needs to check and will call me back. Didn't call me back for 30 minutes so I try reaching out to him for the next hour and realize he is ghosting me.

Called Airbnb, they directed me to the US offices I guess. They made me send photos of the apartment, which I did. Support staff I spoke to was nice but apparently since I had already checked in they needed the host to unilaterally refund me or some bullshit excuse. I had enough, so I asked my wife (who is Japanese) to send a message in Japanese that went something like "If you don't refund me I will get the police involved. I will also reach out to NHK and other news outlets about this apartment from hell so that they have a cool story to report on. I will also seek out a lawyer and sue you into oblivion because I know you're probably illegally renting this apartment on Airbnb."

I got refunded almost right away after hitting send. Fucker. Just writing about the experience pisses me off lol, more so because I had fucked up so bad for my parents. I ended up getting them a hotel afterwards.

If if you want an idea of what you're getting when you deal with a "host" just lurk at the subs for AirBnB and AirBnB hosts where the posts are fairly evenly divided among 1. "I'm a host and everyone who says it's gone downhill is a paid shill for the hotel industry," 2. "I'm a host and I hate the people who stay at my place because they make me work after they're gone," and 3. "I'm a 'host' who owns 30+ rental properties but seriously I'm just a little guy trying to get ahead," with the rest of them being people sharing why they will never use the service again (me included--when it was a side gig for people I was happy to throw some money their way and save a buck but now it's "their business" and "their business" only exists because the business model is to skirt common sense regulations, break laws, and exploit people).

Nothing turns you against an enterprise faster than watching unfiltered people whining about how hard their lives are when they do nothing but utilize the extra capital they have to "invest" in hoarded housing stock and pay non-union housekeepers. They're neck-and-neck with the r/landlords sub when it comes to clueless people who don't seem to understand that people can read what they write when they tell on themselves.

Of course, the article is also useful for the comments, because, predictably, the Post readership understands nothing other than "liberuls did it so they must be taking away muh liberties."

Nope just live in a beach community where tourists pay a bunch for taxes and visit our local businesses. It was in NY State’s economic report they put out every year for our county — 40% of our local dollars were spent on tourism and tourism-related activities. We actually have super low property taxes because of the money it brings in. Also I work in tech out of NYC and very much have a real job.

The local government sent surveys via mail about perception of short term rentals before deciding on legislation and the results of that survey are all public. Not sure who would downvote my comment without any additional information.

There are definitely pros and cons to Airbnb, the good experiences I had with Airbnb, I genuinely loved them because I was traveling in large groups with either friends or family and we wanted to have that big house / 4-5+ bedroom condominium experience.

But damn, their cleaning fees can be absurd for single travelers. I've seen listings in America where the cleaning fees are 4-5x more than the nightly room cost.

Yea exactly — they serve different needs. My family of 4 cannot stay in a hotel without spending buckets of cash. It’s just more fun having a house to rent when I have the family vacationing and friends/other family visit.

Excluding the bad host problems, airbnb is great for people who want to stay in a regular neighborhood around locals instead of in the touristy areas where hotels are licensed to operate. Let's say you're a parent from the midwest coming to visit your adult child who lives in queens or brooklyn, do you want to stay in wall street/times square/midtown where most of the hotels are or do you want to stay in the same neighborhood where your kid lives?

If cities didn't limit hotel locations and try to concentrate them in certain places, and hotels provided more kitchen-like amenities so people can cook for themselves when traveling this would all be less of an issue. But airbnb basically figured out that hotels aren't providing what a lot of people really want.

Airbnb, like all gig economy businesses, was propped up by venture capitalists for nearly a decade to keep prices unnaturally low. Well, now that's done and a bunch of home owners sunk their time and $$ into a dying business as people realize hotels are now cheaper and with more amenities and security.

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There's plenty of housing construction going on in NYC. The problem is MOST people CANNOT afford it. No rational unmarried person over 30 wants to have a roommate just so they can afford a roof over their head. Then they step outside and have to deal with mentally unstable homeless people, criminals, tardy, and the smell of urine permeating the air.

If the price is still too high, then by defintion there is not enough of it.

If melons are too expensive, the answer is to grow more melons.

It's just pent up post COVID demand .

Airbnb is going down the shitter

In theory, yes that makes sense. Realistically, there are entirely too many people here already and people just keep coming here. NYC is full

No, New York City is not “full.” Parts of Manhattan are arguably “full” to the point where more density could be a bad thing, but there are four other boroughs still made up mostly of sprawl.

