A nice general airbnb guest article

A woman saved around 10k just by airbnbing for a year rather than living in one city, renting. I'm sure there are quite a few others doing the same sort of thing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-30...n-rent-airbnb-hopping-around-the-world-2017-5

 

Similar to this, I have heard oldies travelled on cruise ship to avoid expensive retirement village fees and get full medical care if so needed.

 

Yep... I really love that idea.

 

Read just last weekend that most cruise ship doctors dont medicare, article was about travellers using the medical facilities at Broome as it was cheaper and causing problems for residents, i.e. residents couldn't get appointments.

 

Medical expenses on board a ship are horrifically expensive. And unless the doctor is registered under Medicare (very unusual), there are no rebates. Even if sailing only to Australian ports, travel insurance is a must.
Marg

 

Kidding? Sounds like an add for Airbnb.

From what I have seen Airbnb is very expensive. That is why landlords do it as opposed to long term rentals.

 

It's all relative. What are you comparing it against?

If traditional hotels - then I find Airbnb much more affordable. I always use it for business/personal use.

If you were after a long lease - then yes Airbnb would be more expensive. However - you wouldn't opt for an Airbnb property as it's not geared towards that sort of service (it's for holiday rentals/business use and not long term tenants).

Cheers

Jamie

 

You can choose to stay in people's rooms rather than rent the whole apartment. Wifi, electricity, water is all included. You can often have access to cooking and free to use laundry facilities, which you usually can't get at a hotel. Helps the host make money out of a spare unused/low used guest room or studio too. Win-win. You can travel and see the world, stay in much cheaper cities rather than live full time in a place Sydney where rents are high. So.... very easy to save 10k by being a nomad.

 

We have just returned from an extended stay in France and did 50/50, half self contained apartments and half renting a room. The latter was again a 50/50 proposition: some hosts were wonderful and the other half were wretched people who wanted our money and had expectations of us being there to sleep even though they offered use of the kitchen before we rented. Even use of the bathroom felt very very strained.
You may be a wonderful host and ideally suited but many are not. You just need to read comments from guests to see that and some comments never make it to the website as hosts can and do have them pulled so as not to diminish their operations.
We'll have to agree to disagree about this industry. Current returns are unsustainable and eventually hosts will go back to permanent rentals as they realise their annual returns are not all that good and the level of management and cleaning & maintenance is significant. Good luck if you are the exception.

 

What are you here for? You've only got 21 posts to your name. Are any of them NOT bagging out AirBnB, and the people who host them?

 

Yes, I think Rambotrader has an axe to grind.
A lot of hosts who jumped on the Airbnb bandwagon will jump off, but that is the way with everything. It got big very quickly and will settle down. Sydney is one of their biggest cities.
I have had our self contained flat on Airbnb for over 5 years - we were property number 247 in Sydney - and have had no issues at all. Our guest count would be over 120. The longest was three months, and the shortest 5 hours. We have met some fabulous people and had some great dinners downstairs in the studio. We even took one guest with us on holidays up the coast for a week a few years ago.
Re: Hosts having guest reviews pulled. It's not possible.
Re: People opting to travel permanently...
We had a great retired couple from Washington DC stay in our pad for a month a couple of years ago. They were about 9 months into their travels and had no plan of stopping till age or ill health forced them to - they had reserved a spot in a retirement home. They worked out that their day to day costs staying in Airbnb pads was about the same as their rent etc in DC.
Scott

 

Yes... well if you look at the reviews you'll get a good feel of what to expect at each property... tip: book in advance to get the best choice of great properties. Good properties are often booked out 3 months or so in advance.

I don't think so... its near impossible to get reviews pulled. Some guests (and hosts) choose to not leave reviews though.

I think the global travel business is increasing! Bad hosts will stop either via lack of guests or action by Airbnb, unprofitable properties will revert to normal rentals. I had never bought any properties to Airbnb in the first place though.... the extra rent and flexibility is a bonus.

 

I take your point but two places we stayed at had great reviews. That's why we chose them. The reality was pretty bad though and it was not just our standards. We always suss out the landlords we share with and all was fine.....until we arrived. we made no demands, stayed out of the way as much as possible so that the owners did not feel pushed out and were friendly at all times.
Glad yours worked out. Maybe it said something about you being suitable to the business. We also had occasions to meet wonderful hosts but it was definitely 50/50.
I can see the problems in thus unregulated business. You might want to find the documentaries shown on SBS recently. They put Airbnb into clear perspective.
The only axe I have to grind is that Residential zonings should never be allowed to become commercial ventures. There are places to do that.....but not at the expense of your neighbours who want nothing other than to live in their homes and not be stressed & awake most of the night. If I have an axe to grind then that would be it.
Cheers.

