New York City’s plan to ease housing prices by cracking down on short-term rentals facilitated by platforms like Airbnb has been a major failure—according to Airbnb.”In the wake of stringent measures, consumers are instead facing all-time high hotel prices and residents facing all-time high rents,” Airbnb says in a blog post.Local Law 18 (LL18) went into effect a year ago and requires hosts of short-term rental properties to register with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) before they can rent their properties to guests. Owners must meet a specific set of requirements before they can rent out properties for less than 30 days, and booking platforms, such as Airbnb, can’t allow listings from property owners without registration.The idea was to encourage long-term rentals for city residents instead of those looking for brief vacation stays. Ideally, this would lead to lower rents, but according to Airbnb, rent in NYC rose by 3.4% over the last year while apartment vacancy rates have remained stagnant. Plus, the average cost of a hotel room is up 7.4% in the last 12 months compared to a 2.1% increase across the rest of the US, it says, citing a study done by CoStar.Theo Yedinsky, Airbnb’s VP of public policy, is calling on the city to “re-evaluate LL18 and consider amendments that would at a minimum, allow homeowners to once again host guests.”Not surprisingly, the OSE has a different take. A spokesperson tells Wired that the numbers of illegal short-term rentals are down and “this program has been pivotal in protecting the city’s housing stock from illicit activity and keeping New Yorkers safe.”According to AirDNA, an analytics firm that tracks the short-term rental industry, “the number of Airbnb listings allowing stays under 30 nights has plummeted by 83%, dropping from 21,900 in July 2023 to just 3,700 in July 2024.” Listings over 30 days, meanwhile, are up 29%.There has since been a “mild resurgence” in the number of listings for less than 30 days, which “likely reflects that more registration applications have been processed [by OSE] as hosts navigate the complex compliance landscape,” AirDNA says.As of August 2024, the OSE had granted 2,498 registration applications, denied 2,542, and returned 1,612 for additional information or corrections, according to travel news site Skift.
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According to May rental data from Zillow and StreetEasy, wages grew faster than rents nationally and in almost half of major US metro areas, except in NYC, where the nation’s largest gap emerged. “New multifamily buildings coming online has eased competitive pressure in many markets, but in New York City, construction just simply can’t keep up with demand,” said StreetEasy Senior Economist Kenny Lee.In July, President Biden called on Congress to put a 5% rent increase cap on landlords with over 50 units in their portfolio or lose federal tax breaks.Airbnb, meanwhile, has had to contend with users who are annoyed by the various cleaning fees and chores they have to perform before checkout at some rentals, pushing some back to hotels. Last year, Airbnb said it would start displaying a guest’s total price with fees, before taxes, “across the entire app including in search results, price filter, maps, and listing pages.”
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About Joe Hindy
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Hello, my name is Joe and I am a tech blogger. My first real experience with tech came at the tender age of 6 when I started playing Final Fantasy IV (II on the SNES) on the family’s living room console. As a teenager, I cobbled together my first PC build using old parts from several ancient PCs, and really started getting into things in my 20s. I served in the US Army as a broadcast journalist. Afterward, I served as a news writer for XDA-Developers before I spent 11 years as an Editor, and eventually Senior Editor, of Android Authority. I specialize in gaming, mobile tech, and PC hardware, but I enjoy pretty much anything that has electricity running through it.
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