Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rental

Home-sharing company Airbnb said it had to stop accepting some reservations in New York City after new regulations on short-term rentals went into effect.

The new rules are intended to effectively end a free-for-all in which landlords and residents have been renting out their apartments by the week or the night to tourists or others in the city for short stays. Advocates say the practice has driven a rise in demand for housing in already scarce neighbourhoods in the city.

Under the new system, rentals shorter than 30 days are only allowed if hosts register with the city. Hosts must also commit to being physically present in the home for the duration of the rental, sharing living quarters with their guest. More than two guests at a time are not allowed, either, meaning families are effectively barred.

  • krellor@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    That is still allowed though. The host can rent out a spare room with up to 2 guests at a time. The host just has to live there.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Under the new system, rentals shorter than 30 days are only allowed if hosts register with the city.

      • krellor@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        So they register? There isn’t anything to indicate that hosts who plan to rent out a spare room and follow the rules won’t be approved.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes and this requires additional restrictions on the property that many people flat-out cannot afford.

          • fenynro@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If they can’t afford to sit on multiple empty houses due to increased AirBnB regulations, then they can always sell some of those assets back into the market. In fact, that’s the point of the regulation :P

            The idea of some poor landlord barely scraping things together because their 50 rental properties (and thus millions of dollars worth of assets) are less profitable is preposterous

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The idea is that a non-negligible amount of renters pad their rental income with AirBnB and are not actually landlords.

              • merridew@feddit.uk
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                1 year ago

                Are you, by any chance, padding your income by subletting your rental home on AirBnB?

                • mrnotoriousman@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Judging by how hard they are attacking this thread (seriously like half the comments are them), I am going to say yes. I don’t believe them denying it.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  No. I own my own home and my mortgage costs less than average rent here, while my home has more than doubled in value, and I am sickened by that.

                  • Djtecha@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    Because of systems like Airbnb adding to the scarcity. Do you not see that?

          • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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            1 year ago

            Like what, exactly? If you can’t afford a fire alarm or sprinkler system, you really shouldn’t be running a rental business. Hell, if you can’t afford a fire alarm, you have much bigger problems than whether or not you can rent a room to a stranger.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You aren’t running a rental business in these cases, but supplementing your income by allowing someone into your home a few times per year.

              • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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                1 year ago

                …which makes you a business. You’re making income from rentals. A landlord who has 500 units but can’t seem to fill them but once or twice per year for a weekend doesn’t suddenly stop being a landlord. And if they told me “I’m just supplementing my income” in order to get around installing fire alarms, I’d laugh in their face.

                If you’re providing a commercial service to strangers, you should be able to ensure their safety, full stop. If you can’t afford to do that, you can’t afford to provide the commercial service.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I find it so weird that your take is “only the wealthy deserve a home, period.” Like that’s such a hellish thing to say.

                  • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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                    1 year ago

                    What a cockamamie take! We’re not kicking these people out of their homes by forcing them to follow simple rules to ensure they don’t burn families of random strangers in a raging inferno. They’re still free to…y’know…have and live in their home.

                  • merridew@feddit.uk
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                    1 year ago

                    I find this viewpoint fascinating. Like arguing that trying to put out a burning building will hurt poor people trying to keep warm.

                    The housing market as a whole is the problem, one which AirBnB is exacerbating. That it locally enriches those renters able to find people willing to rent out their homes – which I’m guessing is disproportionately going to be people without elderly family members & kids – doesn’t mean it isn’t detrimental to the housing market as a whole, particularly at the lower end, and to everyone who rents.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Not if onerous regulations designed to solve problems that don’t exist are placed in your way by populist idiot laws.

              Theoretically, any business could be legislated out of existence maliciously.