 

Yes, residential flats should never be allowed to be turned into quasi hotels.

Even houses in mainly residential areas should need council approval where neighbors etc all have input, plenty of places lack parking to begin with etc

 

Agree.

Many Airbnb ventures tick none of the boxes. We once had about a dozen cars next door, the routine parties, prostitutes, broken glass, all night affairs with garbage left all over the road. Not a wonderful way to have to live one's life.

I know that I am treading on the toes of those making money but have no issues with that. There may be some good operators and some suitable locations but your home is your home and not for Airbnb sale! Vested interests only ever get that in their heads when THEY end up as victims, not when their operation ruins the lives of others.

It is understandable that some places need what Airbnb offers but this requires rezoning, not defacto business where this sort of thing should never be allowed to thrive as those we pay to police the zonings turn a blind eye.

Rules for some, (different) rules for others. Let the money roll in.........

 

You'll find many long term tenants(even owners) do those things too. There's no fine line here, both cross over into each other at various levels.

AirBnB and the likes has opened up options for those who always wanted to travel but couldn't afford hotels or worse there were no hotels in their region of travel.
It is helping the economy from various aspects.

 

EXACTLY this. Airbnb has an excellent review system which means if you are a horrible guest you will struggle to book. Before I accept any guests, I check their reviews, if they are bad, I won't accept a guest.

I have written about this before numerous times but in my apartment building where we live (which is in a blue chip area), owners downstairs are constantly having parties. Tenants across the hallway are noisy and leave crap everywhere. Our tenants in our IP are noisy, constantly have parties and annoy our neighbours (we won't be renewing their lease). You could say "you need to have better screening for your tenants" (we have a PM who screened them at length) or "contact your strata. This is not a rant about these tenants and owners but more to say bad experiences are not limited to airbnb guests. Our tenants are annoying but aren't doing anything that would allow us to kick them out- so we were stuck with them for a year. We can't do anything about the owners. But if an airbnb guest breaks any of the house rules, we have the ability to kick them out immediately. At worse, if they are just annoying and don't break any house rules, they are short term only so will leave shortly any way. I appreciate there are bad airbnb guests out there but there are bad people out there in general that can upset any neighbourhood.

 

I get it now, Rambo. It's personal. I wonder if you didn't have a problem Airbnb venture next door to you whether you would be so down on the whole thing?
I have had well over 120 Airbnb 'tenants' with no problems. I have had far fewer traditional tenants over the years and had problems.

 

Permanents may have a party but not every second weekend (during the warmer months of the year). They are easily controlled by police if they abuse the laws whilst a 40 hour Airbnb rental cannot be controlled because it is a done deal and the next weekend you get a new crew....doing the same thing.

I agree that travel costs have indeed come down and we use Airbnb and VRBO ourselves. The issue is that the industry needs to be regulated so that greedy landlords cannot rent their places for functions as the landlord next door (now sold) did to us for over 3 years. His place was advertised as '18 beds' so pretty obvious what happened. Many places still have the maximum of 10 beds on their web pages.

There has been a string of documentaries about the problems with Airbnb. What keeps coming out is that Airbnb rental houses are pushing many permanent rentals out and the permanent population is displaced because people cannot survive next door to many of these places nor can they afford the increasing prices of properties in an Airbnb area. I

t is not right or healthy that a permanent population is displaced. A mix may be workable but if you look to select holiday areas these places have become a virus. Residential zonings were put in place so that people had a place to live, not so that homes could be turned into defacto hotels. There is a unique difference between couch surfing and stand alone homes having a new crew in them every night.

We need to get the balance back in favour of home owners who just want to live in their homes as per the zoning allows them to do. Of course vested interests will not be happy with such a notion..........until they and their families are forced to endure the bad side of Airbnb. Unless you are a high ranking council employee or a politician this is your fate if the inevitable happens and I assure you closing down operations, despite the zoning laws, is close to impossible.

Personal? Maybe. But I nobody deserves to go through what we did. Some still do.

 

Sheesh! Give it a break already! I don't do Airbnb, and neither do over 95% of this site, so perhaps this isn't the site to be ranting & raving about how much you hate it. No matter what you've got to say on here, those that DO rent out via Airbnb aren't going to change just because YOU don't like it.