I find when I AirBNB in the places I have been across Europe I have had no issues and I end up getting more for my money with no silly cleaning charges.
Is this something other locations have problems with or am I just missing the terrible places?
Afaik, AirBnB in the US is a huge pile of shit. In Europe most of the times the offering is good and you get more for your money that a typical Hotel. Exceptions exist of course, but on average I would say AirBnB > Hotel.
Airbnb quickly changed in the US from “hey rent out your house when you’re out of town for some spare cash” to “hey landlords here’s a way to gain more share of property and rent out those pesky properties in the short term”.
There are whole businesses built now for Airbnb just to take up properties and rent them on Airbnb at the highest rates possible. Then since they are looking for profit they pass the cleaning onto you.
Always trust capitalism and greedy people to ruin a good thing
My city in AZ just passed an ordinance that requires any short term rentals to have a permit, the owner must be able to respond to the property within 60 minutes, AND there must be a verified neighbor reachable 24 hours of the day and verified.
That should put a significant dent in landlord rent seeking behavior.
It’s going downhill in Europe too. I used Airbnb comparably early when it was available in Germany and it was a great way to cut costs while staying in unique locations and getting great tips from local owners.
Now it’s mostly the commercial listings you would find on other sites too, riddled with strange fees and Hotel-like prices.
I used AirBnB for travel in Germany for the last 4 years and one thing that really helped with those fees is the Australian AirBnB website. They legally have to show upfront the complete cost including alle fees. So I exclusively use the Australian AirBnB website now to find properties, you even can set the currency to Euro.
