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Steve Kilar | Associate Director of News
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| Leading up to the Memorial Day weekend, Airbnb’s PR team emailed me about what the company was doing to stop people from taking over whole houses to throw parties. They know parties can be a problem for neighbors of the company’s short-term rentals and presumably were trying to get ahead of expected holiday weekend criticism. |
| Airbnb has “proprietary anti-party technology” that blocks people from booking a house if it seems like they might throw a party, the email said. Their system considers the type of listing, how long the stay would be, how far the listing is from the potential booker’s location and whether it’s a last-minute booking. If the right combination of red flags is raised in the proprietary tech? The booker’s attempt is thwarted, the company said. |
| Last year, the technology blocked 1,960 attempts to book an entire house over the Memorial Day and Fourth of July weekends in Arizona, the Airbnb email said. Of those, 630 were in Phoenix and 350 in Scottsdale. |
| As a homeowner living next to a property undergoing renovations, which makes me worried I’ll soon have a rotating cast in the new pool on the other side of my fence, I was interested in Airbnb’s attempts to stop rowdy gatherings. But I’m also aware that short-term problems are not the only issues created by short-term rentals. |
| It was the broader effects of short-term rentals that sent senior real estate reporter Catherine Reagor and photographer Cheryl Evans to Sedona. |
| Some residents have positioned their city’s challenges, including trouble finding workers because of a lack of affordable housing, as a conflict of values. On one side are the supporters of tech-fueled financial gain who prioritize making money. On the other side are people who say Sedona has lost its sense of community. |
| The housing-related problems Sedona faces are caused by more than vacation rentals. The market changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic are another factor. |
| Even so, Catherine told me the most illuminating part of her trip with Cheryl was driving around with Mayor Scott Jablow as he pointed out blocks where house after house was a short-term rental. He introduced them to a longtime homeowner who bemoaned parties at weekend rentals, and old neighbors who moved because they were fed up. |
| “Sedona is a stunning and special place, but not a place that many people want to or can afford to live anymore,” Catherine told me as she relayed her visit. |
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| “We’ve always been challenged with workforce housing,” said Sedona Mayor Scott Jablow. “But over the past 10 years … it’s gotten worse.” |
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Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly is visiting Republican districts, hoping voters aren’t OK with representatives more loyal to Trump than to constituents. |
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There are three separate bills that would make tips tax-free. Here’s the differences between the no tax on tips bills and what tipped workers think. |
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Arizona Republic and azcentral.comreporter Shawn Raymundo stumbled into his career. Now he’s covering Phoenix and Scottsdale issues. |
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The Arizona Republic presents At The Bar, an exclusive happy hour event. Come celebrate our community with cocktails in Phoenix’s Melrose District. |
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Metro Phoenix has grown significantly over the years. See what streets used to look like in the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s before traffic was as bad. |
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