New York passes bill making it illegal to advertise entire apartments on Airbnb
gothamist.com
gothamist.com
Airbnb and its investors have no respect for New Yorkers who don't want these transients in our buildings. The know that New Yorkers don't want transients living in their buildings and they know we have a housing shortage yet they make things worse.
In cities like NYC what Airbnb needs to do is to pivot and build their own hotels under the Airbnb brand and rent them out at much lower costs than the outrageous rates of "name brand" hotels. Airbnb has a huge valuation and can afford to build these hotels and make a profit, while not impinging on the local housing supply and safety of New Yorkers.
Startups like Uber are welcomed because they help New Yorkers and visitors by making the supply of taxis and taxi-like vehicles * more available and safe . Airbnb makes the housing market less available and less safe *.
This doesn't need to be a legal issue. It's simply a rule of the building. People violating it are violating their contract with their building just like when they violate any other rule.
> Airbnb decreases the supply of housing and makes it more expensive for residents.
Long term it should not decrease the supply of housing. Visitors are either going to stay in airbnbs, with friends, or at hotels. If visitors stay in Airbnbs, then there is less demand for hotels space and more space for residential properties. Demand for hotels also decreases residential supply.
Ultimately the issue of Airbnb on housing supply is a small one. Instead, question why so many neighborhoods have height restrictions and restrictions on building anything new. Most people supporting these laws are landowners and will admit that they are trying to protect the value of their property (i.e. keep housing prices high).
This is a slices-of-pie argument, neglecting changes in the size of the pie. By being a better value than hotels, airbnbs make traveling more attractive, meaning there will be somewhat more visitors and that they will stay longer. I think this is on balance a good thing for NYC (tourism is an industry, after all) but it does put a little more stress on an already-tight housing market.
Beyond that, the rules even from a condo complex can be lacking teeth, the law is not.
We're not talking NIMBY San Francisco with extreme resistance to anything. We are talking about bulldog being turned into flophouses (i.e. The 3 family in Queens that made the papers when it was divided into 24 AirBNB units is one example.) Another are coops which cost a ton.
The issue is that Airbnb decided that it is entitled to just flaunt the law and push out any liability to its customers. Other services make more of an effort... A few resort areas that I'm familiar with have rental restrictions in some areas. VRBO seems to be able to respect that. Airbnb not so much. Similar business model, different practice.
Actually, NYC is little better: http://www.city-journal.org/html/preservation-follies-13279.... or see the graph here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o....
Plenty of neighborhoods that were 1-2 family houses in Queens as recently as the early 90s are 50%+ 4+ unit condos and apartments. My childhood home in Queens (a 19th century farmhouse) is now two 6 unit condos. Google about development in Forest Hills Queens and Staten Island. Plenty of stuff going on.
Even in Manhattan... It isn't turning into a playground for the rich because of zoning laws... It's a rich man's playground because there are lots of uber rich people who want it that way. Remember the current Mayor's crusade for horse rights? His care for equine welfare was motivated solely by his rich donors who want to redevelop the horse stables.
I see the Manhattan skyline every day. A lot of it does not have tall buildings and much of it has had severe height restrictions for decades.
> We are talking about bulldog being turned into flophouses (i.e. The 3 family in Queens that made the papers when it was divided into 24 AirBNB units is one example.) Another are coops which cost a ton.
So go after particular cases that you think are abusive, rather than pushing everyone. There's no hotel near where I live in Brooklyn, and when my family comes to visit, they've frequently rented a whole place (from people who clearly do live there 90% of the time). I don't see why that should be make a crime just because others act in ways you don't like.
This sounds good in writing, but in practice, is nearly unenforceable. The mechanisms for landlords to stay on top of this are either unrealistic or draconian. eg, monitoring everyone that enters and leaves and analyzing it, asking tenants to do the same and then snitch on their neighbors, or doing door to door checks.
AirB&B is banned by the contract in the building I live in, and while I respect that because I happen not to be interested, it's virtually unenforceable and I have no way of knowing whether others in my building adhere to it.
IMO, legislation that forces services like airb&b to do only what's on the tin, short term, limited scope, infrequent rentals of residential spaces by people who occupy them the majority of the time, is both reasonable and necessary. Without those checks, which airb&b is totally uninterested in enforcing themselves, the service basically becomes a black market hotel market for property hoarders.
