Isn’t it funny no matter how much notice you give people, they still leave it till the last minute to complete paperwork.
It’s the same with tax returns here.
You would think when for some it’s their main source of income they would be a little quicker off the mark.
I don’t think people took it seriously enough.
Fees my city went to 500$ for license from 85$ only 3 years ago. I rent mostly longer terms, rarely less than 30 days and I though I would be an exempt but when I called they told me anyway I need to pay.
Wow those numbers are dramatic.
what we’re thinking of not registering ? But also it’s scary how those applications are being rejected in such quantities . I can see these laws applying to Florida in near future. Glad I switched to longer terms guests
This is the wave of the future for large cities I’m afraid. Airbnb grew too fast and impacted too much. It was too much of a good thing!
We’ll see if these strict San Francisco regulations have any effect on SanFran’s “housing crisis.” My money is on zero to none.
I agree. I think it’s totally a different game here than “house crisis”.
I don’t see how Airbnb has so much impact on anything.
Still there are very few units are offered comparing to hotels. There still new hotels are building in my small town only. And they all are full. Still
People like us prefer hotels to Airbnb.
I can though see a good impact of travelers staying in someone’s homes as it took so many people out of “jobless” situations. Without Rentals I would now be on unemployment and food stamps since jewelry business is not excising anymore. Now I am a productive member of society 
. Also it boosts local economy and we pay taxes that they didn’t have before
Hi @Yana
I am so glad Airbnb has worked well for you, but I don’t think your could argue you would be unemployed without Airbnb - there are so many other employment opportunities outside of Airbnb and jewellery.
You seem to have fantastic management and customer services skills from your posts here, so I am sure could have turned your hand to many things.
In economic terms there is much authoritative research that has been carried out to show the impact of the STR market in terms of;
- increasing house purchase prices
- increasing rental prices
- decreasing the amount of affordable property on the market
Which in turn makes it harder for local people with lower incomes to buy or rent. These are people who are the lifeblood of a city such as nurses, social workers, teachers, cleaners, emergency services, shop workers, transport workers, those in hospitality.
This is particularly prevalent in larger European cities and cities in the U.S. like New York, San Fransico etc
In areas like Amsterdam before regulations were brought in, it was estimated that 1 in 6 properties were used as Airbnb - how can that not have an impact on the availability of affordable accommodation for local people?
Hi Helsi,
I would love to see sources for the “authoritative research” you cite, because I have yet to find any actual evidence that Airbnb can be having any impact on housing, at least in San Francisco. For example, the article mentions 5900 nonexempt Airbnb listings as of December. Keep in mind that the article does not mention that at least half of those listings are for rooms, not whole-house rentals, so they don’t impact housing stock (since somebody is already living there). So a bit fewer than 3000 listings for whole-house rentals in a city with around 400,000 total housing units, or less than one percent of housing stock.
San Francisco’s housing crisis is caused by different factors: too many wealthy people want to live there, space is extremely limited for new construction, and residents want two opposite goals at the same time (to not have anything change, and yet to have more available housing). This article sums up this contradiction nicely: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/business/economy/single-family-home.html
Airbnb had negligible impact on housing prices, and shutting down Airbnb in San Francisco will have negligible impact. The hotel industry wins and local homeowners (and some renters) lose.
Will
Hi @wjquigs
It’s not really up to me to do your research for you. However a two second on Google brings up SFO specific research.
Not quite sure why you equate the introduction of permits with trying to shut down Airbnb in SFO.
Actually there are 8665 listings 50% of which are whole place listings for Airbnb, and that’s just for one listing company. http://insideairbnb.com/san-francisco/
And circa 133,000 households not 400,000.
It’s irrelevant whether it is a whole listing or shared one, as those who offer a room or rooms in their house have often converted them to STR as they generate more income.
The argument isn’t Airbnb v Hotels as some would like to believe but those who have a wider interest in the longer term welfare of an area and those that live there. In many major cities there is a huge pressure on the housing market caused by a variety of factors include the STR market which are forcing up housing prices.
Personally I care about the area I live in and the wider community and am not blind to the impact of STRs. If permits are introduced in my area I will be happy to apply for them, recognising it is a cost of doing business.
Helsi you know nothing about me or my life. And if I say I would be unemployed without Airbnb I expect readers believe me but not to doubt my words. Because I know my situation better than anyone else .
In my area which is South Florida and one of the most visited cities in the world Airbnb has zero effect on housing prices. Prices stabilized about 3 years ago when I started hosting and never went up since then .
San Francisco became one of the most expensive cities ina world due to the highest paid jobs there. My twenty something recent graduate daughter makes over 200k a year and her rent is 3500$ a month which she has no problem paying.
