Podcast: Pumping irony and airbnb on defensive

There are so many issues it strata that are “he said, she said” – or “they said, they said”, to put it in a more contemporary context –  that the temptation to not take sides is sometimes overwhelming.

But consider the plight of an owner on the first floor of a block who has a noisy commercial gym operating from 6am until after 7pm every weekday.

Then add in the fact that most of her strata committee’s members live several floors away from the noise are undisturbed and therefore unperturbed.

And, for the cracked and uninviting icing on the strata cake, the role of chair and secretary has been taken by a strata management firm that’s rapidly becoming synonymous with shady practises.

Should commercial gyms ever be allowed in strata buildings? The local politicians and council officials who can’t see any problem don’t spend nearly enough time in gyms, or strata for that matter.

Also, this week, we use the excuse that we are travelling overseas to look at how the anti-Airbnb backlash is spreading, the form it’s taking and how a TV ad campaign is hitting the global holiday rental platform right where it hurts – in the big lie about “sharing”.

That’s all in this week’s Flat Chat Wrap.

Transcript in Full

Jimmy (0:00 – 0:02)

So have you packed, Sue Williams?

Sue (0:02 – 0:03)

No, but I’ve thought about packing.

Jimmy (0:04 – 0:13)

You’ve thought about packing. We have approximately 24 hours before we head off on a huge trip around Europe.

Sue (0:13 – 0:17)

But that’s a huge amount of time as well. And I’ve still got lots of work to finish.

Jimmy (0:17 – 0:23)

Oh, there we go. And some meetings. There we go. This packing will be happening at 2am tomorrow morning.

Sue (0:23 – 0:28)

Probably. And we always start our holidays with the row, so no need to make it any different.

Jimmy (0:28 – 0:54)

And then we’ve got the flight to calm down and become friends again. Yes. So I thought this would be a good opportunity with us going off on holiday to talk about Airbnb.

As far as I know, we’re not staying in an Airbnb. Because sometimes, you know, you go through other agencies and it looks like you’re staying in a hotel. It sounds like you’re staying in a hotel.

And then you get there and you find all this material for Airbnb in the room.

Sue (0:54 – 1:05)

It’s difficult because I guess those short-term platforms kind of advertise on all platforms now. I mean, lots of hotels advertise on Airbnb as well. So you’re never quite sure.

Jimmy (1:06 – 1:30)

Right. So we’ll find out. But we have definitely booked into some hotels that don’t necessarily have Airbnb connections.

But it’s interesting because we’ll have a chat about what cities in Europe around the world are now restricting Airbnb because Victoria has recently done that. And we’re also going to talk about somebody who is being driven mad by the, I was going to say the disco underneath them. It’s a gym.

Sue (1:31 – 1:32)

The commercial gym.

Jimmy (1:32 – 1:36)

May as well be a disco because there’s lots of loud thumping music and shouting.

Sue (1:36 – 1:37)

Yes, that’s right.

Jimmy (1:37 – 1:48)

So maybe slightly less whooping. So that’s interesting too. Well, we’ve both got to get packed.

So we’d better get on with this. I’m Jimmy Thomson. I write the Flat Chat column for the Australian Financial Review.

Sue (1:48 – 1:53)

And I’m Sue Williams and I write about property for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the AFR and Domain.

Jimmy (1:53 – 2:15)

And this is the Flat Chat Wrap.

Maybe we’ll start with the woman who is being driven mad by the gym under her apartment.

Sue (2:15 – 2:26)

Yes. She lives in an apartment quite, well, it’s kind of nearly 10 years old apartment. Building in North Sydney.

And that has a commercial gym underneath at the base of the building.

Jimmy (2:26 – 2:26)

Right.

Sue (2:27 – 2:46)

And I think this is becoming an issue more and more because there are a lot more gyms around now. And we’ve heard about similar kind of issues. I mean, it’s a commercial gym.

So it’s not like a building gym or anything. So there were a number of retail spaces at the base of this building. And it’s quite a substantial building.

And one of the retail spaces was taken up by a gym.

Jimmy (2:46 – 2:46)

Right.

Sue (2:46 – 2:51)

And you kind of think, well, a gym, maybe it’s better than a bottle shop with people loitering around drinking and stuff.

Jimmy (2:51 – 2:52)

Well, that’s a matter of opinion.

