New York is about to crack down on short-term rentals on September 5th | Hacker News Reader

New York is about to crack down on short-term rentals on September 5th

usatoday.com

40 pointsleotravis1041 comments

On one hand, people should have the ability to do what they want with properties they own. On the other hand, there’s clearly a reason this is happening, and it doesn’t sound like it came out of a void. The free market had its chance to operate for the past decade in NY since Airbnb has come into existence. City of New York has apparently decided that the benefits of that operation are no longer worth the price.

I get it. In Austin where I live there is a somewhat significant problem with “investment properties” that people bought to rent out as Airbnb’s. Sure they are annoying and they do take away housing from people. But when you look at the driving factors here in Austin for what takes away housing, STR’s, while not nothing, are a small fraction of the larger housing problem. Is it the same in NYC?

In the end, I’ve mostly switched back to using hotels over Airbnb. Last time I was in NYC I picked a hotel over Airbnb. I want that choice though. I want hotels to have to compete with Airbnb for my business. I don’t want some regulation making that choice for me - that kind of garbage anticompetitiveness is what made Airbnb appealing in the first place

> on one hand, people should have the ability to do what they want with properties they own

So no concerns if I start a pig fat rendering company next to your house?

In Houston, where I used to live, that is totally cool and legal and allowed. If there are concerns, too bad. I can’t definitely say that it made life worse or better, as I didn’t live there for long enough as an adult to make an informed decision.

So if you want the answer to that question look to Houston - it’s one of the very few places in the world that you can actually ask that question and get an answer back that is based on real world boots on the ground experience of a land without zoning

That's because the lack of zoning in Houston is a huge shell game. Sure, there's no zoning, but there are still location rules that provide similar advances. For instance, if you construct or add to a hotel, you have to provide access via a limited access freeway or a four-plus lane road and cannot access it from a residential street, and it cannot be within a certain distance of a church, school, park, etc.

Which is relevant because hotels and AirBnBs are pretty similar.

I have heard of rules like this. I do think this is quite interesting because laws like this mean that de jure there is no zoning laws in houston but de facto you cannot do major developments without essentially abiding by some zoning laws that are not necessarily codified in the code. It does leave a lot more room open for interpretation than you would have in your typical city though.

>pig fat rendering

As long as you use Blender, it's fine.

zoning laws tho

From a quick search, metro is about 750 homes. So its quite a bit

>The free market had its chance to operate for the past decade in NY since Airbnb has come into existence

My personal experience with the NYC housing market is exactly zero and even I know it's heavily regulated. Its rent control is known globally.

>My personal experience with the NYC housing market is exactly zero and even I know it's heavily regulated. Its rent control is known globally.

It may be well known globally, but rent controlled apartments make up ~1% of the housing stock. In order to have a rent controlled apartment, the building needs to have been built before 1947 and it must have been continuously occupied by the same family since at least 1971.

Rent stabilized apartments (IIRC, there are ~800,000 of them including mine) are only in buildings built before 1974 with more than six rental units. What's more, rent increases are set each year and can range anywhere from <1 to >5%. If the owner spends a certain amount on renovations to a vacant apartment, the rent stabilization law no longer applies and the unit can be rented at market rates.

Yes, there is significant regulation of rental units for ~30% of the rental stock, but beyond that it's whatever the market will bear.

Edit: Removed incorrect information about rent caps on rent stabilized apartments.

> Rent stabilized apartments (IIRC, there are ~800,000 of them including mine) are only in buildings built before 1974 with more than six rental units. What's more, rent increases are set each year and can range anywhere from <1 to >5%. Once a rent stabilized unit is more than the maximum allowed rent (currently ~$2500/month) or the owner spends a certain amount on renovations to a vacant apartment, the rent stabilization law no longer applies and the unit can be rented at market rates.

This is not true. I've lived in multiple brand new rent stabilized buildings in Brooklyn with rents above $2500/mo over the last decade.

>This is not true. I've lived in multiple brand new rent stabilized buildings in Brooklyn with rents above $2500/mo over the last decade.

TIL that certain buildings with j-51, 421-a and 421-g[0][1] tax abatements are also covered under the rent stabilization law. However, not all apartments currently covered by rent stabilization under those tax abatement rules will remain rent stabilized. See the links below and check your lease as you might be in for a nasty surprise.

I'd add that as of 2019, there is no maximum rent for rent stabilization either[2]. I've edited my original comment to reflect that.

Thanks for enlightening me.

[0] https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/09/fact-sheet...

[1] https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/faqs/...

[2] https://rentguidelinesboard.cityofnewyork.us/resources/rent-...

There's a group dubbed "Friends of the Court" and others want to kill NYC's rent stabalization laws and they're already asking the Supreme Court to take the case.

Article: https://www.levernews.com/friends-of-the-court-ask-scotus-to... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37298543

There's a very good chance that the housing crisis might get even worse before it gets better.

Rent stabilization causes increased rents for those without it. It is nice to have though, I used to have one in a 421a building. Really nice spot.

