Using AirBnB for the first time -- currently staying at a great apartment in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I are both quite happy! Both of us, and the apartment owner, are first-time AirBnB'ers. It _can_ work, I believe, but you've got to vet things carefully.

We had to work around an understandable but (I think) misguided AirBnB restriction that makes it hard to get phone numbers in to messages -- it's so important to be able to talk to someone to understand who you're dealing with!