Sue (2:52 – 2:57)

Well, that’s right. Because we were in a building once and a bottle shop moved in and we thought, oh, no. In fact, they were great.

Jimmy (2:57 – 2:58)

Yeah.

Sue (2:58 – 3:04)

And they now take parcels for residents and all that kind of thing because they’re open such long hours. So they can be a really good tenant.

Jimmy (3:05 – 3:05)

Yeah.

Sue (3:05 – 3:09)

But this commercial gym, unfortunately, there’s an awful lot of noise emanate from there.

Jimmy (3:09 – 3:10)

Yeah.

Sue (3:10 – 3:12)

And she’s on the first floor of the building.

Jimmy (3:12 – 3:14)

So she’s right above it.

Sue (3:14 – 3:48)

Yeah, that’s right. And she can hear music sometimes, but mostly it’s this big, loud thudding noise every so often. And because it’s an Olympic lifting gym, it’s people lifting huge weights and then just dropping them on the floor.

And she said when she first moved in, she was with a friend and they heard all this banging. And it was so loud. And her apartment vibrated so much.

She thought it was a bomb going off and she called the police. So it was a really startling kind of discovery that this gym was so incredibly noisy.

Jimmy (3:48 – 4:07)

Now, I know a little bit about this because this came from the Flat Chat Forum. This person, this woman wrote to us and said, what can I do about this? And it just seems to be dodgy from beginning to end.

From what I understand, they started operating the gym without planning permission.

Sue (4:08 – 4:09)

They didn’t have all the proper certification.

Jimmy (4:10 – 4:10)

Right.

Sue (4:10 – 4:26)

So when this woman complained, well, she complained obviously to the gym, to a strata committee, to the strata managers and to North Sydney Council, the council then discovered that it was operating without the proper certificates. So it actually closed it down for three months.

Jimmy (4:26 – 4:26)

Wow.

Sue (4:27 – 4:28)

For it to get the proper certificates.

Jimmy (4:28 – 4:29)

Yeah.

Sue (4:29 – 4:59)

But she was really sad then because it actually got all the certificates and then reopened to be operating legally, even though it was still incredibly noisy. I mean, it’s funny. At my gym, we used to have meditation sessions in the gym room.

And I used to love that bit. That’s much better than exercise, really. Just lying down and you can kind of fall asleep almost.

But then when people started lifting weights outside in the other part of the gym or upstairs in the weights room, oh my God, the noise.

Jimmy (4:59 – 4:59)

Yeah.

Sue (4:59 – 5:08)

And it was this thudding. It can be really disturbing. Like you’d be lying there meditating, kind of drifting off and then suddenly this enormous crash.

Jimmy (5:08 – 5:08)

Yeah.

Sue (5:09 – 5:11)

Would come. I mean, and it was so annoying.

Jimmy (5:11 – 5:12)

Yeah.

Sue (5:12 – 5:16)

And you’d go out to see who was doing it. It would be a massive, huge, muscly guy.

Jimmy (5:16 – 5:18)

And you’d decide not to confront him.

Sue (5:18 – 5:31)

Yes, that’s right. And because many of the gym trainers were kind of a little bit timid in some ways as well, they kind of wouldn’t go out and tell them to put their weights down. And maybe it’s not possible to put those big weights down softly.

Jimmy (5:32 – 5:51)

There’s a theory in exercise that if you are not in control of the weight, then you’re not getting the benefit of lifting it and lowering it. And in fact, lowering the weight, resisting the pull of gravity as you lower the weight is said to be more beneficial than lifting it.

Sue (5:51 – 5:59)

Yeah. But that’s for kind of lifting and pulling down weights and stuff. This is Olympic lifting.

You know, when they kind of pull, heave.

Jimmy (5:59 – 6:00)

All right.

Sue (6:00 – 6:03)

Huge dumbbells, huge barbell onto their shoulders.

Jimmy (6:03 – 6:04)

Yes.

Sue (6:04 – 6:07)

And then they kind of have to stand up really gingerly.

Jimmy (6:07 – 6:09)

You’ve seen them at the Olympics and stuff.

Sue (6:10 – 6:14)

And then they kind of step away and it just drops behind them. So it’s that kind of stuff.

Jimmy (6:14 – 6:21)

That’s crazy. I mean, it’s great if you’re doing it in a proper gym, but if you’re doing it in an apartment building, that’s just nutty.

