New York Now Has More Airbnb Listings Than Apartments for Rent | Hacker News Reader

New York Now Has More Airbnb Listings Than Apartments for Rent

curbed.com

71 pointsplankers29 comments

The title is trying to imply that airbnbs outnumber apartments, but directly comparing airbnb listings with apartment listings doesn't really make sense. There's basically a one to one relationship between an airbnb listing and an apartment that's used for airbnb. On the other hand for every apartment listing there might be tens/hundreds of apartments being used as apartments (because an apartment that's occupied tends not to be listed). In a tight rental market, each apartment gets snatched up sooner, which exacerbates this. A far more honest representation would say how much housing units are in NY, and how much % of that are being used for short term rentals (eg. airbnb), but that gets you a mundane number (eg. 10%) rather than a shocking headline.

10% is a shockingly high number. In a city where 1.25% of people slept in a homeless shelter last year (not counting the tens of thousands on the street), having 8 times that as a percentage of rental stock to tourists seems insane.

10% is just a random number I came up with and isn’t supposed to be taken as some sort of estimate.

The lack of rental properties is not preventing the 1.25% from being housed. The cost /lack of money / mental health issues / drugs / etc are the primary reasons. Giving back 1% stock would not see the rate fall to .25%

It’s not always as dramatic as you think. Lots of homeless folks in NYC are regular working people who simply can’t afford rent. I have a close friend whose spent 2 years in a shelter with his wife and daughter before digging himself out.

Adding those properties back into the rental market is not going to lower the rent for those in borderline situations and shelters. Properties that get rented are in average to excellent condition/areas which will increase the supply for luxury property.

Your friend needs the government to build low income housing geared to a percentage of income or price controlled.

People on drugs or with severe mental health issues are probably unable to be in the population admitted to a shelter and is in the street. Certainly, since the average shelter stay is over a year and 4 months, any concerns about them being bad tenants would assume they behave significantly differently in an apartment than in a shelter that will kick them out.

Yes it's a cost/lack of money question. If only economics told us what we'd expect to see happen if the supply of a resource priced out of peoples budget (long term housing) was increased.

I mean how many of those could actually be housed in a real building without risk of huge amounts of property damage? I bet most people would rather keep a unit empty than to risk dealing with that 1%

> I mean how many of those could actually be housed in a real building without risk of huge amounts of property damage?

Probably a large amount. 30% of that 1% are children. Most people who end up in shelters are there as result of economic setback. After all, if people cause damage in the shelter they are also kicked out.

Maybe it is time to liberalize NYC's housing restrictions and create abundance instead of scarcity: https://newyorkyimby.com/2021/01/yimbys-2021-construction-re...

The 2019 rent control law rears its ugly head. Everyone wants more space post covid, but nobody wants to build or even allow more housing. So the small amount of free market housing goes through the roof, and anyone with an apartment that can get away with airbnbing it tries their luck.

Some European cities that have a high occupancy percentage, like Berlin, have strict laws around temporary rentals with platforms like AirBnb. Rightly so, the city should have its longterm inhabitants occupying what little apartments exist as a priority over investment properties and tourists.

Additionally Airbnbs inject tourism money into the area but can have a detrimental effect on community cohesion as a whole

The effects have been entirely detrimental in Dublin. The (vast) majority of the jobs in the country are in the capital, yet there's nowhere near enough living space. And a good portion of it is because of AirBnB. During the pandemic, when the tourist market shut down, the number of long-term lets doubled. And statistical evidence shows most of these were AirBnBs going back onto the long-term market.

Not to mention the negative externality of living next to what is basically an unlicensed hotel reserved for tourists. Coming in all hours of the night, loud and rowdy and not a care in the world about the people who have to actually live in an area. AirBnB has done more harm than good, all because tourists feel they should be entitled to live like a local, which completely disregards any planning and zoning done by cities, which count for tourists in hotels/hostels, not in actual residences meant for locals. And thus the locals get driven out and the city basically becomes full of tourists.

Galway is just as bad too. If AirBnB were shut down tomorrow, it would be 100 times better (it still wouldn't be great as the government hasn't done anything to really help matters, but AirBnB is a major issue).

Wonder how this works with the FHA underwriting requirement that mortgages in multifamily properties can only be written if 25% or less of the units are rentals. Having a revolving door of short term guests in a building upsets some long term residents but causing them to be unable to sell their property to anyone using an FHA loan is economically damaging.

As someone who's shopped for apartments in NYC for years, I can tell you that yes, many buildings are unfinanceable if > N% of units are rentals. However, many/most loans in NYC aren't traditional loans because they're greater than the FHA limits ($600k I think?)

I know a lot of tech folks who borrowed against their portfolios to buy property for an airbnb side hustle. I wonder how many folks in this thread did the same.

