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

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.

  • dystop@lemmy.world
    1143·
    1 year ago

    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.

        • stigmata@lemmy.world
          412·
          1 year ago

          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.

          • Squizzy@lemmy.world
            261·
            1 year ago

            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.

            • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
              127·
              1 year ago

              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.

              • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
                61·
                1 year ago

                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.

                • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
                  112·
                  1 year ago

                  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.

      • Smoogs@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • HenryHashbrown@lemmynsfw.com
        515·
        1 year ago

        I agree. We’re short so much housing, I’m sure there are so many in that community that would leap at those accomodations.

        • Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works
          91·
          1 year ago

          Sure let’s force people to rent out for furnished rooms now. I have two and sometimes guests stay here but if I wanted to set up a b&b and have someone here a few times a year it sure shit doesn’t mean o have to rent it out permanently. The idea of being forced to live with strangers permanently disgusts me. This is my house and I need my privacy. It’s the government’s job who gets my tax money to fix housing not mine.

          • HenryHashbrown@lemmynsfw.com
            23·
            1 year ago

            Agree about the government needing to fix the housing crunch. To be clear I’m not proposing to forcibly rent your basement. What I object to is allowing residential stock to be used for vacation rentals. It’s turned homes into financial instruments, and as to often happens with such, it benefits a few at the cost of many.

            And really I don’t know how you got from what I said to forcing out your extra rooms. On a personal note: maby you should examine why having others near you is disgusting. I understand wanting privacy, but that’s some strong language you used.

  • Throwaway4669332255@lemmy.worldEnglish
    154·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • aceshigh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • AttackBunny@lemmy.world
    7·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • iopq@lemmy.world
    2620·
    1 year ago

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

    • uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      39·
      1 year ago

      airbnb has a lot of hate from a lot of directions in NYC. Hotels, yes, but also from renters and homeowners.

      Airbnb units remove long term rentals from the market, in a city which is desparately short on affordable, middle, and even luxury housing units.

      Airbnb units in condos and coops (which usually violata the bylaws) create noise and safety conditions.

    • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
      230·
      1 year ago

      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

  • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
    51·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • hypnotoad@sh.itjust.works
    933·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • spamfajitas@lemmy.world
        71·
        1 year ago

        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.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      142·
      1 year ago

      “removing any ability to raise rents on vacant rent-stabilized units”

      Am I misreading or doesn’t this actually sound great? Whoever wants to raise the rents can fucking starve for all I care. if it’s too expensive to fix and rent out then you should lose the place. what’s not happening?

    • SCB@lemmy.world
      518·
      1 year ago

      A lot fewer people are going to vacation to NYC, because NYC hotel rooms are small and unattractive whereas AirBnBs were not.

  • SCB@lemmy.world
    529·
    1 year ago

    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

    • stigmata@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      “Units being sold for permanent living than being bought to rent out days at a time will cause a housing shortage.” lol

  • Iteria@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    838·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Carobu@lemmy.world
      443·
      1 year ago

      “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?

      • Iteria@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        73·
        1 year ago

        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.