Sue (6:21 – 6:26)

And I mean, they obviously do have rubber matting, but it’s obviously not good enough.

Jimmy (6:26 – 6:38)

There’s only so much it can do. So she has complained to her committee and first of all, she had people who were sympathetic and then people were saying, well, it doesn’t bother me. Why would people say it didn’t bother them?

Sue (6:39 – 7:36)

Well, it apparently, well, she was on the first floor, so it’s much worse for her. And I spoke to somebody on the second floor and he was affected too. But I think as somebody on the fifth floor was affected, but as you go up the building, it’s less and less.

And presumably the apartments at the higher levels of the building have more unit entitlements because they’re more expensive. And this building has some fabulous views of the harbour. They would have really expensive apartments at the top.

So really those people, if they’re not hearing it, they would outvote anybody else. I mean, people were a bit sympathetic at first, but they told her basically to go and get an acoustics test done. So she paid to have acoustics tests and the results came back and said, well, yes, the problem is people dropping weights, people racking weights because the racks were bolted to the walls and that was causing the vibrations of them as well as the dropping weights.

And, you know, some of the loud music and the shouting.

Jimmy (7:37 – 7:38)

So there is loud music and shouting.

Sue (7:39 – 7:39)

Yes.

Jimmy (7:39 – 7:43)

And there is dropping of weights and it starts at five o’clock in the morning.

Sue (7:43 – 7:49)

No, six o’clock. Six o’clock in the morning. Opens at six.

And then. And it closes at 7.45 at night.

Jimmy (7:49 – 7:50)

So it’s just all day.

Sue (7:50 – 7:51)

More than 12 hours.

Jimmy (7:51 – 8:01)

Yeah. And then a familiar name creeps into view, which is you asked her to get the name of the secretary of the building. Well, what happened?

Sue (8:01 – 8:13)

She spoke to somebody at the Strata Committee and the Strata Committee person kind of texted her back and said, well, we don’t have a secretary or chair anymore because their positions both held by our Strata manager.

Jimmy (8:13 – 8:14)

Now, who’s the Strata manager?

Sue (8:15 – 8:15)

NET Strata.

Jimmy (8:15 – 8:20)

NET Strata. Good old NET Strata. You can always count on them to be in the middle of a mess.

Sue (8:21 – 8:31)

And I thought it was weird that a Strata manager has the position of chair and secretary. In a building which isn’t under compulsory administration.

Jimmy (8:32 – 10:30)

No, no. Well, I mean, on a basic, very basic level, it’s kind of written into Strata law and Strata contracts that the Strata manager has the ability to step in as chair, secretary and treasurer in the absence of people filling those roles or if they’re unavailable or whatever, which is good. It’s a safety net.

Our experience of NET Strata in our other apartment at our first AGM, we signed a Strata management agreement with them, which is we thought we were signing the standard Strata management agreement. It turned out the standard NET Strata agreement is that they have full delegated powers. So you’re actually signing over.

The owners are saying, OK, please take over the running of this building. We don’t want to have meetings. We don’t want to discuss stuff.

That’s not in the contract, but that’s the implication. And at the meeting that we had, our first AGM, the Strata manager stood up and said, well, it’s nice to meet you all. And it’s good that you’ve elected your committee.

We’ll take over from here and we’ll let you know. We’ll have a meeting, a couple of meetings every year to let you know how things are going. And I said, no, that will not be happening here.

We are a committee. We will make decisions. We will tell you what’s happening.

What needs to happen, not the other way around. And that started this huge fight with them when we said to them, can we get the Strata role? So that’s a list of names and addresses and phone numbers of everybody who owns or lives in the building.

They refused to hand it over. And when I said, you’re breaking the law because the law says you’ve got to give it to the secretary of the committee at the very least. Their response was, yeah, but we’re the secretary.

So we don’t have to give it to anybody. Why would any Strata company not want you to have your Strata role? Because they don’t want owners communicating with each other.

Sue (10:31 – 10:39)

So basically, then they can run a company. Run the building as they wish. Yeah.

And they can argue it’s more efficient that way without having the owners kind of.

