Political Memes

I think the convenience and the swollen price tag of Airbnb offers particular issue. In my mind Airbnb exploits an issue with a lack of landlords not offering leases with full year of commitment requirements. Nobody is forcing a landlord to set a minimum year of occupancy, that's just the culture we have. That additional markup for having a short term rental is what incentivizes the market to pledge houses towards people who want to travel on a budget.

When I was living in Japan it was fairly normal to find short term rentals that were basically just regular rentals. You weren't charged hotel prices for them, they cost the same as every other rental just you basically gave them a ballpark for how long you intended to stay as a courtesy to them or gave your month's moving notice as needed. If you wanted to just keep staying there as a regular renter that was normal too. There were even small businesses that served as convenient rental realtors who smoothed the process between owners and renter so you could set things up by phone or email to take the key and possession of the apartment.

Airbnb isn't the only thing disruptive to the housing supply... It's in part our entire culture of assuming a difference between short and long term renters and gouging short term renters because we assume that a low income person who is a short term leaser is going to ruin the places they live due to class prejudge. Long term lease requirements lock people living paycheck to paycheck down into situations that subject them to abusive landlords and the lack of flexibility means additional stress and impairment of freedom to move when something is desperately not working.