The appeal of Airbnb, at least for me, is that you're staying somewhere novel, in a unique place, with unique hosts who may help you have a more fun experience than a hotel would provide. For example, I've had hosts show me around the city a bit, play board games with heir guests, or even just sit around and chat about life for a bit. It has a similar appeal to the good parts of CouchSurfing with a more mature vibe.
Edit: I'm sure some people use it for not-good things, but Airbnb is more comparable to a traditional vacation rental company than a hotel company.
I usually travel with big groups so I don't go looking for this experience, but my parents are into it :)
(Disclosure: I'm an engineer @ Airbnb )
Why would they do that since their business model is to take as little risk as possible while making a lot of money? it's just like Uber, the law is someone else's problem in the "sharing economy". You can't rely regulate Airbnb out of cities. You can only catch people who illegally sublet their appartements.
That's not facetious. It's pretty much a basic principle of government that the residents of an area get to make decisions about policy in the area where they live (subject to some restrictions).
Nobody will stop me from being flown to work in a helicopter. But nobody will fly me to work for the price of a bus either.
"Tourists", "visitors", or even "people" would all be much more welcoming terms.
You mention Uber in a positive light as providing "taxi-like vehicles", a nice neutral term. How does it sound when you call them "private black cars", or alternatively, "illegal taxicabs" or "gypsy cabs" (no slur intended against people of that ethnicity!).
Calling users of Airbnb "transients" is, in my opinion, unnecessarily harsh. They're human beings, for goodness sake!
I'm not the gp but I think transients, as defined as, "people who do not intend to be resident in this location for more than 30 days", works just fine.
Note that since 2010, it's already been illegal to rent out a full unit for less than 30 days [2]. It's just that now, advertising on AirBNB (or similar service) could subject you to fines. This is the 'answer' to AirBNB refusing to pull illegal listings themselves.
caution: rant ahead
The Gothamist has some of the worst proofreading of any rag out there that I've across. And if you comment and correct (nicely) the information presented, they'll ban you on the spot. It's a news source with a closed circle jerk of certain ideologies and perspectives.
/rant
1 - http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20160617/BLOGS04/160619...
2 - http://ny.curbed.com/2013/3/25/10260752/an-introduction-to-n...
He says: "You can't have it both ways, @NYSenate. You can't both be a startup hub and give incumbents laws banning startups."
I disagree with this sentiment on so many levels.
First, while Airbnb has been working hard to frame this as "the hotel industry vs the disruptive startup," there are plenty of regular New Yorkers who oppose "entire apartment" listings, either because they make bad neighbors, or because they further constrain the apartment supply in an already tight rental market.
Second, we can argue over the semantics of what makes a company a "startup," but Airbnb is a large tech company worth billions of dollars that is impacting communities all over the world, for better or worse. It is unfair to take the position that to be a "startup hub" a city must support Airbnb's practices, even if is to the detriment of that city's residents.
And lastly, this law doesn't "ban" Airbnb. Short term "entire apartment" rentals were already illegal in NY. This just makes it easier to go after violators. And you can still rent out an extra room on Airbnb, or rent an apartment with an extra bedroom and rent that out.
Anyway, would love for PG or someone from YC who agrees with him to respond.
If the mafia re-incorporates as a startup in NYC, does it become incumbent on NYC to protect it because it wants to be a "startup hub"?
The city of Santa Monica banned certain short-term AirBNB rentals last year and remains one of the hottest tech hubs in the country: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/13/406587575/...
Kudos to NY lawmakers for taking this step.
It's already been illegal to rent out a whole apartment for less than 30 days. The new law just extends that to advertising the unit.
Basically, the law now prevents you from advertising a service that was already illegal.
People who live in apartment buildings have no say in who lives mext to them and no guarantee how long they will stay
Why should you follow any laws ? after all, you can do as you please, no one forces you to follow the law. And no one's going to feel sorry for you when you get caught.
It's just politicians taking from all to favor the few.
I'm referring to this brand new law that infringes on apartment owners rights to rent their apartment to whoever they please.
If the building rules don't prohibit it already I don't see why another law is needed.
If nothing else, the Austin case in particular is very interesting to me in that, with Uber and Lyft gone, there have been a flurry of startups and a non-profit in the rideshare space: Fare, Fasten, GetMe, Wingz, and the non-profit RideAustin. While none of them (yet) provide the hail times and low prices of Uber or Lyft, at the very least it is an interesting experiment in some different business models.
I think he should rent an apartment in a building that's been Airbnb'd for 90 days and revisit his opinion on day 91.