Jimmy (10:40 – 11:27)

Well, you know, you can see the wisdom of that, you know, that you’ve got people who have no idea what they’re doing. They’ve never lived in Strata before and they’ve got this professional company that says, hey, this is how things work. But if that professional company is also, as we’ve discovered with Net Strata, says we don’t take insurance commissions, which they don’t, but they’ve got a subsidiary that does all their insurance deals and it does take commissions.

And so you think, well, what other decisions are they making? Now, the other decision they’re making might be totally above board. It’s better if all these things are in the open.

And the other thing is that you come around to the AGM. They set the agenda for the AGM. They put it out.

They are, if they are effectively the committee, basically the AGM is just a rubber stamp for whatever they want.

Sue (11:28 – 11:33)

So it’s kind of like a dictatorship, isn’t it really? And one would hope it would be a benevolent dictatorship.

Jimmy (11:34 – 11:35)

You can hope that.

Sue (11:35 – 11:39)

But with all dictatorships, sometimes the potential is that they go wrong.

Jimmy (11:39 – 12:23)

The number of complaints there have been about that particular company not handing over the strata role and owners corporations having to threaten to take them to the tribunal. Just to get a list that the law quite clearly says you must provide the strata role to the secretary. In fact, the law says that the strata role must be kept up to date by the secretary of the owners corporation.

Now, if the secretary is saying, can I see the strata role? They say, well, we’re also the secretary, so don’t worry about it. So anyway, this is all added into this mess for this poor woman living above the gym.

Where is it at now? It’s about to blow up because you’re about to have a story in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sue (12:23 – 12:59)

Yes, that’s right. Absolutely. North Sydney Council have closed their books on the matter.

They’ve emailed her and said, any other complaints you might be making will be filed. Which is more or less saying that the case is closed. Like it’s just too difficult kind of thing.

But they sent another engineer over after she’d written her report, after the report had come in, which said that it was clearly breaching a lot of bylaws and civil law and all sorts of things with the noise. They sent one of their own engineers out. Apparently, he came at like four o’clock, which is a very quiet time for all gyms really.

Jimmy (13:00 – 13:03)

Yeah. And didn’t he also tell the gym that he was coming to?

Sue (13:03 – 13:05)

Yes, he did as well. So yeah, apparently.

Jimmy (13:05 – 13:19)

I don’t know why I have this feeling, but I have the feeling that North Sydney City Council is not particularly apartment friendly, despite the fact they’ve got one of the highest densities of apartments in Australia.

Sue (13:19 – 13:28)

Yeah, I don’t know that. That’s kind of interesting to think about. But I mean, gyms are causing a lot of problems in apartment buildings.

There are lots of apartment buildings with their own gyms.

Jimmy (13:28 – 13:28)

Yeah.

Sue (13:28 – 13:59)

And usually they’re kind of fitted out properly. So they’re not going to be a nuisance to the rest of the apartments. Hopefully, if they’ve had a decent developer.

But still, you have things like boxing being banned in gyms because the slapping of gloves on mitts is quite noisy. And they often won’t allow boot camp stuff in gyms because they can be really noisy because people really shout and stuff. And there’s always notices in those gyms as well, please put down weights quietly, whether people do or not.

Jimmy (13:59 – 14:01)

Well, I know someone who doesn’t.

Sue (14:01 – 14:07)

Well, you told me off the other day. I didn’t drop it. Well, maybe I did drop it.

It was too heavy. Yes, you’re quite right.

Jimmy (14:08 – 14:14)

I’m so sorry. You didn’t drop it from, you know, two feet above your head and it wasn’t 500 kilograms.

Sue (14:14 – 14:32)

That’s right. So there was an instance of a gym in Darlinghurst, which was told it couldn’t run certain classes because the apartment building above it was also suffering from vibrations and they were all hearing the noise from it. So they had to stop some classes and just only run certain classes.

Jimmy (14:32 – 15:27)

There’s a basic law in Strata that you can’t create a nuisance for other residents. And that nuisance could be anything from the drift of tobacco smoke to weights crashing down. I’ve just been reminded of a story years and years ago when we were just getting flat chat going.

This woman wrote and she said, I’ve got this problem. I don’t know what to do. This young bloke has moved in next door and it just sounds like he’s having really noisy sex first thing in the morning.

And then just after he comes home in the evening and I said, well, what does it sound like? She said, well, there’s a lot of grunting and roaring and then crashing sounds. And I thought, you know, that doesn’t actually sound like sex to me, but what are you going to think it is?

