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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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...

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