New York's Airbnb Ban Is Bolstering a Rental Black Market (wired.com) 106
Amanda Hoover reports via Wired: As few as 2 percent of New York City's previous 22,000 short-term rentals on Airbnb have been registered with the city since a new law banning most listings came into effect in early September. But many illegal short-term rental listings are now being advertised on social media and lesser known platforms, with some still seemingly being listed on Airbnb itself. The number of short-term listings on Airbnb has fallen by more than 80 percent, from 22,434 in August to just 3,227 by October 1, according to Inside Airbnb, a watchdog group that tracks the booking platform. But just 417 properties have been registered with the city, suggesting that very few of the city's short-term rentals have been able to get permission to continue operating.
The crackdown in New York has created a "black market" for short-term rentals in the city, claims Lisa Grossman, a spokesperson for Restore Homeowner Autonomy and Rights (RHOAR), a local group that opposed the law. Grossman says she's seen the short-term rental market pick up steam on places like Facebook since the ban. "People are going underground," she says. New York's crackdown on short-term rentals has dramatically reshaped the vacation rental market in the city. People are using sites like Craigslist, Facebook, Houfy, and others, where they can search for guests or places to book without the checks and balances of booking platforms like Airbnb. Hotel prices are expected to rise with more demand. After the rule change, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company would be shifting attention away from New York, which was once its biggest market.
"I was always hopeful that New York City would lead the way -- that we would find a solution in New York, and people would say, 'If they can make it in New York, they can make it anywhere,'" Chesky said during an event in September. "I think, unfortunately, New York is no longer leading the way -- it's probably a cautionary tale."
The crackdown in New York has created a "black market" for short-term rentals in the city, claims Lisa Grossman, a spokesperson for Restore Homeowner Autonomy and Rights (RHOAR), a local group that opposed the law. Grossman says she's seen the short-term rental market pick up steam on places like Facebook since the ban. "People are going underground," she says. New York's crackdown on short-term rentals has dramatically reshaped the vacation rental market in the city. People are using sites like Craigslist, Facebook, Houfy, and others, where they can search for guests or places to book without the checks and balances of booking platforms like Airbnb. Hotel prices are expected to rise with more demand. After the rule change, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company would be shifting attention away from New York, which was once its biggest market.
"I was always hopeful that New York City would lead the way -- that we would find a solution in New York, and people would say, 'If they can make it in New York, they can make it anywhere,'" Chesky said during an event in September. "I think, unfortunately, New York is no longer leading the way -- it's probably a cautionary tale."
Ban this, ban that (Score:4, Interesting)
Drugs, hookers, loan sharks... Where there's a supply and a demand, there's a market whether you want there to be one or not. Even the supposedly non-market economies of the USSR and Maoist China couldn't avoid it.
Re:Ban this, ban that (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a hunch that the reason in this case is to avoid paying tax. Not just keeping "da man" from banning something.
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And you are wrong. Short term rentals are a way to avoid insane rent controls. City governments are the cause of all of these rental shortages because they prevent people from operating their own properties in a free market.
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Whether goods are not available or not affordable, what's the difference?
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Apparently they were affordable because people were renting them out.
How were they not affordable?
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Closest answer would probably be "they weren't affordable to the right people".
You get the problem that people in NYC want many things. They don't want more housing, yet they want housing to be "affordable" to the underclasses so they don't have to pay extreme wages to working class people.
But there's the problem that still more people want to live in NYC, so they bid the rentals up because building more housing there is extremely hard.
If you could magically double the amount of housing available in NYC, r
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So 30 days a month, they were only affordable for half of the time. The way supply and demand work, the owners can maximize their profits while setting a rate that results in half occupancy.
The reality is worse than that, they are occupied close to 13 % of the time!
https://www.alltherooms.com/resources/articles/average-airbnb-oc
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The reality is people don't travel equally on every day of the year.
Let's do a hypothetical.
You're an Air BNB owner. You sometimes use the property yourself. Would you choose to use it from December 20th to January 4th or from January 5th to 20th?
Which seems like it would cost you more to have off market and why?
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I suppose you don't really understand the concept of free market, let me try. If you have an asset that you operate to make money, your job is to optimize your revenue, yes? What good is it to set prices at levels where you cannot make money? Get it? It takes many participants, on both sides, supply and demand to discover what prices work so that both sides are satisfied, the renters find something and the landlords can make their payments and have some income left over. To say that prices are such tha
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To say that prices are such that people cannot afford them is to say that there isn't much occupancy. Which is the case.
