- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rental
Home-sharing company Airbnb said it had to stop accepting some reservations in New York City after new regulations on short-term rentals went into effect.
The new rules are intended to effectively end a free-for-all in which landlords and residents have been renting out their apartments by the week or the night to tourists or others in the city for short stays. Advocates say the practice has driven a rise in demand for housing in already scarce neighbourhoods in the city.
Under the new system, rentals shorter than 30 days are only allowed if hosts register with the city. Hosts must also commit to being physically present in the home for the duration of the rental, sharing living quarters with their guest. More than two guests at a time are not allowed, either, meaning families are effectively barred.
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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
venturevulture 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.
That basement should be someone’s house.
Everyone who has a bit more room than they currently use has a moral obligation to be a landlord? to have flatmates during retirement? or should they be compelled to sell part of their lifelong home outright? Who sets that price, who retains rights to what, who pays for the renovations required to get separate utilities run? Do I get to evict them if I decide to use the space for a workshop or library as I pick up retirement hobbies? If the goal is to get people efficiently crammed into affordable living spaces, why on earth would you not just support affordable housing developments instead? It’s better for the quality of life of everyone involved, is actually feasible, and they can be built taller, cheaper, safer, and better for the environment if you include a light rail or bus line. Why do we need to drag people down in order to lift up others? Why can’t we all go up?
It’s so fucking obnoxious the way people try to make outlier situations as if it invalidates the argument. You know god damn well the situations you’re describing are an extremely tiny percentage of airbnb usage (honestly if any at all). Don’t be daft.
what? I was talking about this specific basement in the rockies, it’s already an outlier. top level comment was using it to demonstrate what airbnb should be which is all I was agreeing with. I totally agree you too, that the majority of airbnbs are just hotels with no regulation and that we need to fix that. that’s just not what we are talking about here.
I like the part where you called me a troll because I didn’t want to DM with you.
Real classy buds.
If they are using Airbnb then they are already a landlord.
Hotels are for short term, houses are for living.
Ah stop, I get the intention but b&b’s are a thing and always have been. Wanting to sporadically have a visitor in your retirement shouldn’t require becoming a permanent landlord.
People should not be running hotels in residential areas.
It gets sticky with the semantics but I don’t think any reasonable person would call me a landlord for renting out my apartment for a week while I take a trip. Sure they are technically landlords but a host to short term tenets is not the same level of responsibility or cost. The contracts are different, the rights are different, and few people comfortable with short term tenets would be willing or able to accommodate long term tenets. That said, it shouldn’t be more cost effective to run a 24/7/365 airbnb versus renting the same property to a long term tenet. Like all things it can’t be explained so simply as “ban airbnb”. If that’s the real problem you want to solve then I think a good start would be at property taxes for properties without long term residents (landlord and tenets alike). But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with renting out spare rooms at will and that shouldn’t be discouraged or taxed as anything other than income, in my humble opinion.
If you look at the comment I replied to, it said they have a full furnished basement that they airbnb out.
I said it should be a house for someone to live in.
I’m not exactly sure where you’re getting “should they be compelled to sell part of their lifelong home outright” or “I don’t think any reasonable person would call me a landlord for renting out my apartment for a week while I take a trip” in my comments, it seems you’re either inventing something to get mad at or you have a guilty conscience.
Because that’s the standard of living? A basement?
Fully furnished? I own a home, my guest room is fully furnished in that it has a bed, desk, side tables, and a TV.
Listen to yourself. Fully furnished doesn’t mean the same as configured with separate utilities, a separate entrance, a separate kitchen, or separate bathing facilities.
I’m glad you’re housing secure with a guest room, it must be nice.
Some people would kill for a full furnished basement and instead of being rented out short term it could be housing someone instead and leave the short term to hotels.
I really don’t understand why this is such a controversial view.
in a case of a house shortage, maybe… but The issue is not that there is a house shortage. It is that the houses are not being used as houses. There are more than enough houses in almost every city to home everyone and several times over to house the homeless. But that isn’t what the houses are being used for. If they were then yeah, they’d have the space likely to rent out like an Airbnb. But there should be no homeless anywhere if there’s enough rooms to pull off Airbnb. But no one is looking at the homeless as an issue before starting an Airbnb.
Airbnb is unchecked capitalism that got way out of hand. It’s very fucked up to call this a society anymore. This is hell.
*some neckbeards house
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.
The issue is how to enforce granular rules like that. You’ll end up with people buying time shares of airbnbs or some other wacky workaround. The issue ultimately is, if you leave any wiggle room, grifters will ruin it for the people using that wiggle room as intended. You can’t put in a law and expect everyone to adhere to the spirit of said law. I think with the litany of other property value issues that NY has, this hard line in the sand makes sense. It sucks that the grifters ruined it for people like you and I but the fact of the matter is that they did.
There should be a cap to how many buildings a person or a company can own. Why a person can have more than 3 homes? In the current world, this does not make any sense.
100% agree and while at it I don’t think any single family homes or rowhouse/townhouses should be owned by corporations. Apartments and such I can understand the building owned by a management company that only does long term rentals but otherwise homes should be owned by people.
So then the person creates an LLC and now the LLC owns the properties. Do you then think corporations shouldn’t be able to own more than 3 properties, too?
People would just create a different LLC for each property so limiting ownership for companies wouldn’t work either.
Exactly correct
Trouble is, any legitimate effort to stop that sort of property prospecting would affect other real estate development, which is a huge industry (and political contributor) in New York.