"Incumbents" are people, trying to live peacefully.
Since this bill makes the advertising of the apartment itself illegal, it should actually be able put a stop to the practice, at least in NYC. This feels like a big deal to me because I live in a pretty trendy Manhattan neighborhood, and in addition to the annoyance of being a neighbor to a full-time Airbnb operation, I also have to assume it is making it harder for me and my friends to find apartments.
I own a duplex in a multi-family, and thought about renting out one floor (which might come across as a separate apartment in photos) on an occasional basis for extra money. That's very different from a vast enterprise that's doing it at scale. Unfortunately, New York laws have a tendency to affect the small and the large equally, despite the fact that the latter have a lot more financial buffers as protection and the former is more exposed to risk.
That said we can still rent it out for 30+ days at a time, legally.
I wonder why I was downvoted. Because I said I'd rent my place out legally?
They aren't even trying not to be evil. They are trying to take ZERO responsibility for anything. They don't care how much their hosts lie and take zero efforts to hold hosts accountable for their lies.
I've rented places that claimed to be 1 bed room but were actually a studio. I've rented places that claimed to have "parking on premises" but didn't. I've rented places that claimed to include internet but didn't. The latest is I rented a place the claimed to be at a certain location but was actually several blocks away. When I complained the AirBnB rep told me it was company policy to allowed hosts to lie about their locations because putting actual locations on the internet would be dangerous. When I pointed out Redfin, Craigslist, VRBO, etc don't have such a BS policy he claimed it was one reason AirBnB is more successful. In other words, because they allow lying they are more successful.
If they ever start taking some responsibility, say fining lying hosts or banning them from the site or marking their ratings down maybe I'll start rooting for them but until then I hope they get banned.
Since then I've gotten better about spotting the lies before hand but AirBnB won't do anything about it when you try to report them. Places I've messaged to verify the listed amenities actually exist (like parking), get told they don't actually exist, I then flag the listing, report the issue, check back a few weeks later, no change to the listing.
AirBnB is an evil company because they purposely let people lie about their listings. I don't disagree with you they could be a useful service but as long as their official policy is that false advertising is ok they are clearly not a company with any sense of ethics.
What were the reviews like for these places that had false advertising? So far I've only stayed at places that had good reviews.
) the users didn't look at the AirBnB map and only looked the instructions received a day or 2 before arriving
) the users noticed but didn't care
If you're visiting a city you've never been to you're more likely not to care. If on the other hand you're visiting a city you're familiar with (me) then you're more likely to be using the map to choose a place you actually know.
I don't know where you live but I'm sure you know some places where the difference of a 1-3 blocks would be the difference between some place you want to stay vs some place you don't. Next to a freeway/highway vs not. In a safe neighborhood vs in a dangerous neighborhood. On a scenic street vs on a non-scenic street.
For others maybe people are more forgiving. Example: I only rent 1 bedroom or larger because loud refrigerators keep me awake. (at least in the USA where they are loud) So when a listing lied about a studio being a 1 bedroom it meant I didn't sleep well the entire time. If that kind of noise doesn't bother you then you're not going to complain.
Similarly if you rent a place that says it comes with parking but you don't bring a car then you're not likely to complain about false advertising. If you come to a place to sight-see then you might not care about limited internet where as if you rent a place for a business trip then you probably do care since you'll likely be trying to do work from the place.
Finally the fact that hosts are people you actually interact with one-on-one makes it harder to leave a bad review for most people. It's easy to leave a bad review for Marriott. It's not so easy to leave a bad review for Jane ArtStudent renting out her apartment for extra cash while she stays with her S.O. She was really nice when she handed over the keys. It feels bad to give her a bad review so I'm guessing people pull their punches. I know I have even when I probably shouldn't have because the people I rented from felt like nice people even if they were falsely advertising.
I've learned my lesson though and now leave 1 star reviews if they lied to me.
Listing #95462: "Half of connected apartment available,see listing #95459 if you'd like to see the other half instead!"
Renting two rooms while you are present seems safer.
This isn't as crazy as it sounds. "Hello, mid-size municipality! If you implement our easily-tailored boilerplate-legalese bylaw suite, our specially trained twentysomethings will provide same-day firing solutions to your bylaw officers for the likes of Uber, AirBnB, Lyft, wind turbines, factory farms, people who park in the bike lane, and much more!"
Shouldn't that be considered a band-aids to actually increasing the supply of housing?
