NY Times says Airbnb restrictions hurt the little guy

See Can a New Law Force Airbnb Hosts to Become Landlords? It’s too early to tell if Local Law 18 will help ease the housing crisis in New York City. But homeowners with vacant rooms aren’t eager to open them up for long-term rentals by Ginia Bellafante. Excerpts:

"Local Law 18, passed the previous year by the City Council, went into effect, which more or less prohibited rentals of fewer than 30 days. Technically, this way of doing business was already illegal by virtue of New York State’s Multiple Dwellings Law, enacted in 1929 to create better safeguards against the dangers of tenement life.

But Airbnb thrived amid loopholes in the law. In May 2022, there were more than 10,500 New York City listings on the site for apartments or whole houses. This week there were fewer than 1,000. In December, as demand for Airbnb spaces in New York fell by 46 percent, the growth in Jersey City and Newark exceeded 53 percent.

Local Law 18, which had a huge push from hotel owners and the affiliate unions that see house-sharing platforms as serial killers out to get one Hilton at a time, is tricky, because it does not effect an outright ban. Someone can become a host by registering with the city’s Office of Special Enforcement, but the process is long and tedious, and the office maintains the right to reject your petition. Of the 5,661 applications received by early February, 1,387 have been granted and 955 have been denied.

How effective the new regulations have been in advancing the cause of affordable housing, part of the goal, is not entirely clear, but the consequences for many homeowners who have depended on income from short-term rentals — not for a Wolf induction range or a trip to Morocco, but simply for the purpose of getting by, seems fairly unambiguous.

In November, RHOAR (the acronym for Restore Homeowner Autonomy & Rights) a grass-roots group of hundreds of property owners who have struggled in the aftermath of Local Law 18, issued a report examining some of its effects. More than 90 percent of those surveyed said they were now having trouble meeting monthly housing costs like mortgages and utilities. Nearly a third were delaying critical repairs to roofs, plumbing and windows."

[there is] "inequity built into the new law, which “reflects a preoccupation with conversations that were framed and directed by the privileged.” A certain class of buildings, some containing condominiums, where units might command a very high nightly price, remain exempt.'

"the working-class homeowner who was maybe renting out a place for $99 a night and needs the money has been the hardest hit"

"In September, Theo Yedinsky, Airbnb’s global policy director called Local Law 18 “a clear message to millions of potential visitors” that they were “not welcome.” However hyperbolic, it has become harder to stay in New York, just as interest in tourism has rebounded in the wake of Covid. The city has also needed hotel rooms to house migrants while, at the same time, constraints on hotel development imposed three years ago by the De Blasio administration have severely limited the possibility of new rooms down the line."