Hurricane Sandy and the Airbnb revolution

[link to news.yahoo.com]


On Airbnb, you list any sleepable place to happen to have jurisdiction over—anything from a spare bed in a room to a spare room in a house to a spare seaside palace on 40 acres. You also post dates it’s free. The lovely, searchable site then suggests—based on your area—what you might charge per night for what you’re offering.

But wait—isn’t it only natural to batten down in a storm? And the truth is, and I’m not just being uptight: Airbnb is kind of illegal. It has essentially opened tens of thousands of unlicensed hotels around the world, many in neighborhoods that are meant to be residential. It has also kicked off a trend of “hoteling”: renting or commandeering uninhabited industrial spaces in desirable cities and cutting them up into bedrooms, sometimes with mere partitions. Each one of these beds can be booked most nights of the year on Airbnb. I’m told—hearsay, but solid hearsay—that some Brooklynites make good money this way.

I would choose this over paying completely over-inflated prices at hotels. Some hotels are asking $700 PER NIGHT!