Staying in New York Is Trickier and Often Pricier Since the Airbnb Crackdown

With hotel costs up and fewer short-term rentals available, out-of-towners work harder for viable lodging options

By Allison Pohle of The Wall Street Journal. 

"Finding lodging in New York City has grown more complex, and often more costly, in the six months since the city began its crackdown on Airbnbs and other short-term rentals.

The number of available short-term Airbnbs has plunged by over 15,000, according to an analysis by market-research firm AirDNA. Travelers considering an Airbnb stay say they are wary of rules requiring them to share living quarters with their hosts and aren’t sure if the place they are considering is legal. And visitors turning to hotels are encountering high prices due, in part, to less competition."

"Airbnb rental hosts with registered, legal listings say their bookings have fallen off, forcing them to drop rates."

"Last September city officials began requiring most short-term rental operators to obtain licenses, a move that led thousands of Airbnb hosts across the five boroughs to pull their listings from the platform."

"To qualify to offer a legal listing, hosts can’t rent an entire apartment or home, even if they own it, like most Airbnb hosts do. They can host no more than two guests in the space and must be present during the stay.

New York City hotels experienced a strong 2023 that is continuing into this year, says Jan Freitag, national director for hospitality market analytics for

CoStar

, a data firm. City hotels charged $393 a night on average in December, a peak time to visit, according to figures from CoStar, up from $355 in December 2022. 

In December 2023, entire homes or apartments listed on Airbnb and Vrbo for under 30 days averaged about $404 a night, compared with $365 a night the previous year, according to AirDNA. Private rooms averaged $157 in December 2023, compared with $160 in December 2022, the AirDNA data show. 

The data accounts for under 1,600 properties listed both this February and the year before—a small number largely due to the city’s crackdown.

Less competition for guests from Airbnb is one of several reasons behind higher hotel prices, Freitag and other lodging analysts say."

"A market of unregistered listings has proliferated on third-party sites in the past six months"