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NYT: Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts Widespread

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Old Dec 11, 2015, 4:20 pm
  #1  
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NYT: Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts Widespread

From today's New York Times:

A working paper by three Harvard researchers found "widespread discrimination" by hosts against people with black sounding names seeking rentals. Fictional guests set up by the researchers with names like Lakisha and Rasheed were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted than identical guests with names like Brent or Kristen
NYT: Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts Widespread
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Old Dec 11, 2015, 5:19 pm
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NYT: Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts Widespread

Fictional accounts with no pictures and no reviews get 100% discrimination from me-
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Old Dec 11, 2015, 9:03 pm
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NYT: Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts Widespread

That's why they have control groups, mauibaby.
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Old Dec 12, 2015, 7:45 pm
  #4  
 
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NYT: Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts Widespread

State law will vary - but the federal housing laws that prohibit discrimination by landlords often do not apply in such situations.

For example, when you rent a room in an owner-occupied house or when some owners rent a single family house for a short-term the anti-discrimination rules generally do not apply.

Bear in mind that the federal rules have many twists and state and local laws may be narrower than the federal rules.
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Old Dec 13, 2015, 5:40 am
  #5  
 
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This is interesting. A couple years ago I contacted an AirBnb place in Paris. I've read my ratings by hosts and know they are positive. I was wanting a 5-day stay, which I'd assume is a good thing rather than a shorter stay. I applied, including what I thought was a nice introductory note. Immediately turned down.

I moved on.

The host was a young guy, and I thought maybe since I mentioned traveling with my granddaughter he was more looking for a couple young chicks rather than an old lady and a supervised young chick.

I do have an odd first name, although I'm just the usual Caucasian Scandahovian mix one finds in MN. Maybe he was responding to my first name.

Romelle
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Old Dec 13, 2015, 1:49 pm
  #6  
 
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Isn't the easy solution to restrict your search to instabook locations only? Personally, I don't see how this article can pass muster per se, what's a black sounding name? Opposed to what a Swedish sounding name? What about someone who may be white from South Africa?
Blimpy Boy is offline  


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