My issue with Airbnb is schedule changes and refunds. I’ve had so many issues of flights getting cancelled (thus no longer needing a 3 night long-weekend Airbnb, but unlike a hotel I’m on the hook for the whole cost instead of just a 1-night cancellation penalty), work meeting dates getting switched last minute (office will cover both options), snowstorm means I’m arriving a day late, etc etc. I think I’ve lost $600 to Airbnb for such things this year alone… and when you cancel, they still keep the cleaning fee???

It depends when you cancel. Your reservation should tell you the last day to cancel for a refund . After that date it’s a game to get it back

NY is overcrowded & extremely out of control these days. Less AirBNBs is good, idk why people even care to visit anymore

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That’s terrible. I had to threaten Airbnb for my money back as well. Such embarrassing behavior. If i had stock i would sell because it’s at its peak

There are hotels in Brooklyn lol

Trust and believe if my mother wasn't going through ongoing health complications for the past 2 years related to her liver transplant I would have already left and been in NC by now. There are still people in the world who put family first. So your guess would be wrong. You have better odds playing lotto

Hotels in the outer boroughs are clustered around the airport and expensive or trendy neighborhoods like Long Island city or downtown Brooklyn. The ones that don’t fall into those categories have frequently been taken over for use as homeless housing.

And anyway, all of the things being equal why wouldn’t you wanna living room and the kitchen for the same or less money?

Yes. Unless you are booking for a group. I only use abb if 6+ people need to stay together. Usually abb are cheaper in the latter case

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Usually hotel suites are exactly that—2 or more bedrooms

I will never forget the absolute loneliness of staying in an AirBnB on Christmas Eve on Montreal. Watching a man shit outside in the park across the street and absolutely no services. No one to ask anything. I got dinged for not scouring something g.

That and check in was at 5 and checkout was at 9.

Edit: most of my experiences with Airbnb have been lacking in interaction, bland or at best adequate. Hotels have always mostly more “hospitable” though I’ve also stayed in some doozies. But I feel like I’m getting value for the hospitality. Especially on short stays of under a week.

>simply don’t work for a family or groups

You've made an oversimplification. Hotels are fine (and "work") for short stays with our without families.

Send it to 311 everyday. Mess up their metrics.

Talk to your local political leader and community board

They literally also have entire brands from Hotel chains dedicated to making your family vacation enjoyable.

AirBNB is not a substitute for actual hotels unless you're some kind of rare edge case, like getting a summer share where lots of people are attending or the odd off "I need to haul like 15 people to a destination" type shit.

Hotels know this, too and they're not losing out on much money by not specifically catering to these much rarer odd sized groups.

The Youtube creator Modern MBA did a great video detailing why the industry doesn't consider AirBNB a threat and doesn't have to.

It's not a vacation for me if I'm doing chores, I don't care if I've saved 12¢.

What utopia in NY is this beach community with "super low property taxes?"

I work in the travel industry and have lost sales to Airbnb rentals. I always show the additional hidden costs, both tangible and non-tangible costs/time/annoyance factor) of the package I sell vs. Airbnb (travel time, parking fees at the attraction, loss of "hotel guest benefits" like early entry to attractions, cleaning fees, etc.) and financially an Airbnb can be cheaper on paper for large families, but 100% have come Bs k to me after and said the tiny savings wasn't worth it and sometimes hidden fees made it more.

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Anything outside of take the trash out is a nope. Sorry, not doing it.

>Airbnb absolutely shit the bed by allowing hosts to fuck around and set exorbitant cleaning fees

AND simultaneously allowing hosts to make wild cleaning and check out rules for the guest to follow. Wtf. Cleaning fee? Fine. But why am I still expected to super clean before I check out? What am I even paying for then?

When I’m traveling I’m generally not in the place I’m staying at all that much

The amount of new housing has trailed population growth for decades. No, there is not plenty of new housing.

AirBNB is a scourge only in that it shows in stark reality the cost of our housing shortage.

A healthy housing market would be able to support short term rentals like bed and breakfasts without breaking a sweat, and the added tourism revenue would be a boon for the local economy.

This follows the rules from a few years back limiting the construction of hotels.

I’ve never seen a 4 bedroom hotel suite.

Who should we use instead?

Do these rules apply to any platform that you can share your apt on or just AirBNB?

Because hotel rooms don’t get robbed?

The “millennial subsidy” is starting to disappear.

Meanwhile, this whole idea of “build a following by being real cheap and operating in the red and they’ll stick with us when we raise prices” is proving to be very false (or maybe its a "play long game, bet it all" strategy that is very high risk/high reward)

When Amazon stops refunding me for everything and offering free return shipping my whole life will change. I know the day is coming though.

You might not be but some people are.

Yeah get out there and rake up the leaves and mow the lawn!

