Tag: muskoka

• Airbnb still has a lot of accommodations

  There are a lot of headwinds facing Airbnb. Cities around the world seem to be systematically making it more difficult to be a host. New York City, as many of you know, recently made it so that you need to be physically present while the dwelling is being rented. That is pretty limiting. Similar things are happening in non-urban markets too. North of Toronto in Muskoka, there’s a draft by-law that will, among other things, limit short-term rentals to 50% of the total number of days within certain time periods. That eliminates the possibility of doing this as a business. So in many ways, it’s easy to be pessimistic about the future of Airbnb.

  But at the same time, if you step back and look at the bigger picture, there are over 7 million active listings on Airbnb. This effectively makes it the largest hospitality brand in the world. There are more accommodations on Airbnb than with Marriott, Hilton, Intercontinental, Wyndham, and Hyatt combined. (The below chart is from Scott Galloway.) It’s also important to point out that while Airbnb doesn’t own any of its own supply, the same is true of most hotel brands. They are, brands. The difference is that Airbnb created a more scalable platform and a more decentralized approach to aggregating supply.

  

  The numbers also don’t suggest that things are slowing down for Airbnb. (Here’s their Q3 2023 shareholder letter.) Active listings on the platform grew 19% YoY in Q3 2023 (or by almost 1 million listings). Revenue is up. Free cash flow is up. And in Q3 of last year, the company repurchased $500 million of stock, bringing their one year total to somewhere around $3 billion. So despite all of the efforts to curb short-term rentals within our cities, the company, at least for now, seems to be holding up just fine. And if they can successfully diversify beyond their core business, there could even be reason to be bullish on the world’s largest hospitality brand.

  Full disclosure: I am long $ABNB.

  2024.01.18

• Tiny, prefabricated, and expensive

  This is not a new video (click here if you can’t see it embedded above). It’s from 2015. But I still very much like the simplicity of the Vipp Shelter. It’s only 55 square meters.

  One problem is that it cost USD 585,000 at the time it was prefabricated. It goes to show you that prefabrication and small don’t necessarily equate to affordability. For this reason, Lloyd Alter called it a “problematic prefab” back in 2015.

  Of course, there are ways to make a home like this much more cost effective. I’ve been looking, on and off, for over a year for a piece of land that would be suitable for a project like this. I’ll let you all know if I find something.

  2019.07.10

• Last lake swim of the year

  I’m in Muskoka right now, with very little time to write. 

  I had about an hour before dinner, but I decided that a far more responsible thing to do would be to jump in the lake for what will likely be the last lake swim of the year. It might be the end of September, but it still feels like summer.

  Here’s what that looked like:

  

  If you’re searching for something more city related, check out these high resolution maps of Canada according to our trails, roads, streets, and highways. My good friend Peter just sent them over to me. Thanks Peter.

  Regular scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

  2016.09.22

• SQFT launches as America’s first DIY real estate portal

  

  I am currently in Hunstville, Ontario (Muskoka region) and I have about 15 minutes before I need to head out for dinner. So this is not going to be a long post.

  I did, however, want to share with you a new real estate app that I learned about today called SQFT. (Thanks Evgeny.) They were just featured in TechCrunch and their mission is to make it easier and cheaper for people to buy and sell homes using just their smartphone. They’re calling themselves the first DIY real estate portal in America.

  As a homeowner, you create the listing yourself and then it gets syndicated out to hundreds of other websites (including the big players like MLS, Zillow, and Trulia).

  You’re still technically working with “independently operated licensed real estate agents”, but the app itself handles setting up the showings and even the offer negotiations. Their hope is that they can reduce real estate commissions to < 2%.

  This is a space that I’ve been following closely for a number of years now and seems to be really heating up. Opendoor.com is another online real estate platform that I’ve written about a few times. And in my view, they are the furthest out front.

  My realtor friends don’t like it when I say this, but I think we’re going to see a lot of changes in this space in the near future.

  2015.06.22

• $12,000 pink umbrellas

  

  Sometimes I like to start my mornings off by grabbing a coffee and walking down Jarvis Street to Sugar Beach and the lake. 

  I’ll find a Muskoka chair (Adirondack chair for you Americans) and position it underneath one of the iconic pink umbrellas. I mostly like to look out at the lake, but I also like the shade so that I can see the screen on my phone in case my Type A tendencies kick in and I want to check emails or mess around on Twitter.

  Oftentimes when I’m there–even early in the morning–there will already be other people at the beach. One time I came at 730am and a lady was there tanning in a bikini. I admired her dedication.

  Sometimes I need these moments. I like that sobering feeling you get when you take a time out from the everyday to just sit and think. It helps put things into perspective. And you could argue that great cities provide those kinds of spaces.

  But how valuable are those spaces? Can you put a price tag on it? Is it worth $1M? How about $14.1M, including $12,000 for each pink umbrella?

  Image: blogTO

  2014.07.04