Airbnb bookings dry up in New York as new short-stay rules are introduced

the early days of airbnb was basically this concept.

they didn't start out as a marketplace for unregulated hotels that destroy housing markets. that didn't happen until after they started cashing checks venture vulture capitalists.

I took a trip out to the Rockies earlier this year, and booked an AirBnB. The listing was for the basement of a house where a lovely old retired couple lived. The basement was decorated and furnished beautifully, and we got to chat with the couple every now and then. They gave us recommendations to a farmer's market which was pretty cool.

It was the first time I've ever booked an Airbnb that was true to its original mission. This is what AirBnb should be - renting out spare rooms - and not a turn-an-apartment-unit-into-a-hotel thing.

NY is killing it. More of this, please.

Airbnb has fought the rules in court, arguing they were essentially a ban, and that they would hurt visitors looking for affordable accommodation.

They're called hotels. A ban is appropriate. Fuck you.

Damn this seems like a hot take given the comments but I think these rules are dumb. If I go on a two week vacation somewhere else I should be able to rent out my place for those two weeks. The issue isn't AirBnB as a whole, it's people buying up places for the express intention of only using it for AirBnB,

There should be some cap on often a place can be used for short term rentals like 4 weeks out of the year, enough that people who vacation somewhere else can use AirBnb and low enough that it makes more financial sense for people to rent it out long term instead of short.

Permanently Deleted

I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand: I dislike the trend of commercial companies buying up living space to turn around and rent it out to disruptive short-term tenants.

On the other hand: I don’t want to have anyone else present in my rental with me because that’s creepy.

So basically they decided to ban Airbnb. I wouldn't be surprised if hotels lobbied for this

Leave your dog in the house, call the stay a 'dog sitting job' instead of AirBnB.

I think these aren't thought out.

One way to improve them might be to make them only apply to hosts with more than one property. Like if I own a home I should be able to rent it out.

Hasn't Hawaii (at least on Oahu) had this for some time now? I know when you look up AirBNB and VRBO there are mentions of it, and to contact the owner directly, etc.

The only way to resolve the housing market issue is to increase the supply of houses on the market, both in new developments as well as discourage vacancy.

So, with this new law, there's no more vacant residentials being used as unlicensed hotels, which hopefully will lead to housing prices dropping. (Vacancy property taxes is also needed in my opinion)

Also, I'm against AirBnB in general, not going to be paying to clean somebody else's house when I'm on vacation.

I'm jealous

• from Europe

I just sold my grandmother's house in Feb.

I lucked out as that's what we were doing and what the dude who got it was doing

That said, they will just move to Craigslist or a backpage-like site until they uncoordinated fix the law

This is big government overreach unfairly discriminated against landlords

This does nothing to address NYCs actual housing shortage, and will hurt the market more than it helps.

New York City's housing stock has only increased 4% since 2010, not nearly enough to keep up with its 22% increase in jobs. And from 2017 to 2021, New York City permitted 13 homes for every 1,000 residents in 2017

Not surprised that NYC is overcorrecting once again. I work in the industry and out of 2500 apartments we estimate around 20 are tenants involved in short term rentals. The last two we caught were even people that rent multiple rent-stabilized apartments and run their own business on Airbnb. This not only puts a pressure on unit supply in general but also specifically removes affordable housing opportunities for those in need.

At least with the buildings I'm involved in, the bigger issue is the state removing any ability to raise rents on vacant rent-stabilized units. We have at least 60 units sitting vacant indefinitely because it would take over 5 years to recover the cost of fixing up the unit and getting it rented. This rule was meant to stop shitty landlords drom taking advantage of tenants but if their focus was on tenant protection laws instead of completely removing all incentives to invest capital in old units they wouldn't have swapped one issue for another.

I'm sure there are legitimate uses for Airbnb that have now been completely eliminated and we'll see unintended consequences down the line.

I was with them until they banned more than 1 guests at a time. Are you a couple needed somewhere quick to stay before going to an airport or something? Go die in a fire. New York only wants solo couch surfers. People who want a friend along. A single person with a child. A family in a money crunch, anyone really can just pound sand.

That is a super bizarre and IMO indefensible position. If someone wants to host more than one person in their home for a short span why is does they city even care?

I'm also worried about how this could be abused. What if you legitimately take someone (or even two someones) in for a week, kick them out and then they report you for being "an unregistered short term rental". This is going to be a shitshow.

Edit: alright I misread this morning. It's 2. Still bullshit. Why have a limit at all with the other stuff. My same complaints apply now with one more person. It's not like 3 people groups (aka 2 parents an a single child or one parent and 2 children, etc) are uncommon.

IMO hotels just don't fill the niche of needing a cheap single night or needing to have a bunch of people for a long time. Traveling with my family got so much better when airBNB became a thing.