Homeowners Use Airbnb to Dodge Foreclosure

Unsurprisingly, using residentially-zoned space for commercial purposes is profitable. Don't most full-time bed-and-breakfasts have to get licensed? (I'm assuming that making $4,500/month implies being nearly full-time; maybe I'm wrong.)<p>To me, this seems fine when rare. So let's say I rent out a room once a month or something along those lines - no big deal. If I'm treating it like a real b-n-b, though, it seems like I'm engaged in some real commerce that is probably regulated. Presumably Airbnb behaves agnostically on this issue, allowing the responsibility to fall to the property owner?<p>I'm delighted for the specific homeowners being discussed here, but concerned about the general case.

Airbnb is amazing at PR. See their interviews for examples, but in general they've got a wonderful sense for spotting a narrative the media cares about and inserting themselves into it.

New York can go fuck itself. It's insulting to the people that in a time of economic turmoil the politicians are still taking big fat campaign checks from the hoteliers and passing arbitrary bullshit laws that dick people over who are trying to make ends meet. Who the fuck do they think are to even suggest they can come into my home and tell me how "sanitary" it is?<p>Sorry for the rant, but this is industry after industry, entrepreneurs like AirBNB try to create efficiency and wealth and the establishment comes along and buys off politicians to eliminate the competition.<p>Democrats hate corporations, Republicans hate the government. Or maybe they just pit us against each other while they all laugh their way to the bank.

There is one high profile illegal hotelier in NYC who is probably solely responsible for all the media attention and ruining it for everyone else: Hotel Toshi. He's a wannabe actor who was the asian chippendale gag on Conan a few years back. The guy even advertises for cleaning staff and has his own vans and trucks painted with his logo. I found AirBNB unusable in NYC because half the listings were from Hotel Toshi.<p><a href="http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi" rel="nofollow">http://ny.curbed.com/tags/hotel-toshi</a><p><a href="http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194" rel="nofollow">http://www.airbnb.com/users/rentals/8194</a><p><a href="http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms" rel="nofollow">http://www.myspace.com/toshifilms</a>

Shouldn't banks be lobbying against legislation like the one passed in NYC? If it helps people to pay mortgages, it's their best interests, right?

If I were AirBNB, I'd be sending this to whichever organization coordinates lobbying for the lending industry to fight the law against this sort of activity. Mortgage lenders have a serious interest in having their customers pay mortgages, if this sort of activity helps them they'd be fools to not support it.

What's funny is how many people in America think (large) corporations = capitalism.<p>But in reality what these enterprising homeowners are doing is real capitalism.<p>So politicians are protecting the former (corporations) and destroying the latter<p>- they are actually working against capitalism!

Those bastards! How dare they dodge their foreclosures and stop us from taking their houses!