Local Law 18, which came into force Tuesday, is so strict it doesn’t just limit how Airbnb operates in the city—it almost bans it entirely for many guests and hosts. From now on, all short-term rental hosts in New York must register with the city, and only those who live in the place they’re renting—and are present when someone is staying—can qualify. And people can only have two guests.
While Airbnb, Vrbo, and others can continue to operate in New York, the new rules are so tight that Airbnb sees it as a “de facto ban” on its business.
We’re in a critical housing shorting in America’s largest cities. Worse than critical, really.
And a whole lot of entities – especially LLCs and corporate entities – buy up apartments and condos in NYC and other metros and act as absentee landlords and put them up on AirBnB. And some VERY needed real estate and housing goes unoccupied.
And AirBnB landlords of this nature are usually shittabout about screening people who take those apartments, and some really bad shit can happen in them, too. There’s a set of upper floor apartments here in St. Louis in a nice downtown neighborhood that the AirBnB owner has been renting to kids for underaged drinking parties and the like. A few months ago it devolved into a gunfight – the third such gunfight in the year, and this time two kids were killed.
AirBNB isn’t really bad per se. It is nice to have the ability to rent out a whole home or an apartment for a trip, rather than staying at a hotel. It is particularly great in some areas where there aren’t a lot of hotels, like cabins on the lake up north etc.
But in places like NYC, AirBNB is basically taking up massive amounts of affordable rental units and homes and turning them into hotel rooms. It is terrible for the locals who are looking to buy, and I would expect cities, like NYC to be happy to oust this kind of landlord out of the city.
A small town nearby where I was born, Asheville, NC has had a huge amount of beer, cider and liquor based companies set up shop in town. Along with that there has been a huge increase in tourism to the small mountain valley there near the Blue Ridge Parkway and surrounded by great outdoor views and activities. This brought great restaurants and venues as part of the build up. But good luck finding a place to stay near all of that in Ashville, it’s been gobbled up by tons and tons of AirBnB and VRBO hosts, and prices for single night stays have skyrocketed as well. This pushes the people that are needed to work in those venues in town further and further away and has upset many around the area.
It’s not just large cities where this is happening. AirBnB and the like have really turned housing on edge and though I was once a solid customer using it, I realize now just how damaging it is to things in certain places.