It does screw with local rents a lot. People keep their places just to rent out - they make more but that leads to less rooms available - that locks in g e whole silly/demand thingy and you have more expenses rent and neighbourhoods that have no soul, just tourists.

Hotels have 24 hour staff, are more consistent, clean your room each day, are conveniently located to touristy places. Both have pros and cons and I disagree that Airbnb's are objectively "worth more".

Lol. What does revel mean?

Exploit ? Make worse ?

I always thought the point of Airbnb was for large parties or if you wanted something not offered by hotels in the area.

The Marriott hotels I’ve stayed in lately don’t clean your room every day, I guess as a cost cutting measure.

There are plenty of airbnbs in touristy neighborhoods too. I’d say the majority of people would rather have more space and a kitchen than 24 hour staff. I agree about the consistency though obviously it’s a huge value that large chains bring, and rewards points. My coworkers for years, at least as far back as 2014 choose to stay in airbnbs on business trips but I like those rewards points!

I only stay at Airbnb when I’m going somewhere with a group and we want a house/cabin to hang out in together.

I consider location as well. Not for NYC so much, but when I visit family upstate I can get an airbnb room more or less down the street, or a hotel a half an hour away. I'll generally opt for a hotel room over an airbnb, but hotels get scarce in non tourist areas.

Cause you’re not the president

Airbnbs are a target. Any criminal can see the listings. I was followed in paris after shopping. When I came back from dinner my balcony door was open and all the clothes I bought were stolen. Never happened to me in a hotel

Yea they’re “fine” but why would you want to bring your family to stay in a hotel when you can rent a whole house with a yard? Growing up, when the family wanted to go to beach we never stayed in a hotel but rented a home and friends and family would come down to visit for a day or two. Same with everyone else I knew. It’s the de facto choice when you want to travel without just your partner.

I mean, of course they’re a substitute. You think if rentals didn’t exist people just wouldn’t travel? The hotel lobby fights for short term rental regulation all the time in Washington — do they do that because they don’t see them as a threat?

At first it was cheaper, but now your right. Groups or not covered by hotels.

This is bullshit. Millennials own about 3% of all wealth. We don't have more money. In fact I'd say the opposite is true and if anything there's just less travel over all after 2020.

yeah no clue why anyone would want to visit nyc…. lol

Affording a hotel room is different than a long-term investment in real estate. Both of our statements can be true.

Because sometimes you're only staying somewhere a day or two. Airbnb is great for long stays with big groups. Otherwise the fees counter the value

Airbnb takes a 10-12% (I forget the exact figure) of the listed price from hosts, and then tacks the same fee onto the guests, so for each listing, they take 20+% commission.

FUCK AIRBNB.

AirBNB still hits a sweet spot, which is full rentals with kitchens, W/D, etc. They can be priced very well for week+ stays in such types of places. Works well for people with dogs, and doing remote work, and such. Not a great option for NYC, I'd say though.

Yeah last time I used airbnb was in Barcelona and I spent my entire last day there scrubbing the place clean and I still got a bad review from the host (mentioning cleanliness) and got charged a cleaning fee.

Fuck that I’ll just go back to hotels.

The entire initial appeal of Airbnb, in my view, was being away from designated tourist zones and having a kitchen if I wanted to cook. And that’s it.

But they ruined it with outrageous fees and host demands.

Hotels are tightly regulated and pay really high taxes. That's why they're so much more expensive than airbnb.

A number of hotels and some chains are starting to allow pets too, though with pet fees. On a few recent trips, I’ve taken my furry buddy with me and stayed in hotels instead of Airbnbs.

I’m born and raised here, it’s an absolute disgusting traumatizing mess! Driving us all insane

sounds overly dramatic

Have you experienced it?

good write up, i read that sub once and now i wont do airbnb ever again

I live 20 min from downtown. NYC is fine.

Oh that’s why you’re ok with it. South Brooklyn vibes are different. Unfortunately the rest of Brooklyn is not lol

Hotels offer half the home

Found the AirBnB owner

I mean I had please throw the sheets in the wash which to me is fair cause the cleaning fee was so low but I definitely agree with you, not doing actual cleaning on vacation

The point is not scaring tourists away from an otherwise amazing place because of your own personal issues/perspectives on your living situation. Best city in the world.

If they’re scared then that’s on them lol they should be. (To any tourist reading this, reconsider or just be prepared)

However, I guess you’re unaware of all of the crime and deaths daily throughout the entire city especially MTA (which people actually depend on daily) and school parks so it’s definitely NOT MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE since you’re concerned. It’s become most dangerous and we’re all hoping they could get some control.

