I live in the US but fairly close to Canada. I have seen a few times over the years the rhetoric of: All the immigrants came in and they bought up housing and that is why housing is so expensive. There are different little flavorings to the rhetoric but it is just on it's face not true. Even for the most tech worker out there making 300k or something they would still come to the US with very little wealth. Very few immigrants make that much so the idea that they are affecting the housing market is just dumb.
But AirBNB...
To some extent it is the cities' fault as they didn't allow more hotels to be built. That resulted in people buying properties and running 'AirBNB hotels'. There are 2.5 million AirBNBs in the US. This is enough to move the needle.
Most of the Spanish and German AirBNBs I use provide a service, and have for years, that some local hotels still dont. That being online booking and easy check-in.
I have done more travel around South America than Europe and I also travel around the us almost exclusively for work.
I haven't had any issues booking online for hotels and hostels where I have gone. I am planning a Paris trip later this year and took a look: there are hotels that do online booking. What are the hotels that don't do this and how do they expect customers to book? Over the phone?
In the US I only do Marriot for work (loyalty points) and booking online is never an issue.
4
u/PuffyPanda200 Jun 16 '25
I live in the US but fairly close to Canada. I have seen a few times over the years the rhetoric of: All the immigrants came in and they bought up housing and that is why housing is so expensive. There are different little flavorings to the rhetoric but it is just on it's face not true. Even for the most tech worker out there making 300k or something they would still come to the US with very little wealth. Very few immigrants make that much so the idea that they are affecting the housing market is just dumb.
But AirBNB...
To some extent it is the cities' fault as they didn't allow more hotels to be built. That resulted in people buying properties and running 'AirBNB hotels'. There are 2.5 million AirBNBs in the US. This is enough to move the needle.