I told those people not to do it. If you are in the same situation, I advise you sell. Now.

Feel free to downvote this if you're feeling hurt, angry, confused, etc.

Isn't short term rentals banned in NYC?

Perhaps they should limit to one Airbnb per person, no corporate ownership, and no more than 6 months of the year.

Why would air bnb do that. They don’t even care about you as the customer, they are really just trying to please landlords and don’t care about the user/renter. Kind of how dating sites only care about attracting women and Know that men will do where the women are

I was proposing NYC regulations, not trusting a mega-corp to self regulate. But with a few million in lobbyists maybe it works out the same.

Good luck enforcing that

Seems like a fairly simple system to enforce. Property records are already well known, and it should be trivial to force AirBnB and the other couple sites to open their listings to authorities.

Sounds like more people want to visit NYC than live there if the market supports this type of situation.

Either way, the only way to satiate demand is to create more supply.

Correct... NY needs much more apartments/citizens. Supply/demand.

Part of the problem would be long term tenants are facing is of their own collective making. Well, that and regulations. That being the difference in experience when dealing with short term Airbnb tenants who are often on vacation, and long term tenants. The attitude is completely different. Unfortunately, long term tenants are too often adversarial. They feel entitled, and are apt to pursue litigation against you. They too often will attempt to dodge their liabilities, and leave them with the property owner &/or landloard. Short term, vacation, tenants appreciate the business. They even occasionally buy gifts, and send thank you cards. On top of that, they have a reputation at stake. Airbnb insulates the landlord from some issues. I know of landlord who had little, but noticeable, damage done to a nice couch by an Airbnb tenant, and one photo and email to Airbnb had the full price to replace to couch reimbursed. It couldn't be any more different in trying to be made whole by ex-tenants without Airbnb in the middle.

Bad landlords get annihilated in real estate. Airbnb has solved a lot of issues for them. Unless an owner, or location/property, precludes Airbnb for whatever reason, there isn't a compelling case to not rent through them.

Maybe there is a market opportunity for a similar company but for long term rentals.

"Damn tenants, paying rent and then acting all "entitled" to having a home and not buying gifts or thank you cards for their landlords!" Really?

Some tenants really are just terrible, and I can sympathize with landlords stuck with the messes they cause, but I'd guess that far more often good tenants are being overcharged for rent that goes up every year in amounts far exceeding any increase to their income, are screwed out of security deposits they should have gotten, are forced to let strangers into their homes with little to no notice, and all while having to deal with the countless other indignities that so often come with rental living (forced to get up at 5am to move your car every morning there's half an inch of snowfall, old inefficient appliances, putting up with loud neighbors and a general reduction in privacy, running out of hot water, etc).

You can argue that anyone who doesn't want to put up will all of that should just buy a home, but I think many if not most renters would much rather be home owners yet simply can't afford it. They've got little choice but to rent and because of a huge lack of affordable units are often forced to pay more than they'd like for housing. Just a couple generations ago home ownership was far more accessible and a little before that it was commonly attainable on just a single person's modest salary. Because home ownership is out of reach for so many landlords have been able to take advantage of the situation. As for renters being litigious I'm guessing most couldn't even afford a layer while property management companies have far more resources giving them a huge advantage in our pay-to-win legal system, the laws themselves are often stacked against renters too. Renters also have a reputation at stake as well. Depending on the area, a bad rental history can limit your options severely.

Landlords can have a difficult time too, but I don't think renters brought this on themselves, I think properties have been being bought up by investors (foreign and domestic) who would rather list those properties on airbnb where they have fewer regulations and tenant's rights to worry about. It lets them rake in fast money at variable rates often from wealthy vacationers as opposed to being locked into year long leases from families and professionals looking for a home. It's lower risk since vacationers don't often have problems paying because they were laid off or because they got sick and were unable to work. It's a great deal for property owners, but it drives up prices and limits options for everyone else.

Would you rather more revenue, and deal with happy, and appreciative, tenants, or less revenue, more liability, and adversarial tenants?

I agree, the core of the issue that real estate investors are incentivized to act this way. Whatever makes them more money is going to win every time, which is why when the things that make them the most money are pushing costs and problems onto the public (and the housing market in general) we need regulations put in place to restore order.

I imagine a lot of the problems could be improved with zoning changes limiting the amount of properties that can be rented out for short terms, and by shoring up tenants rights to cover gaps in protections for renters.

I'd suggest that regulation is typically the issue, and it is in the case too. Investing in real estate is not for everyone, and not just based on the merit of one as a landlord. Some states are complete nonstarters unless you can pay for influence.

The only legitimate role of the state is to defend the inalienable rights of the individual. They should not be interfering in contracts. This type of meddling overreach is usually the issue, but is always an issue. There are many consequences, both intended, and unintended, and recognized, and unrecognized.

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