And eventually I realised he was coming and doing weights. He was getting up in the morning, doing his weights and coming home at work and doing his weights, hence the grunting and crashing.

Sue (15:27 – 15:37)

Yeah. And during COVID we had that a lot with people doing, because gyms were closed. But I think people were very tolerant because we all knew that everybody was suffering really.

Jimmy (15:37 – 15:43)

Yeah. And if anybody wants to buy a complete set of dumbbells and hand weights, just give us a call.

Sue (15:43 – 15:44)

And a huge rubber mat.

Jimmy (15:45 – 15:46)

And a huge rubber mat. Yeah.

Sue (15:47 – 15:48)

They’re in our storeroom now.

Jimmy (15:48 – 16:06)

Yeah. When we come back, we are going to talk about Airbnb and the changes that are afoot, not just in Australia, but all around the world. And that’s after this.

So off we go tomorrow.

Sue (16:06 – 16:07)

Yes.

Jimmy (16:07 – 16:08)

Our grand tour of Europe.

Sue (16:09 – 16:11)

Well, it’s not really a tour. Well, we’re going to…

Jimmy (16:11 – 16:13)

Well, it’s a tour, it’s a tour.

Sue (16:13 – 16:18)

We’re going to Berlin. We’re going to Limoges. We’re going to Paris.

We’re going to…

Jimmy (16:18 – 16:19)

London. We’re going to Glasgow.

Sue (16:19 – 16:20)

Going to Southampton.

Jimmy (16:21 – 16:23)

I think that’s a tour.

Sue (16:23 – 16:25)

Okay, maybe, all right.

Jimmy (16:25 – 17:20)

We won’t have tour t-shirts with all the destinations on the back. Maybe we should have. So it made me think, just had to register for our first place in Berlin.

And looking at it again, I thought, what is this place? It’s not a hotel and it’s not a private house in our apartment. And it looks very like an apartment hotel.

So we’ll find out. We can report back on that. But it did make me think, I don’t know how long Airbnb has been going now, about 15 years.

And gradually, various cities and states and countries around the world are saying, this is doing more harm than good. And we’re seeing a lot of adverts on TV at the moment from Airbnb going, we realize that your governments need to control things in the accommodation area. And we’re happy to talk.

You know, all this stuff.

Sue (17:20 – 17:21)

Yeah, we want to be part of the solution.

Jimmy (17:21 – 17:46)

We want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And I feel like saying, too late, guys. You’ve caused the problem.

The problem is spread because there are other booking agencies around doing the same thing. And it’s quite funny. I find it hilarious.

One of the things that Airbnb did for years and years and years, they said that their main business was people staying in other people’s homes while the people were there.

Sue (17:46 – 17:50)

Which I did once when I was doing a book about Father Bob Maguire, the Catholic priest.

Jimmy (17:50 – 17:52)

And in the early days, that’s what it was.

Sue (17:52 – 17:55)

Yeah, and I stayed with a woman. We became great friends.

Jimmy (17:55 – 17:56)

You slept with a woman?

Sue (17:56 – 17:59)

I stayed with a woman. And we became great friends.

Jimmy (18:01 – 19:11)

And so that was the beginning. But then it became whole homes were being let at. But they still kept this fiction going that their main business was people staying in someone’s home while the people were there.

And now what you see on TV is their great rival stays, is saying Airbnb are saying, why would a bunch of people go and stay in different hotel rooms when you could all stay in the same house or apartment? And stays is saying, why would you stay in a home with someone else there when you could have the whole home to yourself? And they’ve really undermined the whole Airbnb fiction, what is a fiction largely.

So it’s good to see these companies attacking each other in that way. But it made me think, what other restrictions are there around the world? We know that now in New South Wales, any apartment block can ban Airbnb completely apart from people whose homes are the principal place of residence, right?

So you can’t rent an apartment and put it on Airbnb and never have lived in it.

Sue (19:11 – 19:11)

Yeah, sure.

Jimmy (19:11 – 19:36)

Which is a big business, by the way. That’s one loophole there. Victoria has come in and not only are they allowing apartment blocks to ban Airbnb completely, but they are also bringing in a tax effectively, a levy, seven and a half percent, which will calm things down a bit.

So I thought we’d have a look at where else in the world things have changed. Did anything catch your eye?