Now you can argue about what government's role is in society. But you're crazy if you think the unrestricted free market produces the best outcome for all people all the time, just as having the government control everything all the time doesn't lead to the best outcome for all people all the time.
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Profit isn't maximized by maximizing price. Well, unless you're Apple and have a product people will buy at any price...
But even that depends on your customer's ability to pay.
To paraphrase Charlton Heston's character in the Ten Commandments, your income is from your tenants, landlord. The rich pay much, the poor pay little. The broke pay nothing.
And if you price them out, you end up with an empty flat and no income.
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So you want to live next door to a place where people move in and out constantly, have no work to do but still plenty of money to spend and party, come home drunk often and generally don't give a fuck whether they get evicted because, hey, they won't stay longer here than a few nights anyway and by the time your eviction note hits them, they're gone?
Because that's what living in a hotel is like.
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How is that different from living somewhere in Barcelona for example?
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I never lived in Barcelona. Frankly, I don't want to live there if that's what it's like. I know, though, that if something like this happens around here, I call the police and that ends pretty fucking quickly.
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Your reasoning is indistinguishable from a committed communist.
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Or just let the market do its thing. If workers can't get to the jobs and the jobs do t [ay enough then the employers will have to pay more and charge those millionaires more. It balances out.
What was the problem rent control solved?
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I visited Tokyo this year and came to the conclusion that there are several issues with the west:
1. Living downtown. Tokyo has no single downtown. Yes, there's Shinjuku which is giant, but there are a lot of "mini downtowns" all over Tokyo. There's single "central district where everything happens and people want to live here". Cities in the west all have this problem. People don't want to live in new york , they want to live in Manhattan specifically
2. Lack of transportation. In Tokyo your commute can prob
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Living downtown. Tokyo has no single downtown. Yes, there's Shinjuku which is giant, but there are a lot of "mini downtowns" all over Tokyo. There's single "central district where everything happens and people want to live here". Cities in the west all have this problem.
That sounds a bit like London, TFB. London has essentially grown by expanding and enveloping many surrounding towns. Lots of areas often each with a different character, and often little reason to go into a more central one.
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Ah, longing for the golden days when you had rooms in your mansion's basement for all the servants, and dangerously steep stairways hidden away for those servants so that your distinguished guests didn't have to see them. What do you mean, housing for teachers? Servants don't need an education!
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rent control is the next best thing
Rent control universally makes the problem worse. Developers are disincentivised to build new homes because the return in investment is severely capped. Landlords are disincentivised to keep property in good order since they are making less from it. Landlords are disincentivised from using real estate for homes, in the case when it's dual zoned for business.
Folks hear "landlord" and they think some fatcat with a top hat smoking a cigar and laughing. Most people that own and lease out property are people tha
Rent stabilized/rent control [Re:Ban this, ban...] (Score:3)
Hardly any apartment in NYC is rent controlled.
Technically true, but many people use the term "rent control" to refer to rent stabilized apartments, which are 44% of the units in NYC.
https://bungalow.com/articles/... [bungalow.com]
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Reading up on that article, I'd call it a moot difference, in the sense that "many people" are talking about the subject generically, and that NYC has actual laws saying "rent control" and "rent stabilized" to mean slightly different things doesn't really change that.
Generically "rent control" merely means "government limits how much you're allowed to charge for a rental".
Both NYC's "rent controled" and "rent stabilized" apartments limit how much the owner/manager is allowed to charge for those rentals.
Free market is a myth. (Score:4, Insightful)
>> own properties in a free market.
Free market is a myth.
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Right the pure free market is self destructive. Regulation makes it more efficient.
Think of it like a person versus a horse. A person can have freedom, but that person will put reins on a horse. The horse then is less free. You don't put reins on a person though, that's just wrong. So... is the market supposed to be like a person or like a horse? Pretending like the market is a person and should be free is naive and ignores history.
The free market abhors competition, it will stamp out competition if i
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The exact opposite. Politicians provide so called 'economists' with clout, positions of power and these 'economists' justify whatever politicians sell to the public, while promoting policies that are bought by some mobeyed interests. So for example the case of Standard Oil destroyed the most efficient kerosene provider in the market, whose product was the Standard, the company that lowered kerosene prices from near a dollar per gallon to 7 cents in its last years, the company that found use for every drop
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Sure, you want a "Free" market? Then no more copyright, no more patents, no more IP laws. That would indeed be a free market. Good luck trying to monopolize that.