Airbnb didn’t cause any rent increase for sure as it’s a drop in an ocean comparing to other factors .
@Yana I am so sorry you were offended by my comment. I certainly didn’t mean to upset you. Of course you know your situation better than me.
It’s just for the majority of people there is more than one option when it comes to being employed or self employed, whether we are home based, or work outside of the home. I apologise.
I am so glad to hear your daughter was able to earn such a huge amount as a recent graduate. Of course if you are earning 200K you will have no problem paying a high rent of $3500, but that is not the reality for most. To put it in context our own Prime Minister doesn’t earn that !!!
I know the city a little as my sister lives there and appreciate there are some who benefit from the tech sector and the highly paid jobs it creates. I also know that there are cleaners, nurses, teachers, shop workers, waitresses, who have families to support etc who don’t earn anything like that.
That’s why all of these proffesions you mentioned stay 5-6 people in one appartment as they can’t afford to rent anything else. San Francisco was like this long before Air was created.
Or they are in rent controlled properties.
That’s fine I was not offended, but to look for work is the last Thing i would want to do now in this market especially in South Florida. To have any kind of new business takes investment and years. I personally have no expertise in any other field. With Air no investment was needed and as I said before its the easiest job I ever done.
And the best part is it’s always in demand. People will always travel for vacation or work or other purpose. That’s the beauty of it. I hardly even do STR anymore. Almost 100% of my guests are those who stay 2 months or longer. It’s still sort of STR since it’s not regular 1 year lease with deposit and it’s priced much higher. Actually 2 of my present guests are not even Air guests, but Craig’s list and homestay who stay with me 3 and 4 months accordingly. And more to come.
I just don’t see how Airbnb can have such a tremendous effect in anything. There are other factors that play role in housing market but Air is not that powerful or broad to cause any crisis .
I would never rent my room long term like one year for a regular lease only because it was not worth for me price wise. So I personally would never even offer a room for a low price to anyone .
Hi Helsi,
I’m not asking you to do “my” research. I’m asking you to report facts, not conjecture. Don’t take it personally. You seem like an intelligent and thoughtful person who’s been fooled by claims based on false information.
It’s not actually the introduction of permits, but the other part of the law, restricting stays of fewer than 30 days, to 90 days per year, that will shut down Airbnb in SF.
I’m not opposed to the registration requirement, and have been registered for 2 years.
Maybe you didn’t read the entire article linked above but if you do you’ll see where they arrive at 5900 listings.
Here’s a link to city data showing almost 400k households as of 2015: http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/2015_Housing_Inventory_Final_Web.pdf
Actually, whole listing vs. shared does matter, because if I own or rent a house and put a room on airbnb, I’m not removing a unit from housing stock. But even if I agreed with your point, that’s still slightly over 1% of housing stock that’s Airbnb.
I agree that there are lots of factors making SF housing completely unaffordable for most people, but STR is simply an easy scapegoat that has little if any impact.
But I’m willing to be proven wrong. If one year from now I hear reports that San Francisco is once again affordable, thanks to elimination of Airbnb, I will stand corrected. Somehow I doubt it’s going to happen.
One persons facts is another’s conjecture. I haven’t been fooled. I just have a different perspective.
I haven’t seen anyone claim that SFO will become affordable due to the elimination of Airbnb (which of course there are no plans to do any way).
Although it is true that Airbnb does raise prices of long term rentals, in the cities with a pre-existing housing problem it is usually not the main cause of the crisis and not much is achieved by limiting Airbnb activity. It is usually a move undertaken by local politicians in order to send the message that something is being done about the problem. The best example is Berlin - even after severely limiting Airbnb, the problem of insufficient housing and high prices is still persisting. The real problem is actually the long-term rental companies that blow up the prices and keep many apartments off the market.
Who even said Airbnb was a problem? Me and my neighbors now doing It for few years. What problems are created? We all had couple of nuts staying and there were minor issues with it but the rest was fine. All the things people describing with parking and noise are not regular occurrences . How about having partying non stop leaser for a year or so? Or a family with 4 grown kids and everyone parks a car .
I paid thousand of dollars in occupational taxes to the city, plus license fees. My guests are non stop patrons in local neighborhood restaurants. Airbnb does nothing but boosts economy and honestly I don’t even think it has even a minor effect on long term rentals
Being a registered SF host I can tell you there are numerous reasons people didn’t register, here are a few:
#1 They are Air Bnb-ing their rental and landlord are automatically notified
#2 They don’t want to conform to the max 90-day full house rental rule
#3 They don’t want their HOA or Neighbors knowing, bc once you register it is public record
What about you? How will you deal with 90 days limit?