Overall, NYC is still disgusting and traumatizing like I said…

yes they purposely do this to create a monopoly and then when the other options are decimated, ppl have very few alternatives

Wouldn't you? Why not? Put yourself in the position of being an established hotelier. You've gone through the capital costs to be above board in running an enterprise. You're insured and indemnified against loss, you've taken the proper code steps for things like safety and food handling standards. You've developed relationships with suppliers and clients...et cetera et cetera.

You've done all this and then a matchmaking app that's specifically there to get around all of that built up structure comes along. Now, the neat thing is, in the end, it's not really affecting your bottom line. This has been borne out, it's not a theoretical. Hotels are not suffering because of AirBnB.

Wouldn't you twist the knife just to make a point?

I would. Alls fair in love and commerce, eh?

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I mean all you have to do is google it. Hotels aggressively lobby against short term rental regulations.

>> The Marriott hotels I’ve stayed in lately don’t clean your room every day, I guess as a cost cutting measure.

This is a US thing. Outside of the states the hotels do what they are paid for.

I think it accounts for a couple percent. Same with the other scapegoat of foreign buyers. This just screams over regulation to me.

I never got the hype of Airbnb.

If I'm going somewhere international, one of the perks is checking local cuisine, so I don't really want to cook. I also rather be centrally located (which most hotels are) and like the idea of front desk/concierge being there if I have questions. And although I'm a guy, I imagine a hotel would be a safer option for a woman since a hotel has people there around the clock.

Domestically, I always go with hotels too. Usually just me and the GF travel anyway, and I'm never going away for more than a week. Since I stay mostly at Marriott properties, they're really flexible at check in and check out time. I like having access to a gym and pool as well. And being able to call the front desk and ask for towels and toiletries to have them delivered to your room 5 mins later is convenient. Not to mention, I can request my room be cleaned/have new linens whenever I want. It's vacation/trip, I don't want to have to do household stuff away from home.

If I ever needed to stay somewhere for an extended period, I'd do a Homewood Suites or something Marriott/Hilton offers where you can have a room with a kitchen.

I know people usually say, "Airbnbs are larger than hotel rooms." That is true, but I'm never in my hotel for an extended period of time unless I'm sleeping. The smaller quarters doesn't bother me.

If you're going with a big group of people, I guess it can make sense, but aren't there are other services to find a house to rent without the high prices and crap that comes along with Airbnb?

Airbnb should technically be cheaper.

They pay illegal labor in cash for things like cleaning vs employees who you pay things like payroll taxes on. Hotels also pay for things like insurance.

Investors on Airbnb have basically extracted all the value they could at this point.

Yeah I understand why the owners’ cost structures are lower I just meant from the perspective of value provided, a well run Airbnb unit offers more value than a well run hotel.

Maybe. This only started during covid and persisted during the ensuing labor shortage. TBH I don’t want someone coming into my room during a stay so I always left the DND sign up anyway. I like not having to worry about a cleaning fee when I leave though, that was always some bullshit about Airbnb.

Is it that they “pay high taxes” or that the city charges an exorbitant hotel tax on the occupants because it’s a way of taxing people who aren’t residents and therefore don’t get to vote on the taxes in the first place?

I mean a tax on hotels vs taxing the guests directly amounts to the same thing, either way It makes it more expensive to stay at a hotel than an airbnb.

It’s good to have the competition

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The City thinks it can solve every social problem with restrictive regulations and/or taxes.

The most rational comment has 23 downvotes. People prefer their fantasy world of symbolic, but ineffective, policy action.

Unfortunately people expect “free” or “cheap” not realizing that things, such as shelter, come at a very high cost.

It’s easier to say “let’s lower rents!! Yay” than let’s solve the actual problem of supply and demand. Such is life.

airbnb is great because it causes the hotels to compete in terms of their pricing

I tend to agree with you.

Between various reward perks and just the general convenience, I am a hotel guy.

That said, what you wrote about groups was one of the things that made Airbnb surge in popularity. There have always been other services available for short-term property rentals, but Airbnb made it easier than ever, and often cheaper, to rent a party house for a weekend (before they banned parties which didn't actually stop parties).

Yeah all these "disrupter" gig businesses survived off of VC money, sidestepping regulations, and suckering marks into going all-in.

The people who took out mortgages to finance entire homes to list on Airbnb have been finding out what a house of cards the entire business was, just like the goofs who spent all their money on luxury SUVs to try and be full-time Uber drivers.

>and having a kitchen if I wanted to cook

There's plenty of hotels that have kitchens (at least in big cities). Just need to specifically look for one. Doesn't fix the other reasons, but that one one is overblown.