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If you're talking about absolutely free markets, yes, you are right. But there is a spectrum of market freedom, from lightly regulated on one end, to regulated into oblivion on the other end.
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Insane? You clearly don't live anywhere that there are rent controls.
Or are you a property owner who, like the VC that bought rental property after the 2008 meltdown, and want to raise the rent 10% -20$ per year?
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BULL SHIT. Greater Boston has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, and that's since rent control was stupidly rolled back statewide in the 90's.
Yes, rent control's totally the problem, because without it the invisible hand has been doing an excellent job of meeting demand for housing these past thirty years...
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By that logic we should allow contract killings.
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He never said that it should be allowed. But he explained while we still have contract killings even though they are illegal.
Asking for allowing things is a second step: Are the costs/side effects of the countermeasures worse than the damage by what you tried to ban? Are your measures working at all and at least largely reduce the banned behavior? In other words: Is it worth it? If not, you may ask for legalization.
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What people are going to do lines of coke at a party they got from a stranger? It's crazy but that hasn't stopped coke sales.
Re: Ban this, ban that (Score:2)
People who want a 5% better deal will consign their luxury watch with a felon g4p cocaine prostitute who flexes with lambos and then be outraged when they turn out to be a scammer 5 million in debt.
People are dumb. But anyway hotel biz was already regulated and unlicensed hotel equivalents were banned already, airbnbs argument was that because it was on app and the owner of apartment could in theory have been living there while subleasing the room made it legal, basically. Nyc called them on that and thats
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Cool now do abortion and cannabis.
Re: Ban this, ban that (Score:1)
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Why? I never asked for any of those to be banned. Hell, I don't even think the ones I mentioned should be banned. Though for loan sharks, I should replace that with usury. When a payday loan shop is operating above board, they can't cut off your thumbs. Only a loan shark can, and a loan shark also doesn't care if you file for chapter 7. It's for this reason that loan sharks are only a thing in areas where interest rates are capped; they don't bother operating anywhere else.
Re: Ban this, ban that (Score:2)
It was already banned tho.
Dunno how its creating a black market in that sense. Airbnb just made it easier to advertise your black market hotel business. The whole model favors running multiples and preferably in one location, not subleasing one room of the place where you actually live, that was always just a ruse to tell regulators.
What people want to do is run a hotel business without the red tape.
Changes take time... (Score:3, Informative)
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I don't think that was the real issue in NYC though. It was more tenant unions and hotel companies making a fuss about loss of business / loss of available units.
"Consumer protections" was just the ruse used to get this rammed through.. if AirBNB was so bad, just no one would use it, but obviously lots of people do (or wanted to in NYC, which is why it got nuked from orbit by the govt / lobby groups..)
Re:Changes take time... (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's not about the hotels though, it's the neighbours who have to put up with living next to AirBnBs,
Exactly. You move to a nice quiet neighborhood, and then get all the bullshit of living in a commercial area, plus new often intoxicated neighbors every weekend.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com]
Exactly what people want happening next door to them.
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If air bnb was so terrible why do people use it?
I've used it only 2-3 times over the years but only when I couldn't get a hotel. It was annoying but better that than nothing.
Re: Changes take time... (Score:3)
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it's about the endless scams, fleecing, negligence, peeping Toms, etc., for guests, with little or no recourse.
I don't understand this. I've rented over 50 times using AirBnB and have never had any of those issues. If there's a scam or fleecing, firstly your credit card may cover you, secondly AirBnB will cover you. For negligence you can always sue. What happens if there's negligence in a hotel environment? You sure. Same for peeping Toms, or you may even be able to report it to the authorities in two party consent states.
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Re: Changes take time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares, if people have money to spend on AirBnB and then get scammed, they will learn and not do it again. Or AirBnB is offering a service which needs serving and everyone voluntarily entered into an agreement. Donâ(TM)t like it, donâ(TM)t use it.
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Who cares, if people have money to spend on AirBnB and then get scammed, they will learn and not do it again. Or AirBnB is offering a service which needs serving and everyone voluntarily entered into an agreement. Donâ(TM)t like it, donâ(TM)t use it.
