NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Short term rental properties are cashing in — but one Music City resident is concerned with illegal AIRBNBs and catching them. Nashville
benefits from taxing registered hosts as the same rate as hotels and motels. Only 3 percent of a specific Davidson County area is allowed for short term rentals, but our investigation shows the actual amount of owners renting their homes is more than 3 times
that….

SAN FRANCISCO — Maria Poblet, who leads an organization that assists Latino families facing eviction in San Francisco, says she appreciates the philanthropy that the city’s technology companies do in far-flung places to address global poverty and the environment. But what she really wants to see them do is pay more taxes to help with homelessness and lower-cost housing in San Francisco. “You have a C.E.O. who cares about kids in Ghana one week or dolphins the next week. Those are important,” she said. “But the people impacted by displacement in San Francisco are a worthy cause, too.”…

Airbnb likes to position itself as a friend of cities, but it’s having a lot of trouble in the US. Such is often the reality for Airbnb, which despite its good-neighbor rhetoric (see: the Airbnb Community Compact) can quickly change tones when its own best interests are at risk. And they often are in big cities with high rents and constrained housing. The fear among local officials is that landlords will decide it’s more lucrative to rent their units on Airbnb in perpetuity than to lease them to long-term residents. Airbnb likes to say this is a myth put out by the hotel lobby and affordable housing advocates, but from personal experience I can tell you it’s a thing that happens. Cities are right to be worried; Airbnb of course wants to protect its business. The two are bound to clash….

State Senator Tony Avella was joined by members of the Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association on Friday during a press conference on “illegal home rentals” listed on Airbnb. Members of the group say that local property owners are illegally renting out their homes to tourists. They say property owners have listed their homes as potential venues for things like large parties and other events, which violates the single-family home zoning restrictions in some neighborhoods. The group says they want Airbnb to enforce local zoning laws and take the listings down. “They have to prevent these situations from occurring in the future. And if that means legislation in the future, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Avella said….

San Francisco, ground zero in the tech startup boom, has also become one of the costliest housing markets in the U.S., thanks to a housing shortage that frustrates residents and motivates landlords and property owners to evict tenants and replace them with tech workers at sky high rents. In this heated environment, privately held Airbnb Inc., the best known of the home-renting services, is both a symbol and one of many factors helping fuel the displacement of longtime residents in San Francisco and beyond. It is probably safe to say that Airbnb has a love-hate relationship with the city where the company was founded by two of it co-founders who rented out air mattresses in the living room with breakfast to help pay their rent. Now, Airbnb is suing the city in federal court over a local law about to go into effect, an ordinance voted on unanimously by a Board of Supervisors that is less friendly to tech than the city’s mayor. The suit, which invokes, among other things, a 20-year federal act protecting freedom of expression on the internet, looks like it could be a major legal test of this mostly unregulated territory of home renting and of big import to the company now valued at $30 billion on paper….

The Internet Association, which represents groups such as Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter, is asking Hawaii Gov. David Ige to reconsider his intent to veto a bill that would allow Airbnb, Homeaway, VRBO and other alternative accommodations companies to act as a tax brokers on behalf of the state. On Monday, David Louie, a former state attorney general, sent a letter to the governor on behalf of the association, which is concerned that its members could be liable for users who fail to post such information as their tax identification numbers on their listings….

Memphis City Council initiated a discussion Tuesday about taxing short-term accommodation rental platforms such as Airbnb Inc. and HomeAway Inc. Councilman Berlin Boyd said short-term rentals are a gray-area loophole to the city’s hotel/motel tax. “There are a ton of properties available and a ton of revenue we’re potentially losing,” Boyd said. Memphis City Council is looking into an ordinance similar to ones in Nashville and San Fransisco that treats short-term rental property in a similar sense to a hotel or motel if it’s being rented on a regular basis….

Last summer, Montauk was terrorized by entitled “loud, obnoxious people” peeing all over bushes and fornicating right on the side of the highway. Little did enraged locals know, entitlement knows no bounds: this summer the horror has migrated west to Sag Harbor, where this past weekend, Manhattan hedge fund bro Brett Barna allegedly took it upon himself to trash a $20 million mansion with his annual, unfortunately-dubbed #Sprayathon party. There were 1,000 guests in attendance. There were “scores of bikini-clad women and costumed gun-toting midgets,” according to the NY Post. Ace Hood was there. And as a result, Barna’s been booted from both Airbnb and his job, so he’ll have to resort to more traditional rental-booking options when choosing a venue at which to spray away his sorrows. Sad!…

A furious Airbnb owner of a $20 million Hamptons mansion is planning to sue a hedge funder after he threw a giant party complete with champagne guns and thousands of revelers, Page Six reports. The owner claims Brett Barna, a portfolio manager at Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management, said he was holding a fundraiser for an animal charity with around 50 guests, according to Page Six’s Emily Smith. Instead, thousands of guests showed up for an event called the “Sprayathon” that was documented on social media. “The only animals there were the people, a thousand of them. They drowned themselves in Champagne … they broke into the house, trashed the furniture, art was stolen, we found used condoms,” the owner told Smith. “So many people were there that the concrete around the pool crumbled and fell into the water. It was like ‘Jersey Shore’ meets a frat party.”…

A company policy against discrimination didn’t keep an Airbnb host from canceling a gay customer’s reservation, claiming LGBT people are “against humanity” — in a city with a progressive reputation, at that. Buddy Fisher of Houston was using Airbnb to find a place to stay in Austin during the Texas capital’s Pride observance in late August, Houston TV station KHOU reports. He booked a room Wednesday that had an ideal location and great views of the city, and in response to a query about the purpose of his trip, he said he was going to Austin for the Pride festivities. About an hour later, he got a notice that his reservation was canceled, plus this message from his prospective host: “No LGBT people, please. I do not support people who are against humanity. Sorry.”…