Sue (19:37 – 19:48)

Yeah, well, Paris, they limit short-term rentals to 120 days per year for primary residences and require hosts to register with the city. And registering is always a really good idea, isn’t it?

Jimmy (19:48 – 20:08)

Yeah, because the real threat for people is the taxman. And once they’re registered, then tax authorities can look at those registers and go, hang on, this person is making thousands of dollars on their apartment and they’re not declaring it. And if they do have to declare it, then that decreases the profit margin, which is the big deciding factor in a lot of these things.

Sue (20:08 – 20:45)

Yeah. And I went to Paris last year and I went with, well, I met some friends from London and a friend from France and they booked up the accommodation and they booked up an Airbnb. And when we arrived there, it seemed okay.

It was really cold because it was in November and it was bloody freezing and there wasn’t much heating. And the water wasn’t very hot in the shower and stuff. But at night, suddenly there was this incredible noise in the middle of the night.

And we discovered that the train went right, the Metro went right underneath the building. So it kind of, the noise continued. All right.

Most of the rest of them.

Jimmy (20:45 – 20:49)

So you hadn’t even noticed that because the ambient noise outside, the traffic and stuff.

Sue (20:49 – 20:58)

No, that’s right. But at night, oh my God, it was incredible. And I mean, all of us said, oh, we would have been better off in a hotel because you never quite know what you’re going to get with an Airbnb.

Jimmy (20:58 – 21:05)

Yeah. As we were talking to friends on the weekend who are traveling in the States and checked out of two Airbnbs because they were just horrible.

Sue (21:05 – 21:06)

Yeah.

Jimmy (21:06 – 21:07)

Just awful places.

Sue (21:07 – 21:07)

Yeah.

Jimmy (21:07 – 21:28)

One of them walked into the Airbnb and ran out, ran back out and tried to stop the taxi from driving away. It was so bad. So other restrictions.

Amsterdam has a 30 day, 30 day annual limit on entire home rentals and requires hosts to register. Barcelona.

Sue (21:28 – 21:32)

And you kind of think with a 30 day limit, is it even worth doing it really? So therefore, yeah.

Jimmy (21:32 – 21:40)

But that would work for people who go and, oh, I’m going to go and travel around the world. I’m going to rent my apartment while I’m away.

Sue (21:40 – 21:41)

Yeah.

Jimmy (21:41 – 21:48)

Barcelona requires hosts to have a license and has stopped issuing new licenses in certain areas. That’s a great idea.

Sue (21:48 – 21:51)

Well, because we know Barcelona’s had a huge problem, haven’t they?

Jimmy (21:51 – 21:53)

Well, they’ve got a huge shortage of accommodation. They’ve got over-touristed.

Sue (21:53 – 21:59)

Yeah. And there’s been a real backlash against tourists in Barcelona because there are just too many of them.

Jimmy (21:59 – 21:59)

Yeah.

Sue (21:59 – 22:02)

And locals, you know, were kind of spraying and withdrawing things.

Jimmy (22:02 – 22:03)

Oh, people are getting driven out.

Sue (22:04 – 22:07)

Yeah. Which is a horrible situation to be in.

Jimmy (22:07 – 22:16)

People are sitting having lunch in Barcelona and they suddenly get accosted by protesters directly pointing at them. You don’t belong here. Go back where you came from.

Sue (22:16 – 22:18)

Yeah. Which is awful, really.

Jimmy (22:18 – 22:36)

Berlin, where we’re going, initially banned short-term rentals of entire apartments without a permit, but later relaxed rules. However, they still require registration. New York has strict regulations, including a ban on rentals of entire apartments for less than 30 days if the host is not present.

Sue (22:37 – 22:39)

Yeah, this 30-day thing, I think sounds quite reasonable, really.

Jimmy (22:40 – 23:12)

Absolutely. It’s a good idea. I mean, the whole idea is to get residential accommodation back into, you know, for people to rent or buy, or rent in this case.

I remember reading, somebody said, how come everybody’s being so hard on Airbnb, but everybody in New York, but everybody’s happy to have Uber? And they said, well, because you try getting an apartment in New York that’s affordable and then try and get a taxi to that apartment.

Sue (23:14 – 23:15)

Good point.