And I'm still pissed that I can't operate an unshielded fission reactor in my back yard. If it kills my neighbors, then they can be buried someplace else.
If you don't like my unshielded reactor, then don't move within a thousand feet of it. I haz my property rights, but those damn liberals want to make this country a communist stronghold.
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If you didn't want to get raped, then you shouldn't have worn those clothes. (Does that work the same for dressing up children too young-looking so that they attract paedophiles?)
If you don't want to get robbed, then don't leave your home at night.
If you don't want corporations to poison your water supply, then move to an area where they don't do that.
etc...
Me? I prefer civilisation & rule of law.
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If you don't like my unshielded reactor, then don't move within a thousand feet of it.
You must have missed basic civics. The idea is that folks can do what they want until they cause harm. That's the difference. Obviously, emitting fatal radiation or pouring Benzene in the river isn't related to the idea of property rights.
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If you don't like my unshielded reactor, then don't move within a thousand feet of it.
You must have missed basic civics. The idea is that folks can do what they want until they cause harm. That's the difference. Obviously, emitting fatal radiation or pouring Benzene in the river isn't related to the idea of property rights.
Try to make posts without snarky remarks. It was by and large a joke, but since you have decided to take it quite seriously.. so shall I.
In an ideal world, everyone is smart, kind and law abiding, and all is clear - no disputes.. So forgive me if I speak of reality.
Now some of that reality. The 2014 Armed standoff between Cliven Bundy. He had a property rights dispute with the Guvmint that ended up i a small range war between the Guvmint who he believed was infringing on his ancestral property rights.
So what? What does any of that prove? (Score:2)
since you have decided to take it quite seriously.. so shall I.
Oh, noes! Some Communist idiot rolls up his sleeves for an argument. Super scary! I'm peeing down my leg here.
Try to make posts without snarky remarks.
You mean like in the quote from you below, Professor ?
Use your civics class learning to solve it
Sure, tough-guy, no sweat. Were folks materially harmed in a way that can be demonstrated? Then, they probably have a case that needs to be heard. Every single situation or link you provided would probably need adjudication because they are complicated. Nobody made you a promise that it'd all be simple and easily settled. That's theoretically why
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Fuck you. No. I don't have to do shit for you. Go die in a corner quietly.
My point was just that there are a whole lot of people with a whole lot of different definitions of property rights.
Take a break - you need one. You might consider relaxing with an adult beverage or herb of your choice, you seem to be rather upset.
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you seem to be rather upset.
You mad bro? Sounds like pot & kettle situation.
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Landfill issues specifically, people often choose to live there due to the cheap property, then complain about it as it grows. Same with airports, these things have been there longer than the average age of the home buyer in the area.
People make bad decisions. Same for AirBnB places.
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Landfill issues specifically, people often choose to live there due to the cheap property, then complain about it as it grows. Same with airports, these things have been there longer than the average age of the home buyer in the area.
People make bad decisions. Same for AirBnB places.
Yup, people do often make bad decisions. I've been accused of "overthinking", and might be guilty, but take my house for instance. I bought a house on top of a hill to avoid flooding issues, and in the middle of a village so there was less likelihood of having a highway go through or some other eminent domain situation. So while it could happen, there would be thousands put out, which would make it unlikely due to huge amounts of money involved. Bought a place in a forest setting because y'all don't even wa
As a tourist... (Score:5, Interesting)
Manhattan was the 2nd most expensive city for accommodation I've stayed in after Oslo, thanks to Norway's currency.
Banning AirBnB may somewhat alleviate a rental crisis but push up the prices of hotels; I can understand there are only so many people you can fit on an island.
If I ever have the opportunity to visit New York's attractions again, I would look at look staying at one of the satellite towns across the water in New Jersey.
Re:As a tourist... (Score:5, Insightful)
My experience of Manhattan a few years ago was that AirBnbs were basically a similar price to hotels. You could also get lots of 'apart hotels' which had basic cooking facilities, and these were quite affordable on weekends/holidays, as I presume they cater for short term professionals visiting the city during the week.
When Airbnb started, I naively thought it was a great idea, but after seeing how central London was transformed into a industrial scale short-let market, I think it's an absolute cancer on cities. I love being a tourist, but tourism can't outnumber the locals or the place just becomes a sort of dystopian disneyland. The best way to regulate tourist numbers is controlling the availability of overnight accomodation. Places like France do this very well, and even with the crazy hoards of tourists in Paris, it is not hard to find areas full of locals doing local stuff. In the smaller French cities there is a good mix of different types of accomodation (including regulated short-lets) and it seems to work well on the whole. It can be done, but it can't be done if it's an unregulated free for all.