Honestly, I don’t understand what everyone has against short term rentals. It may be an unpopular opinion, but shouldn’t we let the market decide the best use of a space? For a city like New York that gets visitors and transient workers from all over the world, maybe it would be better for it to have lots of short term rentals. Ultimately the market would find an equilibrium between short term rentals, long term rentals, and owner occupied properties.
I do think there needs to be more regulation for the rentals though, probably similar to hotels. Any property being rented out should be subject to the same safety inspections and regulations.
I live in an area with AirBnB rentals.
All of the neighbor problems I and my neighbors have had, without exception, have been from short-term renters. That includes noise that continues all night, off leash, aggressive dogs, unsupervised kids, and threatening, overtly hostile renters.
The “market” can’t deal with this kind of thing, it requires regulations and enforcement.
The market isn’t deciding the best use for the space; it’s deciding the most profitable. These are two very different things.
I love this way of looking at it. The market optimizes for profit not general good for the public
Definitely agree that the free market can come up with some undesirable solutions which is where I think regulation comes in to “guide” the more desirable outcomes that can be found organically. Personally, I think maximum occupancy and increased supply should be the goal where there is limited supply like NYC. Things like a vacancy tax and better zoning could help a lot.
Also, I’m not sure that I trust the government to find the best use of space either, especially in the face of corporate lobbying. The current road/highway system being built to the detriment of public transportation is a good example where a government prescribed solution can have a negative impact decades later.
the issue is that there aren’t enough available apartments in nyc. there’s high competition to actually get an apartment. it’s normal to look at apartments with all your papers ready and apply on the spot… and still not get the fucking place even though you have a very high credit score, have been working at your job for years, have high savings etc. so you end up having to keep applying to a bunch of places until your application gets accepted. it’s a nightmare.
I wanna draw a compromise like you. I think the rental system does suck ass and shorter terms could be better negotiated into the system.
The problem is that this current disruption in the market is making people homeless. So that some wealthy people can stay for the weekend.
The ‘market’ isn’t gonna solve this, these social conventions have always been written by lawyers. This market just keeps trying to squeeze people out to reduce housing supply for all but the filthy rich. But playing into that market is also zoning laws, approval processes etc. It would be nice to fill in these gaps! Hostels, taverns, larger hotel rooms for big groups, short term rentals for 1 - 3 months without ‘year long lease’ and all that crazy approval bullshit.
Agree that regulation and zoning laws can be way better but I’m not sure how much more could be done about supply in NYC. The place is already one of the densest on the planet. Having an vacancy tax makes total sense too. Make sure that maximum available supply is actually being used.
The issue seems to be short term vs long term rentals and I’m not sure if I favor one over another for a place like NYC where a large part of the population has always been transient.
Good.
So basically they decided to ban Airbnb. I wouldn’t be surprised if hotels lobbied for this
Probably held a bidding auction between hotels and air bnb. The hotels must have had deeper pockets to buy up a piece of legislation in a democratic system. How good is freedom
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.
the issue is that it’s not individuals renting out their homes, it’s corporations that rent or purchase many apartments and then put them on air bnb. additionally, landlords leave apartments vacant for many months. both of these factors make renting harder and more expensive in nyc.
Leave your dog in the house, call the stay a ‘dog sitting job’ instead of AirBnB.
Gotta pay min wage for that
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.
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.
NYC has existed before, and will exist after Airbnb
I think a lot of people have kinda forgotten what NYC was like before companies like airbnb and uber showed up.
Before Uber, there were underground networks of ride sharers that had to evade the police by using “secret” signals and code words. It was absolutely wild, required a ton of trust and only really existed because of the stranglehold the cab companies had over the city.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a similar system in place for rentals before airbnb showed up.
5 whole years to see a return on investment! Regulation has gone too far! /s
A lot fewer people are going to vacation to NYC, because NYC hotel rooms are small and unattractive whereas AirBnBs were not.
Fucking lol.
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.
“Are you a couple needed somewhere quick to stay before going to an airport or something?”
Damn, if only there was some sort of established and regulated type of business where you could rent lodging by the night in New York City. I bet they could make a whole lot of money building big buildings full of rooms you can rent like that.
“What if you legitimately take someone (or even two someones) in for a week”
Do you make a habit of charging your friends and family that come visit you?
Airbnb is a lot better than a hotel for families: you get several bedrooms plus a full kitchen for a similar price to a hotel that only gives you two beds in a room. That kitchen will save a typical family $100/day over a hotel if they cook their own meals.
Yeah and for that convenience you fuck over actual people in the city who need a place to live.
Sorry but fuck airbnb for this.
Your city needs to build more if there is a problem. People who live there should not have more rights than people who visit.
AirBNB isn’t a right.
Damn, if only there was some sort of established and regulated type of business where you could rent lodging by the night in New York City. I bet they could make a whole lot of money building big buildings full of rooms you can rent like that.
As someone who has a big ass family, hotels fucking suck for families. When I compare my childhood vacations in hotel to what we do now in airBNB, we do airBNB every single time.
Do you make a habit of charging your friends and family that come visit you?
I have in the past when I was hard up for money because food costs for extra people can be great.
Maybe they do. What’s that to anyone else? Maybe they also eat broccoli and mint ice cream
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
“Units being sold for permanent living than being bought to rent out days at a time will cause a housing shortage.” lol
