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New York Senate Passes Bill That Bans Short-Term Apartment Listings On Airbnb (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The New York Senate passed a bill on Friday that makes it illegal to advertise entire unoccupied apartments for short-term rentals on Airbnb. The bill is headed to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's desk for him to either veto or sign into law. The Verge reports: "The bill prohibits online apartment listings that last under 30 days and run up against the city's multiple dwelling law, which is designed to stop apartment buyers from renting out the entire space and basically turning their units into Airbnb hotels. First-time offenders would be fined $1,000, but a third infraction would be much costlier at $7,500. 'Let's be clear: this is a bad proposal that will make it harder for thousands of New Yorkers to pay the bills,' an Airbnb spokesperson told Tech Crunch. 'Dozens of governments around the world have demonstrated that there is a sensible way to regulate home sharing and we hope New York will follow their lead and protect the middle class.'" One of the bill's sponsors, State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, disagrees and claims that it targets "people or companies with multiple listings. There are so many units held by commercial operators, not individual tenants. They are bad actors who horde multiple units, driving up the cost of housing around them and across the city." She went on to say, "You should know who your neighbor is and what happens when people rent out their apartments on Airbnb is you get strangers," said told the New York Post. "Every night there could be a different person sleeping in the next apartment and it shatters that sense of community in the building. It also can be dangerous."
I wonder how much money Linda Rosenthal has taken from the hotel industry? Her donors (well, the legal ones) may be found here http://www.followthemoney.org/... but with some of them it's not clear who they represent.
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That's not true.
AirBnB drives the cost of all rentals in all cities. AirBnB was designed to rent out coach houses/basements of the same property which is your primary residence. That is also still allowed under this.
What this law is designed to do (and needs to be done in Vancouver BC, Seattle WA, Portland Oregon, and San Francisco California) is stop people from hoarding property from the people who live in the city and need that property. There are people who own a dozen properties and list them on AirBnB or just keep them empty and use it as a store of value. "Investors" are locking up the housing supply to drive up the property prices.
AirBnB has it's purpose, and if you look on a map of a city like NYC, SFO or YVR you'll see the AirBnB units outnumber the actual rental units available to people who live there.
It's only arm of solving the housing affordability problem. Developers should be designing condo buildings with a few floors of 3-bedroom units that can be partitioned into a 1-bedroom main unit and a 2-bedroom "BnB" (No kitchen in the BnB side) with it's own entrance. Anything smaller is not a BnB qualifier.
Be fearful! There might be strangers sleeping somewhere in a property near you.
I bet the hotels are lobbying for this. Airbnb is one thing that is pushing the cost of visiting New York down.
We're fearful because we live in shared doorman apartment buildings. We usually keep our apartments unlocked 24 hrs (for our own convenience, and because we know and trust our neighbors, and because old buildings have quirks like single elevators that jam and so you hop through someone's front door to get to the back door elevator bank.)
We'd like to keep that and not have to switch to living in a hotel-like environment.
When you implement rent controls, there's very little incentive to build more housing. It's the type of policy that most economists agree is a bad idea and it's little surprise that it distorts the market and causes all manner of ill adverse side effects.
You honestly can't expect anyone sane to build new housing when laws mandate that it be a poor investment. At that point you end up with the only solution being government funded public housing projects, but those have a lot of stigma attached to them.
Leaving a door unlocked is plain dumb no matter where you live. You may know and trust your neighbors, but can you say the same about your neighbors guest or even family visiting?
My wife grew up on a farm, their front door didn't even have a lock. Her Uncle owned the property and had hundreds of milk cows and other animals.
If you're out and the neighbor needs something, they can come borrow it, they'll replace it or pay it back in kind, no big deal.
There is a level of respect there that is lacking in big cities.
When you're in a residential area with high owner occupancy, sooner or later you get to know most of your neighbors. Since people are likely to stay there a while (I think average house ownership is 7 years), you're gonna bump into them enough time that you'll get to know who's who.
It makes a huge difference: if something annoyed you, you talk to them, you compromise, and you're good to go for years to come (not always easy, but easier than having to redo it every year or two)
As a realtor, I will comment on the following situation from multiple perspectives :
San Francisco; multiple issues, biggest issue ( which is common ) is the self-interest of homeowners who's values have increased 200% to 400% in the last 7 years, and or rental incomes have doubled or tripled in the same timeframe, don't want any new supply to hit the market. Because it stalls the income increases ( source : https://www.rentjungle.com/ave... ) look at the stalling 2 bedroom rental market.
Now rent control in that market ( SF ) provides lifestyle and culture living, so you might still enjoy the look and feel, but what happens when a property is removed from that market, poof, those parties are forced to move to real cost. and that's painful for them.
New York: Rent control has worked rather well to help a large percentage of people stay within the commute of the "city", what Airbnb has done is created a very small problem which is a huge concern for the landlord. Rent control apartments can not be subleased in any which way or form, if the tenant chooses to sub-lease and get's caught, is a slap on the wrist, the landlord get's a huge heavy fines ( this one is fine related to a regular rental cite : http://therealdeal.com/2016/01... )
Miami Florida : Well this is my market, let me explain a few interesting things. Condo's here have very interesting rules about renting. Some won't let you rent, some have policies about minimum stay ( 1 year, 6 months, 30 days, 7 days, 1 day ). it's all written within your condo documentation which you sign off that you have read. All leases that are realtor made, show, no sub-leasing unless authorized by the owner. Rent control almost does not exist near the beach, we have senior housing ( IE: over 55 places ) that are discounted to the market, so the character of community sticks. The problems we have with Airbnb are the rule breakers, You pay for a lifestyle type building ( 1 year, 6 months, 30 days, 7 days, 1 day ) you expect it IE: transient buildings are noisy but fun, 6 month or longer are quiet. I live 19-minute walk to the beach and it's quiet, Airbnb ended up with a few listing here and it became " who the fuck are you in my assigned parking spot " with people yelling and screaming. couple of emails to the staff of Airbnb stopped all our problems, they were helpful, and we have a few angry owners LOL
if you see me, smile and say hello.