NYC (or maybe all of the state) has made it illegal to rent out a whole apartment, for less than 30 days. It sure looks like an attempts to keep people from turning their apartments into a hotel substitute, ie Airbnb.
Airbnb has been suing NYC for 2 months, trying to get that removed. Now, Airbnb has settles the suit, “as long as New York City enforces the new law only against hosts and does not fine Airbnb”, which sounds like Airbnb saying “whatever, just don’t come after us.”
This sounds a lot like Uber’s assertion that their drivers are contractors, and so Uber can’t be sued for what they do, and Uber isn’t responsible for making sure they have insurance.
I’d really prefer (as a non-New Yorker, with no right to have a say) that cities allow for maybe 5 days a month in rental, so someone out of town could rent their apartment, but retain the right to hold Airbnb accountable, for not holding their hosts accountable.
In another article I read, Airbnb said they were going to enforce a “one host, one house” rule to cooperate with the city. Implicitly, that seems to crack down on small or medium time landlords deciding that renting their properties like a hotel is more profitable than residential leasing.
I also got the impression that there was some bit of legal language that didn’t restrict normal residents from renting their place – something about the prohibition specifically about renting “vacant” apartments. Maybe the apartment doesn’t count as “vacant” if it’s the host’s primary home, and they’re only renting it out for a few weeks every year?
That interpretation could be totally wrong, though on its face it’s consistent with the “one host, one home” rule.
No, I don’t think AirBNB threw their hosts under a bus.
AirBNB provides a platform that allows you to rent out your dwelling on a short term basis, and that’s really all they do. They have advocated for their platform and for their hosts, but when it comes down to the bottom line, AirBNB doesn’t even have ability to ensure that hosts comply with all applicable laws. (For example, let’s say that 5 days were allowed, as you suggest, but you rent for three days through AirBNB and three days through another site. Now you’re in violation of the law, but AirBNB has no way to know that.)
That’s been the law since 2010. The new part is the potential fine for illegally listing it on a rental platform.
That particular law does not apply to one and two family houses, rentals for more than 30 days and “hosted rentals”, the kind Airbnb uses in their advertising, where Grandma rents out the spare bedroom on Airbnb while she remains in the apartment. Of course , those may violate leases or co-op/condo rules.
The problem with allowing a certain number of days per year is that it’s almost impossible to enforce. The reason for the law wasn’t to keep people from swapping or renting out their apartments for a week or so while they were on vacation (people did that long before Airbnb and it wasn’t a problem) - the reason was that landlords figured out that they could get $200/night for an apartment that could never get $6000/month as a regular rental. This tended to keep apartments off the rental market and the landlords didn’t have the expense of providing the features that hotels provide - like a front desk clerk who could let you in if you left your key inside , or sprinklers in every room, or fire alarms, or a map in each apartment with the fire exits shown, or exit signs and emergency lighting. A high rise apartment may have some of those things , but a small building with 24 apartments won’t have any. Not to mention that the other residents tend not to want random people walking through the building or ringing their bells because they’re having some sort of problem.
Yep, all of the things people have mentioned are true, but it’s Airbnb’s response that surprises me.
They basically said - “Ok NY, you win. You can do anything you want to our hosts, as long as you don’t fine us.” You know darn well that Airbnb keeps track of how many days a host rents out their apartment, and how many apartments are at the same address. I mean, that’s how they get paid. I wonder if there are unpublished parts of the agreement, like Airbnb allowing the NYC access to data on how many nights a unit is rented out, and if there are multiple units being rented at the same address.
I don’t know why that surprises you- the only reason they filed the lawsuit to begin with was because they were afraid they would get fined. Why would you expect them to finance a lawsuit to protect the people who advertise on their site?
Uber’s policy was quite the opposite actually. Local authorities were fining drivers and Uber was paying their fines for them. Airbnb doesn’t have the stuff that Uber is made out of, apparently.
That being said, NYC, as with their cabs, seems intent on being a people’s republic, controlling the supply and prices of everything they can and disallowing honest competition when it makes their desire to control outcomes difficult. The winners shall be who the city decides the winners are, and that’s that.