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My experience of Manhattan a few years ago was that AirBnbs were basically a similar price to hotels. You could also get lots of 'apart hotels' which had basic cooking facilities, and these were quite affordable on weekends/holidays, as I presume they cater for short term professionals visiting the city during the week.
When Airbnb started, I naively thought it was a great idea, but after seeing how central London was transformed into a industrial scale short-let market, I think it's an absolute cancer on cities. I love being a tourist, but tourism can't outnumber the locals or the place just becomes a sort of dystopian disneyland. The best way to regulate tourist numbers is controlling the availability of overnight accomodation. Places like France do this very well, and even with the crazy hoards of tourists in Paris, it is not hard to find areas full of locals doing local stuff. In the smaller French cities there is a good mix of different types of accomodation (including regulated short-lets) and it seems to work well on the whole. It can be done, but it can't be done if it's an unregulated free for all.
It does indeed seem to be a good idea at first. But it eventually just turns the places into more hotels. You can bet that a local person living in these places will decide to be someplace else after the area is turned into hundreds of Mini hotels with little oversight over owners and patrons.
AirBnB gets lots of sexual assault cases, rape, property destruction, just the sort of thing you want next door to your place. Who doesn't want police showing up in the middle of the evening? I mean, renting your ho
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Early on AirBnB was cheap because investor money was paying the difference. Now the real costs have set in and it turns out to be more expensive than your average Motel. Not to mention the random fees and arbitrary rules that hosts tack on. At this point the facility and cleaning fees exceed the offered price. And I don't think NYC will miss the lone room you refuse to pay for.
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after Oslo, thanks to Norway's currency.
It's 10.85:1 for NKR:USD right now. The NKR is as about as stretched against the USD as it's ever been. When I lived there the exchange rate was closer to 6:1. Right now, visiting Norway is now comparatively cheap due to the strength of the USD at the moment. You might want to visit again.
RHOAR (Score:5, Interesting)
According to
But why the hell would anyone believe that and report it as the truth?
Anyone who knows the first thing about Airbnb knows that hosts have a lot of problems with bad guests, and guests have a lot of problem with bad hosts, and that Airbnb spends a lot of effort and money to avoid these problems (and to avoid PR fallout when they fail to).
Ask yourself, how much would YOU pay for a black market Airbnb? And how would YOU trust a tenant in your home if you couldn't legally admit they were there?
There's a much simpler explanation, and that's that we're dealing with real estate owners who scream bloody murder because their passive income stream was taken away.
Re:RHOAR (Score:4, Insightful)
their passive income stream was taken away
And really... it wasn't taken away. If they can put it on AirBnB, then they could rent it out. They still have their income stream, and they'll still be better off than 3/4 of the country.
Re:RHOAR (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but normal renting as apposed to AirBnB comes with responsibilities and requirements that cost money .
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who scream bloody murder because their passive income stream was taken away.
And driving up prices for everyone else because those apartments are no longer available to purchase.
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who scream bloody murder because their passive income stream was taken away.
And driving up prices for everyone else because those apartments are no longer available to purchase.
Which the implemented solution won't help because it doesn't deal with supply nor demand. The number of units stays the same and people looking for space stays the same as well.
I dislike AirBnB because it encourages scams, but that's another topic. The thing I see is that we get into a divisive argument where it's putting players against other players and not dealing with the problem.
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who scream bloody murder because their passive income stream was taken away.
And driving up prices for everyone else because those apartments are no longer available to purchase.
Which the implemented solution won't help because it doesn't deal with supply nor demand. The number of units stays the same and people looking for space stays the same as well.
I dislike AirBnB because it encourages scams, but that's another topic. The thing I see is that we get into a divisive argument where it's putting players against other players and not dealing with the problem.
Well, I don't know about you, but people staying in 100 percent unregulated houses are actively taking part in whatever happens to them in that case. AirBnB at least has a skeevy way of shielding the owners of the rentals for the sexual assaults and property destruction that occur. So if you as a upstanding citizen merely exercising your property rights, and a woman customer gets raped by the previous customer that had a duplicate set of key's made - you might get caught up in the whole fun of providing the
Re:RHOAR (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a much simpler explanation, and that's that we're dealing with real estate owners who scream bloody murder because their passive income stream was taken away.
