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VGSchadenfreude t1_j26b924 wrote

Mix of things: supply and demand play a part, but so do the ways in which corporations deliberately interfere with that.

Companies have been buying up every bit of spare housing they can, with the explicit (in their own words) intent of renting them out at exhorbitant rates. Most of those rentals aren’t even residential; they’re being marketed as AirBnBs and Vrbos.

There’s also been issues with the recent admission that rental companies have been relying on an algorithm to determine what rents to charge, regardless of other factors. End result is that placed that are clearly not worth that sort of money are still charging twice as much as they’re worth and because everyone is charging the same rates, people have no choice but to find a way to pay them. Which, in turn, skews the supply and demand numbers even further.

It’s a complex issue.

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[deleted] OP t1_j26buoi wrote

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cakeo48 t1_j26wj15 wrote

Ehh some cities have tried putting restrictions on airbnb and found it didn't have as much as an impact as they thought. Mostly it's more of a euro city problem, seattle isn't popular enough of a tourist city to have much of an effect.

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[deleted] OP t1_j26xjpl wrote

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cakeo48 t1_j26yxzx wrote

Your main issue seemed to be prices tho? The number of units taken is 100% relevant to pricing for larger metro areas like Seattle. If the number is low enough and sprea out enough then the change in prices if they weren't airbnb wouldn't be distinguishable from natural market fluctuations....Hawaii is much closer to euro cities in how fragile the housing market is and higher demand form tourists than Seattle....

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