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

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

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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Units made available as short-term rentals must also abide by building and fire codes, including one that prohibits placing locks between rooms and having certain sprinkler and fire alarm systems on the property.

The horror.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-05/airbnb-s-new-nyc-regulations-what-renters-and-hosts-need-to-know

This effectively blocks struggling renters from using ABNB to bridge their payment gaps.

Yes, I think people being evicted over this policy would agree with the statement "the horror"

It's weird to watch you balance "evictions are evil" with "I hate what I'm told to hate" and end up choosing your hate first.

Growth in home-sharing through Airbnb contributes to about one-fifth of the average annual increase in U.S. rents and about one-seventh of the average annual increase in U.S. housing prices.

Those struggling renters might not be struggling so much if other people renting out their apartments on AirBnB weren't pushing up their rent by an extra 20%.

Housing markets have problems. AirBnB is not a responsible solution to those problems.

https://hbr.org/2019/04/research-when-airbnb-listings-in-a-city-increase-so-do-rent-prices

As mentioned previously, then they shouldn't be housing others. You spend a small sum of money to make money, when I worked for the city of new York, all us engineers knew the saying, "regulations are written in blood" because NYC was one of the first cities to experiment with new housing methods and such. We were thus the first to witness the horrors of lack of regulation.

I wasn't alive for the triangle waistcoat factory disaster. Will I learn from it? Yes. Will I force others to learn from it and protect innocent people around them? Also yes. Fire does not care about your class or situation, they happen and the steps to being protected are necessary.

If a person has extra rooms and can barely afford rent, they are occupying a unit that doesn't fit their needs. They would be better served by downsizing to a smaller, more affordable place instead of heaping their financial problems onto the rest of society. Alternatively they could sublet the room(s) which would better serve their community instead of catering to tourists.

I'll be sure to remind everyone who gets evicted about this.