>There's a group dubbed "Friends of the Court" and others want to kill NYC's rent stabalization laws and they're already asking the Supreme Court to take the case.

You mean these guys[0]? They've got their fingers in a lot of pies!

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/amicus_curiae

> On one hand, people should have the ability to do what they want with properties they own.

I agree with this in principle. On the other hand - from a philosophical point of view - I can't justify private ownership of natural resources. This is 'wealth' provided by nature without any input from individuals (think land, minerals, water, the radio spectrum, etc).

I think that the concept of exclusive rights is important for how our society functions, but this can be accomplished without ownership. Exclusive rights could be negotiated by an individual or group with society in general (think of how access to the radio spectrum often works, or even land value taxes). Part of that negotiation could include the 'natural owners' (wider society) placing conditions on agreeing to grant exclusive rights.

> Part of that negotiation could include the 'natural owners' (wider society) placing conditions on agreeing to grant exclusive rights.

this is what is already in place in the west - we just call it ownership for short.

True ownership can only be achieved with military power. And if everybody did this, we'd be in an anarchy - think the warlords of subsaharan africa where there's lots of tribal conflicts.

> people should have the ability to do what they want with properties they own

Very much disagree with this as a fundamental premise. Ownership of land and real estate causes massive, massive, massive problems and ills in our society.

Including ownership of land by the communist state, feudal lord or king.

First Peoples knew what's up.

Honestly prefer that to a diffuse, multi-headed hydra of private landlords. At least in one of those two scenarios, the target is obvious and can be reckoned with.

Why not call it what is? Why free market? It's only a few guys who reinvest again and again? Why pretend there is a construct where all society participates, when it's 1% of society gobbling it all up?

You don’t own the land you have your residence on. The government owns the land. You’re paying rent to them to keep the right to own the land. If you stop paying property taxes, what happens?

> On one hand, people should have the ability to do what they want with properties they own.

Hard disagree. Society did indeed already decide otherwise, hence why short term rentals are regulated in the first place. Airbnb has made its money helping people circumvent those laws… the Uber of housing. I’m surprised it’s taking so long for cities to react.

It is about time, and I hope other cities around the world follow the lead from new york. In every country I visit, there are always some friends being outpriced of good housing because of AirBnB frenzy. This is not sustainable, and it is bad for communities.

Either that, or simply built more (or in NY case, higher) apartments. There is obviously a demand for both short term rentals and for long term rentals. Rather than building enough housing, NY decides to ban one and give it to the other.

This solution reminds me of the "careful mate, this foreigner wants your cookie" comic https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2656977204337311&set=a...

I feel that this is not fair because in a sense these big cities belong to the world because all of them leach on global population to build their riches and therefore I find that they are morally obliged to give something back. Forcing others into small dirty hotel rooms without an option to feel the real city is is like building a fence around a public shore.

"The city received nearly 12,000 complaints regarding illegal short-term rentals from 2017 to 2021."

I think that 4000 complaints a year is not a lot in a city of 8.5 million. There could be that many complaints for anything.

Residents of cities very often pay more in taxes than they receive in services. Total opposite of rural residents. In what way are the city residents "leeching from the global population"?

It already did, as of this July I believe. I was looking at AirBnbs / vrbo (for a vacation) as we prefer that over hotels whenever possible and there were a handful left in Manhattan (most likely operating illegally), whereas last year there were thousands.

You don't need airbnb to rent a place; you just need a web page with e-mail and phone number.

The rating system is a major factor making AirBnB as good as it is

Airbnb is good for nothing if they have to comply with some city bylaw, the result of which is that you can't use them.

Thats like saying YouTube isn't needed because anyone can upload a video to S3.

It's about the visibility.

No, it isn't. Because a place isn't a video. No matter how many tens or hundreds of thousands of people know about some B&B room, no matter how "viral" it goes, only one set of guests can actually stay in it on a given night.

I've stayed in places whereby I phoned the owner to make a reservation and that was that. It is actually a "thing".

There are sites that aggregate listings of places like that without serving as a go between. It's not like the operators of the B&B just put up a page and rely on nothing but search engine indexing.

The law targets short-term rentals generally, not only Airbnb specifically.

I suppose that also ties in with stories like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37276869

Not content on just driving residents out of the city, it's time to wage war on the tourists too.

These idiots do realize if no one comes to the city that there is no one to pay their ridiculous taxes? Apparently not!

I need a clarification this statement. Are we waging war on the tourists to keep them out? Or keep them in? I just want to make sure I am routing for the side that will produce the most unintended consequences.

Do tourists exclusively book 1 month+ vacations in New York City, and MUST use an Airbnb to stay there?

…because no tourist ever came to New York before the advent of AirBnB.

As someone who uses AirBnB, it’s pretty obvious to me that the way in which the AirBnB landscape has evolved and “professionalised” has negative externalities for normal residents. It doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to regulate this to try to restore the balance.

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