Proof that AirBnB is Destroying Cities

In tourism-heavy cities (I used Nashville, Honolulu, New Orleans, and Savannah) the rental market is exploding, as AirBnB owners are suddenly forced to put their houses on the market.

This surge in supply is going to dramatically cut the rates of monthly rentals. pic.twitter.com/Zyh3AYouyH

— Shane Morris (@IamShaneMorris) March 22, 2020

For years, AirBnB lobbyists and "advocates of the free market" have argued that AirBnB has a negligible impact on the prices of rentals, arguing that they were two totally different commodities.

Now we're seeing they were totally full of shit.

— Shane Morris (@IamShaneMorris) March 22, 2020

"BuT wHeRe WiLl peOplE sTaY wIThoUt aLL tHeSe sHoRT tErm RenTAlS?"

Hotels. That's the answer. People will stay in hotels.

The coronavirus has put on full display, these houses and condos were ALWAYS reducing rental supply, and making housing less affordable.

— Shane Morris (@IamShaneMorris) March 22, 2020

Shane Morris did a drill down on Zillow data for furnished rentals, and found that there has been an explosion of long term rentals now that AirBnB has cratered. (Read the whole Twitter thread)

This is the real world experiment which shows that, notwithstanding the

It turns out that the service does take huge amounts of residential rental properties out of the market by moving them to short term rentals (hotels).

To those who argue that hotels take up space too, it should be noted that for a given area, a hotel will house tens, if not hundreds, of times more guests than an AirBnB listing.

People are buying converting residential rentals to hotels, or in an even more destabilizing development, long term renting properties to secretly sublease as AirBnB's, which means that when there is a downturn, there are suddenly dozens of landlords who are about to discover that their "tenants" are actually speculators who are going to walk away from their leases.  (And I agrew tiht hte poster that, "The sudden collapse of AirBNB has been, legitimately, the funniest f%$#ing thing I’ve watched play out this past month."

This will not end well, but it is the inevitable result of using regulatory arbitrage to facilitate leverage, speculation, and looting.

As I have noted before, the "sharing economy" has turned out to be little more than sucking the marrow out of society.

Authorities need to stop buying into the whole "internet disruption" bullsh%$.

All it does is enrich a few at the expense of the bulk of society.