Alternative Housing Arrangements

All the different ways of solving the shelter problem. To be static or mobile? Roots, legs, or wheels?
Laura Ingalls
Posts: 668
Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 3:13 am

Re: Alternative Housing Arrangements

Post by Laura Ingalls »

Hmm venture capital to burn perhaps.

Did you have to make a listing?

User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6359
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: Alternative Housing Arrangements

Post by Ego »

We made a listing but have not yet opened up dates.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: Alternative Housing Arrangements

Post by grundomatic »

I use a points-based site to trade Magic: The Gathering cards. The points economy has to be managed well, otherwise it can be troublesome. In the early days of the website, I had "good" cards I couldn't get rid of because there weren't enough points to trade--people wanted the cards but any points they got from sending would be snapped up almost instantly. As the member base grew, it was easy to send cards for points and use those points to get cards one wanted. Eventually too many points were added to the economy by various means, as well as the user base contracting. Too many points per user meant cards stopped flowing. People had points but couldn't get cards they wanted with those points, so they, too, stopped sending cards.

Looking at the website @ego linked, I see one can buy points. This gives me pause, as now exchange rates come into play. Combining the problems, I can easily envision the following situation:

There are x happy users in the system, each getting 750pts upon signing up, which they use to take their first trip. They have a great experience, so they offer up their home in order to get more points. The users keep happily exchanging their points with each other to stay in exotic locations, or maybe boring ones to visit family.

Then y cheapskates/finance gurus hear of this system, and they notice that they can buy enough points to stay in Rome for $150/night, whereas AirBnB or hotels would cost them $200/night. They buy all the points they need for the trip, and stay at places offered up by the original x users. They do this over and over.

Now the original x users keep collecting points, but they find fewer places to stay, as places are getting booked by both group x and y. Also, the site has collected money while group x provided the goods.

There are ways to manage the point economy, like increasing prices in points, changing the exchange rate, letting people set their own point prices, somehow destroying points, etc. In my mind the two relevant questions are 1) Do I trust the site to manage the point economy correctly? and 2) Do I really want to worry about the value of this virtual currency?

In my experience, it felt really yucky to have my points devalued without me realizing it. It was a good economics lesson, though.

User avatar
grundomatic
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:04 am

Re: Alternative Housing Arrangements

Post by grundomatic »

Did wrote:
Sat Oct 31, 2015 1:40 am
...I use http://www.trustedhousesitters.com.
Currently doing my first house/pet sit, and it's amazing. It's like AirBnB, but with built-in vacation pets and no cost beyond paying to use the site! If people are interested, they can get a discount by having someone refer them. I think it's 25% off for the new person, and 2 free months for the one referring.

Also, the site I used to trade MtG cards I mentioned above shut down around the end of last year.

shaz
Posts: 420
Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:05 pm
Location: Colorado, US

Re: Alternative Housing Arrangements

Post by shaz »

@grundomatic thanks for the review of trusted housesitters.com. I strung together various house-sitting/pet sitting gigs for about 6 months in the past and have thought about doing it again one day. I did it on word-of-mouth and have wondered about the usefulness of various web sites. Glad to hear it is going well for you!

Post Reply