I admit the solution, 'building more apartments' is a political problems. Humans are making it far more difficult than it has to be.
Manhattan is a little tight on space for fill-in (I doubt this legislation was targeted at Staten Island...), although I'd be curious how much denser one could make Manhattan with modern building techniques.
Manhattan currently has a population of 1.6 million. In 1910, it has 2.3 million. In 1950, it had 2 million.
The current density of Manhattan itself is just 12 people per 5,000 square feet. There's plenty of room to grow, plus, why just consider Manhattan? Many of us are happy to live in the nearby boroughs (which are also, unfortunately, very limited in what they're allowed to build).
One big problem with cramming more people into Manhattan is that putting up new buildings isn't sufficient. All those new residents will also need to get to work, further taxing a mass transit system whose aging infrastructure is already packed to capacity. Life would be much more pleasant for existing New Yorkers if the city upgraded its transit infrastructure before it allowed the building of massive numbers of new apartment buildings. There are also issues like having adequate electricity for all these new residents - on a hot summer day, NYC operates dangerously close to peak power capacity, and all those new residents are going to want to have air conditioning too.
"Manhattan currently has a population of 1.6 million. In 1910, it has 2.3 million. In 1950, it had 2 million."
In 1910, lots of people in NYC were living in tenements with multiple families packed into a couple of rooms. We really don't want to go back to those conditions.
The number of single-person households has increased significantly since the 1950s, so my guess is that many of those 400K extra residents in 1950 were kids living with their parents, who didn't require apartments of their own and didn't commute to work by subway.
This is true, but essentially making it illegal for new people to move here (by making it impossible to build anything new), doesn't seem to be an appropriate solution. Rather, the MTA should be more under control of the city rather than the state. Further, increased density (and therefore more taxes and subway revenue), should in a reasonable world make it easier to upgrade infrastructure.
I get this concern, but the problems of infrastructure in NYC are primarily political, and punishing everyone (including people who just want to rent out their place when they go on a trip themselves), seems unjust.
> In 1910, lots of people in NYC were living in tenements with multiple families packed into a couple of rooms. We really don't want to go back to those conditions.
Maybe not, but many young single people would love to be allowed to live in a modern 300 square foot microapartment in Manhattan.
You have to love the hotel lobby, coming out in protection of 'communities' and affordability.
Out of a housing stock of about 2.2M or so units, AirBNB takes something like 30K off the market, apparently, in this particular instance (short term rentals).
People will always skirt the system, though. It's unclear what impact this will have.
If you are rich, you get accused of being in it for the money. If you are poor, you are accused of being in it for the money. If you have a vested interest, you are accused of bias. If you have no vested interest, you are told go away and STFU.
Poor people do not have the time, energy and money to advocate for changes that would potentially free up a MERE 30k rental units. They are too busy trying to survive. People with money are generally too busy trying to get richer or keep what they have to put time into trying to make the world an actually better place.
Who is allowed to say "This is bad for affordable housing" and be taken seriously? It seems like there is no one on the planet who is allowed to advocate for affordable housing. We are all guilty of something. Meanwhile, affordable housing simply is not happening.
I'm not actually advocating for or against affordable housing, but I do want to say that it is incredibly not surprising that with such a small supply of land and housing, that things aren't affordable when so many people want to be here.
There are lots of hot cities in the world where things aren't affordable. And when people say NYC isn't affordable, it's misleading: what's not affordable are the desirable neighborhoods. Across the river in places like Jersey City, within NYC south Bronx, Staten Island, many parts of Queens, while increasing in demand are also relatively affordable. If people to live in an area that becomes very hot and popular (eg. Williamsburg), you only manage to live there if you're lucky, bought before things got expensive, or relatively affluent.
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html
This is because the supply of affordable housing has been dwindling while demand grows:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1292331...
This is not specific to New York per se. I guess you have every right to argue that this is just a New York issue because this this a New York law under discussion, but lack of affordable housing is hardly specific to New York and AirBnB is also hardly specific to New York.
So, while you no doubt have some valid points, the fact is that affordable housing is simply not happening nationwide. And when people do what you are currently doing -- and most people do -- of saying "yes, BUT..." and acting like somehow this specific instance is not relevant or doesn't count, well, again, affordable housing is simply not happening and there is always an excuse and it is always not the thing we are talking about THIS time.
So, do you have any pointers as to how and when it would be okay to make any points about it without them being dismissed out of hand as irrelevant, not on topic and so on?
Thanks.