Jimmy (23:16 – 24:49)

Paris, you mentioned, San Francisco, where it all started, requires hosts to register with the city and limits rentals to 90 days a year. Tokyo implemented a law in 2018 limiting home sharing to 180 days per year and requiring hosts to register. That’s not too restrictive, except when it came in, a lot of the people who were letting their places weren’t aware that they had to register and then suddenly found they were breaking the law.

And Japanese people are generally very law abiding. And so all these places just dropped off Airbnb for about six months until people got themselves organized. But it’s funny, you go looking for accommodation in Tokyo, cheap accommodation, and it will say things like three bedroom apartment would suit 15 people.

Venice has strict regulations on short term rentals to combat over tourism. Los Angeles limits short term rentals for primary residences to 120 days a year. London limits short term rentals to 90 days a year unless the host obtains specific planning permission.

So at least there’s an overview there. I do know that London was involved in a negotiation with Airbnb for a long time. And Airbnb was saying, no, we don’t have as many properties as people say we have and blah, blah, blah.

And so they agreed that they would do a survey paid for by Airbnb. And then the survey came out and went, oh, it’s worse than we even thought. And that’s when the restrictions came in.

Sue (24:50 – 25:03)

But, you know, when it’s a choice between a hotel and, you know, a short term letting place, I don’t know, I kind of really quite like a hotel. It’s kind of anonymous. You know, it’s not got somebody else’s clutter around.

Jimmy (25:04 – 25:19)

And if you’re in an Airbnb infected building like you get a lot in Melbourne and the Airbnb people next door to you have got rather than the limit of four, they’ve got 12 people who are going to party all night. Although you had that in a hotel in Melbourne recently.

Sue (25:20 – 25:56)

I did, yes. There was a wedding held at the pub and it was a pub hotel. There was a wedding held there and then all the guests after the wedding party had finished repaired to a hotel room opposite mine and carried on carousing until 5am.

So that was a bit annoying. But generally, I think, you know, hotels, you know where to complain to. You’ve got somebody who’s going to go up and knock on the door.

You know, with a short term letting, you just don’t really know what you’re in for. And even when you’re sharing a home with the hosts. I mean, I remember somebody booked it up for us, I think once.

Jimmy (25:56 – 25:57)

Oh, this was in New Zealand.

Sue (25:57 – 26:34)

Yeah, in New Zealand. And we went along to this house where we were meant to be staying and we were both really tired and I think, I don’t know, we’d been to loads of meetings and stuff and the hosts opened the door and they were quite genial and they said, oh, we’ve looked you both up on the internet and we are so looking forward to getting to know you and chatting about your lives and your careers and stuff. And we both kind of went, oh my God, we don’t want this.

And we actually went out to dinner and we both said, oh, I can’t bear the thought of going back and we went and checked into a hotel. So, you know, I think there is a bit of a backlash against sharing people’s homes now, really.

Jimmy (26:35 – 26:39)

It’s not the ideal situation that is made out to be on the tail.

Sue (26:39 – 26:47)

I mean, there’s a cost of living crisis. Absolutely. But often hotels are cheaper these days than Airbnb.

It’s amazing.

Jimmy (26:48 – 26:48)

Yeah.

Sue (26:48 – 27:08)

And I think people really value their holidays. There’s a new report come out today showing that people are really scrimping and saving, trying to save money on streaming services and on food and going out because they want to go on holiday. That’s a huge thing for Australians.

So, therefore, you don’t want your precious holidays ruined by staying somewhere that just isn’t quite up to scratch.

Jimmy (27:08 – 27:24)

OK, well, you’ve reminded me that we need to cancel Netflix and Paramount and Disney and Apple and Stan and all the other ones before we leave tomorrow. Thanks for taking time off from your busy packing.

Sue (27:25 – 27:26)

Very funny.

Jimmy (27:26 – 27:34)

And thank you all for listening. Next time we talk to you, we might be in another country. Absolutely.

Thanks for listening. Talk to you again soon.

Sue (27:35 – 27:35)

Bye.

Jimmy (27:35 – 28:06)

Bye bye. Thanks for listening to the Flat Chat Wrap podcast. You’ll find links to the stories and other references on our website, flatchat.com.au. And if you haven’t already done so, you can subscribe to this podcast completely free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcatcher. Just search for Flat Chat Wrap with a W, click on subscribe, and you’ll get this podcast every week without even trying. Thanks again. Talk to you again next week.

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 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.