STR's in New Orleans

[Kimberly Jones]

I have pondered this post more than a few times just because it is a little bit scary to "come out of the closet" as an airb&b host in this city. Folks are so "passionate" about str's right now I am afraid they are going to start burning us at the stake soon. I figure this is one of the safest places to try this though so here goes ;)

Who else out here on BP is doing, or would like to do airb&b in New Orleans? The people trying to block us are pretty well organized, we need to find each other to prepare for what comes. I am local and it is still hard to keep track of the rules they are trying to push through. I can't imagine how hard it would be if I were out of State!

[Kimberly Jones]

@Nicholas R. For starters, I have very good relationships with my neighbors and I talked with them about it before I started doing it. They don't have any issues with it whatsoever. 

Greedy?? Not at all. We don't really make much more than we would if it were ltr because we choose to charge rates that regular folks can afford. I don't rent all of my units out str, I have others on the block with regular tenants in them. I happen to enjoy hosting visitors in the one unit and my ltr tenants enjoy it as well. We have people come from all over, France, Germany, Spain, Texas, Maine. We appreciate the diversity and we love sharing our home, our block, and our city with all of them.

You say we should wait until Landrieu and crew get their ducks in a row and figure out how to regulate. We wish they would hurry. We are all for it! The thing is, this is New Orleans. You can literally die waiting on things to happen here. Do you know how long airb&b has been working here? Seven years. I know people who got on that bus in the first days. Seven years and still no real end in sight. Ponder that. Also ponder the fact that this city wouldn't even be working on regulation were it not for the people already doing it. Somebody has to start the process and you know good and well the city of NO would not be the one to do it.

We can talk about how str's are taking rentals away from locals, but then we need to talk about all of the blighted properties that are still rotting away. The vacant properties that have been burned to the ground, taking occupied units with them. The gutter punks that sleep in them, the drug dealers that work out of them, the women who are raped in them, and even the folks who are murdered in them. If people were half as passionate about hating on abandoned properties as they are about str's, we might have enough rental stock to keep everyone happy.

To use your phrase, "you people" act like folks haven't been renting rooms out of their houses for an eternity. You ever watch old black and white movies? Rooming houses were common a heck of a long time before I was even born.