What most people don't get is that they are asking the wolf to take care of the hens. Most cities have a housing problem because they want to control every aspect of housing without doing the work. This is not like Internet access where there are only one or two players in the area. Housing is like retail shopping where there are multiple players with multiple options. With government intervention the small players are being squeezed out of the market. More demand than supply increases prices. Zoning, which is only one aspect of the problem controlled by local government, as a means of increasing fees for governments is limiting supply. Exacerbating the problem.
In plain English, how they are dealing with the problem will make the problem worse. Blaming the owners for screaming bloody murder is equivalent to blaming the tenants for screaming bloody murder. The solution is not addressing the problem which has grown over 60 years and is much more difficult to deal with today.
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This is not something new. It's been 60 years of poor policy manipulated by some of the richest people. Covid had the biggest impact so far but people are reverting back. I have very little faith that it will improve the situation since attitudes haven't changed.
Re:RHOAR (Score:4, Interesting)
According to
But why the hell would anyone believe that and report it as the truth?
Anyone who knows the first thing about Airbnb knows that hosts have a lot of problems with bad guests, and guests have a lot of problem with bad hosts, and that Airbnb spends a lot of effort and money to avoid these problems (and to avoid PR fallout when they fail to).
Ask yourself, how much would YOU pay for a black market Airbnb? And how would YOU trust a tenant in your home if you couldn't legally admit they were there?
There's a much simpler explanation, and that's that we're dealing with real estate owners who scream bloody murder because their passive income stream was taken away.
The problem is, especially in the US that a lot of people will take the cheaper, less legal option when there is a price difference. If an Airline called "Fat Chance Air" offered cheaper tickets than Spirit but ignored safety regulations, didn't regularly inspect planes, skimped on servicing, didn't hire trained cabin crew, so on and so forth, people would still fly it no matter how degrading the experience... Of course when the inevitable fatal accident occurs, they'll all cry "Government, why didn't you protect us".
OTOH, a lot of people would invest in this "disruptor" airline, hoping to get a payday and when it all goes tits up, cry "Government, why didn't you protect us, oh, and bail us out".
Plenty of people willing to take the risk on both sides, not many willing to shoulder the responsibility.
I'm not against AirBNB mind you, but I'm very, very weary of them. I generally avoid them in places where there's lots of decent accommodation and generally only use them in places where I'm aware of the regulations and there are easy ways to tell if a habitation is complying with regs. A lot of places allow AirBNB but require them to be registered. A registration number is usually a good sign. Even with that it's a risk, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't but you pays your money and takes your chances.
NYC is a place I'd avoid AirBNB though.
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Re: RHOAR (Score:2)
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I mean... even through AirBNB there are people who do crazy shit like this:
https://community.withairbnb.c... [withairbnb.com]
"A guest has locked herself out at the beginning of her 20 day stay and did not notify me. She went on to change the lock without my knowledge and only mentioned it 3 days before check out along with the fact that my door is now damaged by the locksmith."
At least that "guest" left. What if you black market rent to someone and they decide to stay?
https://www.mercurynews.com/20... [mercurynews.com]
"A tenant who has grab
No, it is not. (Score:3)
What bolsters a rental black market is inadequate compliance policing.
When there are realistically no consequences for violating rental laws because the city is not enforcing them, THAT permits a rental black market.
We have shitloads of policing for parking tickets or selling drugs but none for rental law violations or wage theft.
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That's fine (Score:5, Interesting)
That has to stop. It's not sustainable. We've got 40% of homeless working full time. And god help us the next time we have a market crash and people are kicked out of their homes again. There aren't any cheap apartments for them to fall back on. Most of them are pricier then the houses we're kicking them out of. You can't have that many millions homeless without serious consequences for everyone else. Especially not in a country with this many guns.
Oh look, economics works (Score:3, Insightful)
Craigslist? Only a fool ... (Score:2)
Years ago I found a place on Craigslist and all was good. So I tried again last year. Every single place I checked was a scam.
YMMV.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously an ad (Score:2)
What? (Score:2)
Who is giving their credit card info or Venmo'ing cash for a black market short-term rental?
It has become ridiculous but (Score:2)
"Without the checks and balances..." (Score:2)