It's true that homelessness is on the rise. But in New York, half of our rental housing is rent regulated, that's 1M apartments. Even if 100% of them were rent regulated, there likely would be homeless people, since lower rent does not mean cheap rent (an $800 studio will still be out of reach to someone from the street). Then we have projects, but those have severe funding problems and a long line to get in.
Many homeless people you see have mental health and addiction issues. The bigger issue is funding clinics and mental facilities so their only occasional beds aren't public hospitals and jails.
This is not specific to New York per se. I guess you have every right to argue that this is just a New York issue because this this a New York law under discussion, but lack of affordable housing is hardly specific to New York and AirBnB is also hardly specific to New York.
I have every right to be New York specific? That's an interesting way to put it, to say the least. Listen, and I'm assuming you're in the U.S.: we live in a big country, one that's run as a Federation. State laws and city laws differ enormously. It's hard to talk about housing policy in the abstract without reference to specific cities and states. Where we can talk more generally are trends, like the growth of cities.
So, do you have any pointers as to how and when it would be okay to make any points about it without them being dismissed out of hand as irrelevant, not on topic and so on? Thanks
My sarcasm detection seems unable to parse this sentence, but I'll be naive and assume you're asking a serious question. How do we avoid making points dismissed out of hand as irrelevant? Well, when we have political entities make doublespeak or insincere commentary to bolster something different entirely in their own interest, I say it's fair to dismiss as insincere. In this case the hotel lobby of NYC came out making commentary about communities and affordable housing, when in fact the law was for the most part protecting the hotel lobby. That's insincere. I feel that as a nation we're so accustomed to our political figures and advertising entities make insincere comments that it barely registers morally.
The point I was trying to make is that the subject of affordable housing seems to have fallen into the same pattern that discrimination against women or people of color has fallen into. There is always, without fail, some reason (aka excuse) as to why this specific woman or this specific person of color does not deserve the promotion or should not be listened to, etc. It isn't their gender or skin color, it is that they aren't saying it right, being too emotional, etc ad nauseum -- standards that white males don't get held to. Affordable housing seems to be a topic where there is always some excuse as to why it is relevant this time, why it isn't a valid argument in this case and so on.
I do know something about these topics. I don't agree with you that homelessness is mostly about mental health issues and addiction. It is far more complicated than that. That piece of it gets far too much press. It becomes just another excuse to dismiss the fact that many people on the street have some income, just not enough to afford a middle class lifestyle, and affordable housing is in incredibly short supply in this country.
When you dismiss homeless people as merely insane addicts who cannot function in society any way, it is a convenient way to wash all of society clean of the responsibility of providing adequate amounts of affordable housing because we don't really know how to reliably cure mental health issues or addiction. So, it absolves the world of really doing anything about the problem because, hey, it isn't really fixable, so you can't reasonably expect "me"/the world to really try and you can't reasonably hold us responsible.
I fear I am wasting my breathe, so to speak. So, in the interest of not pointlessly beating a dead horse, I plan to stop here.
Thanks for engaging me.
I never dismissed homeless people as insane addicts who can't function in society, and I didn't imply they couldn't be helped (I implied that funding was being cut to institutions that could help, and that's a fact in New York that started under previous mayors).
That's what politics is often reduced to, straw men, and the idea that the argument-maker has 'heard it all before' and therefore is tired of making an effort to make an argument that has facts in it. The truth is, if you think you've heard it all before, that's probably a sign you need to listen more carefully.
In that sense you would have been wasting your breath.
Of course, Airbnb has been accused of manipulating data before, when it was noticed that they removed a large number of listings just before handing a dump to the NY attorney general, so I wouldn't put it past them by any means.
Close. The number is 40% [1].
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-p...
There is an apartment shortage specifically because regulation so restricts what you can build, where you can build, and worse at times what you can sell for; setting aside "affordable" units and such
I definitely not trying to get into a base line discussion about libertarian property rights ideas. But at least to help you understand what we have right now is a long long way from individual free and clear property ownership of land. Maybe before we start letting people do whatever they want with what you feel like is solely their land we need to address the massive amount of government supplied resources that land owner is currently enjoying.
The solution to all of this is to build so many houses that rent prices and housing prices are driven into the freaking ground. But the rich people who own all the land and buildings don't want them to happen because it would hurt their profits.
The enemy is not airbnb. The enemy is those who are using the government to protect their investments by preventing the free market from building.
You blame government intervention while welcoming more government involvement